learning journal 18: annie dillard's "total eclipse"

Recently, I read an essay entitled "Total Eclipse" by Annie Dillard, which is anthologized in the Next American Essay by John D'Agata. Using some of the essay theory I've read for this and other classes, I would like to do a mini-analysis of Dillard's essay by looking at how her essay aligns with the theory of the classical essay. Annie Dillard is one of the essayists on my list of sources, so reading this additional essay by her allowed me to expand my knowledge of her writing.

The essayist needs form only as lived experience and he needs only its life, only the living soul-reality it contains. But this reality is to be found in every immediate sensual expression of life, it can be read out of and read into every such experience; life itself can be lived and given form through such a scheme of lived experience. (Lukacs)  

If Lukacs’ above statement is correct, essayists carry the responsibility of giving form to life through living life—through the “scheme of lived experience.” From an essayist’s perspective, “giving form to life” means that an essayist does not merely regurgitate a narrative of life; an essayist, rather, meditates on the meaning of life’s experiences and attempts to find connections and conclusions in reality. The very definition of the word essay suggests its connection with life’s experiences; as Lopate says, ““to essay is to attempt, to test, to make a run at something without knowing whether you are going to succeed." In Annie Dillard’s essay, “Total Eclipse,” she succeeds in fulfilling the responsibilities of an essayist because she moves beyond the narrative into greater truths; because of this, Dillard’s essay is easily identifiable as such, and in her essay the reader can find meaning beyond the experience.

In his introduction to Art of the Personal Essay, Phillip Lopate explains that one common trait of personal essays is the essayist’s desire to discover truth beyond the words on the page. Lopate writes that the essay is “a mode of inquiry, another way of getting at the truth." Dillard exemplifies this trait as she meditates on her inability to adequately describe her experience with the solar eclipse: “The mind—the culture—has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world’s work. With these we try to save our very lives” (107). Instead of restricting her prose to a mere description of the eclipse, Dillard allows the reader to glimpse into her thoughts, into the meaning that she attaches to the experience. Dillard uses the experience to get at the truth, to explain that despite the fact that all we can do is “bluster about” with the language we have, it is the tool we desperately need to “save our very lives.” Dillard simultaneously meditates on humanity’s dependence on language and attempts to use that language to describe her own experience.

As essayists attempt to gain and interpret life’s experiences, they demonstrate their own ignorance of the world; yet, despite their ignorance, they also demonstrate their never-ending curiosity of the world. Dillard admits in her essay that the concept of an eclipse is at times difficult to grasp “for those of us whose grasp of astronomy is so frail that, given a flashlight, a grapefruit, two oranges, and fifteen years, we still could not figure out which way to set the clocks for Daylight Savings Time” (101). This light-hearted transparency allows Dillard to admit her lack of knowledge while at the same time showing the reader that a partial understanding won’t stop her from benefiting from her experience. It is her inexperience, perhaps, that helps her relate to her readers. In “On the Writing of Essays,” Alexander Smith, quoting Montaigne, says that when writing essays, “I do not understand; I pause; I examine.” The essay, then, is not a demonstration of knowledge as much as an examination, an attempt to enlighten and understand. Dillard’s meditations throughout her essay allows the readers to see her as student and explorer, a seeker of knowledge who is willing to share her findings with her readers.

I will close by discussing one last characteristic that Dillard exemplifies in her essay. Alexander Smith wrote that “The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new.” As Dillard writes about the solar eclipse, she explores themes of death, the brevity of life, of the inadequacy of language, all of which are ideas explored more than once in the literary canon. However, because she relates these themes directly to her own experience, she begins to renew those themes; in other words, an essayist answers Smith’s call for renewing ideas and thoughts by connecting them to a personal life experience. Making connections where they aren’t readily apparent is an essayist’s trick, a way they can give form to life in a new way, which will awaken readers and ask them to see the world through the essayist’s eyes. 


I don't want it to seem like this is merely an analysis of an essay without having any relevancy to my project. This is the type of critical thinking and analyzing that I will have to be doing as I am in the field. I will have to take each essay and not only compare it to essay theory but compare it to British classical essays as a whole. This was good practice. 

learning journal 17: being an essayist

Haha! I totally had this post finished, but forgot to actually post it until now. That is the reason for the lateness.

