Church, Steven. "Auscultation." The Pedestrian No. 2
This is a very moving essay by Steven Church that I look at as a contemporary interpretation of the classical essay. It explores the different avenues of one word/idea (auscultation, stethoscopes), and contains stories and observations of the world around the author, as well as a bit of personal experience from the author's life. This is a great example to look at because it follows the style of looking at the world through the eyes of the author without the author telling us about his/her whole life. Scott Russell Sanders said in an interview: "My writing is personal, but it's not confessional. I don't present myself as the focus of interest. Rather, I am a witness who glimpses things, has hunches about things, and wants to convey those glimpses and hunches to the reader..."
This Steven Church essay exemplifies this quote, a quote which is common of classical British essays. They weren't confessional in nature as much as they were observatory--personal in that they were writing about the world through their own eyes and interpreting thus, but not personal in that they were airing out their dirty laundry. If you get a chance to read this essay, you should definitely do so.
Here's a link to the full-text version in the online journal The Pedestrian: http://thepedestrian.org/issues/no2/3
Enjoy!
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