Past Present Future The Art of the Essay
Dec 14, 2023
The podcast explores the power of essays and their evolution from Montaigne to contemporary writers. It discusses a notable essay from 2020 and delves into the challenges faced by a Chinese American writer and her mother in a new country. The emotional strain of caregiving, the impact of online attacks, and the lasting effects of cruelty are also explored. The podcast emphasizes the significance of personal essays and announces future episodes and a series of 12 essays starting on Christmas Day.
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Why Essays Can Still Be Universal
- Essays can still achieve universality because the form centers on a single mind following a train of thought.
- Montaigne and Shakespeare speak for 'all' because they wrote into cultural silence, a privilege unavailable to most modern novelists.
How Short Essays Contain Big Ideas
- The essay's power comes from showing the big in the small and vice versa through a personal perspective.
- Short essays can contain complete arguments and shift perspective in a paragraph, making economy of scale a creative advantage.
How My Mother And I Became Chinese Propaganda
- Jiayang Fan's New Yorker essay opens with death threats after posting a photo of her dying mother.
- The piece traces exile, care, ALS, lockdown and how that intimate photo turned into a global political provocation.