This might sound like an extension of one of my annotated sources, and it partially is, but I've just had some particularly interesting insights about essay writing that I'd love to share. And just to give you fair warning, this post will unabashedly quote and praise Alexander Smith, particularly his essay "On the Writing of Essays." Now that you've been warned, let us proceed.

As I delved deeper into studying this essay by Alexander Smith, I kept noticing his interesting method for talking about the writing of essays. You would think that Smith would, as his title denotes, simply describe the process of writing an essay, or instruct us on how to write an essay--but no, no my Alex. He does, in a roundabout way, include these things into his essay, but instead of focusing on the formula, he gets straight to the source. Smith focuses instead on what essayists should be and what they do that makes them essayists, and by going about it this way, he implies what an essay actually IS, or how a person goes about WRITING an essay. I just admire the way he goes about it. Essaying is not only a genre of literature; it is a way of life. That, very simply put, is Smith's argument in this essay.

Let me give you a few examples:

1. "It is wonderful how the whole world reflects itself in the simple village life." and "I find everything here that other men find in the big world. London is but a magnified Dreamthorp."

Here, Smith is describing the quiet happiness he finds in his small-town life and his simple lifestyle, a happiness that is found in small towns (like his Dreamthorpe) as well as large ones (like London). The fact that he doesn't require a large, exciting, eventful town to write essays is notable, because it exemplifies one of the attributes of an essayist (in other words, he is telling us indirectly about an essayist's tastes and such). Essayists will never run out of things to write about because they are attune to the little, seemingly dull happenings that many people who are only focused on excitement and adventure might miss. You might be wondering why I think a trip to London would be beneficial if I'm really going to be an essayist as Smith describes. My answer is this: I intend to go into my field study experience with Smith's perspective that you don't need adventure or grandeur to live a happy life, or to write essays. That doesn't mean you should shun adventure, it just means that while you're in living life--whatever you're doing--an essayist would pick up on and notice the smaller details in life the some would miss. This might also show you why I'm not just going to London to get exciting topics to write about--as Smith says, if it were only that, it would be more of a vacation and less of a study. Moving on--

2. "[An essayist's] main gift is an eye to discover the suggestiveness of common things; to find a sermon in the most unpromising texts." and "The essayist has no lack of subject-matter...I idle away my time here, and I am finding new subjects every hour. Everything I see or hear is an essay in bud. The world is everywhere whispering essays, and one need only be the world's amanuensis."

I might have gotten by with quoting half of that and getting the same effect, but I didn't want to leave any out. This is similar to my #1 commentary, but I'd like to focus on the "suggestiveness of common things." Common things often sprinkle the pages of essays because, as Smith says, an essayist's responsibility is to find the beauty of the world in the smallest places. In my mind, I relate this easily to a feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving, because I feel like the happiest person is someone who is grateful for the smallest things--who notices the smallest things. An essayist, then, should be a grateful person because he or she notices things that other people may overlook. It is an attitude I am striving to develop--not only because I want to be a grateful person, but because I want to be a great essayist. Okay, one more:

3. "If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well."

One of the commonly-discussed topics in essay theory is the question of the writer's ego. What gall must an essayist have to write unashamedly in first person? to exploit the reader by dropping personal stories and information and interpretation into his lap? to assume that the reader cares what the essayist thinks? As Smith puts it here, though, if someone is worth knowing at all, the reader will keep reading. If not, the reader will move on, and that's that. We, as human beings, have a strong desire to know other people and to be known by other people. Essayists survive on that tendency--but also have to be careful, as Smith and Montaigne warn, that they don't veer into self-praise and self-importance. These are the annoying attributes that will make the reader want to move onto another text. Essayists, while they are talking about themselves, must maintain an air of humility, self-deprecation, and an acknowledgment of being a part of the human existence, not apart from everyone else. A man who is arrogant and self-important qualifies as one who is not necessarily worth knowing at all, let alone knowing well. So Alexander Smith would say. And on this point, I may have to agree with him.

Does that come as a surprise?

annotated source 02.22

Doyle, Brian. Leaping. Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003. Print.

I really can't believe it's taken me this long to include Brian Doyle somewhere in my source list. Brian Doyle is one of the greatest contemporary essayists. I've heard Brian Doyle a few times in readings and Q&As, and every time I hear him speak I leave inspired that essayists really do make the world a better place. Without being corny, though, this book is a great example of why Brian Doyle is considered by some to be one of the greatest contemporary essayists. He is, as he admits, a "story catcher," meaning he finds (attracts, I think) stories of amazing, normal, everyday people and writes them into his essays. He isn't just telling stories about himself, although they have their fair share in his writing; he is collecting and sharing others' stories. In this way, he perfectly fits into Alexander Smith's definition of an essayist: the world's amanuensis. This is one trait I will look for particularly as I read Brian Doyle in the context of the classics. He differs in many ways, but he IS an essayist. This, by the way, is an excellent book.

learning journal 6: watching the english and other things

First, I wanted to share a word from Katie Fox that delighted me: pontificate. I also heard it in Scott Russell Sanders' interview, that I mentioned a few posts back, and it must have been fate because I read Fox within the next day or so.

Pontificate means this: to express one's opinions in a way considered annoyingly pompous and dogmatic.

Okay, so with that said, let me turn to Katie Fox. She seems to be surprisingly and delightfully frank in her writing, a trait that most people lack and I have come to appreciate when I find it. I would have loved to read her introduction along with Babbie's readings from last Friday. This is what she said, that I wanted Babbie to say the whole time I was reading him/her: "while participant observation has its limitations, this rather uneasy combination of involvement and detachment is still the best method we have for exploring the complexities of human cultures, so it will have to do" (4). Fox says outright that there is no perfect way to perform a field study, but proceeds to do the best she can. It's interesting, because she explained the process that most people have to go through when planning a field study. You have to confront the limitations of the study you are about to embark on; otherwise, if you attempt to find the "perfect" way, you will invariably fail. I guess there's another otherwise here: if you ignore the limitations inherent in field studies, you are in danger of believing your opinion to be the end all, be all of field studies. Arrogance will lead you down forbidden paths, paths full of pontification and blather.

We don't want that, do we?

Anyway, how does this relate to my project? My project, admittedly, won't be focused on studying contemporary British culture, although it will certainly be a part of it. Because I am focusing my studies on dead essayists, I will have a unique challenge of studying the past while still trying to observe and understand the present. And this will, naturally, mean that I have to decide what approach I will have when confronted with the living. It's something that I won't be able to get away from, something that I will have to decide. I will say up front that I don't plan on conducting formal interviews--my plans (as of right now) are to observe and, as Alexander Smith said, to keep my eye open to the "infinite suggestiveness of common things" so that I will be attune to people around me and talk to them when I am thus inspired to do so. And inspired by what? the spirit? the muse? who knows what.

All I know is that it is 2:30 am, and I am in the basement of my house doing homework as I have been doing for the past several hours, and I can hear my roommate snoring in the room above me, and I am going to bed.

annotated source 01/18

Smith, Alexander. "On the Writing of Essays." Quotidiana. Ed. Patrick Madden. 27 October 2006. Web. 

I've already mentioned that I have some sort of weird crush on Alexander Smith. Rather than bore you with the details of my fixation, I will instead annotate the source. You can meditate on his wonderfulness on your own. Smith's purpose in writing this essay seems to be essentially theoretical--he explores the essay as a genre by exploring its different facets and explaining what he believes the essay to be (according to his own writing as well as the writing of Montaigne and other essayists). Smith writes, "a quick ear and eye, an ability to discern the infinite suggestiveness of common things, a brooding meditative spirit, are all that the essayist requires to start business with." Rather than just fill space, this quote really gets down to the core of the personal essay. Smith posits that all an essayist needs to write is a keen perception of the common, mundane, everyday things. This is essential to my writing because in order to be an essayist, you have to understand the importance of the everyday, the quiet moments in life that most people pass by without a second thought. So my love Alexander will help me achieve this in my writing by guiding me, as Lopate does, through the nuances of the personal essay. 

Because you don't need grandeur to find joy, or fame and glory to write essays.