The Quarterly Conversation Issue 21
A Note on Links
More Essays by Milan
Speaking of Distraction
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
Another Review of The Novel: An Alternative History
The Orange Eats Creeps
The Unconsoled and the Annihilation of Plot
Perhaps one day I’ll open an essay with a sentence this perfect.
Between The Fifth Column, the play which makes the occasion for this large volume, and The First Forty-Nine Stories, which make its bulk and its virtue, there is a difference of essence.
So many things that these few words do. On a purely functional level they define the difference between two bodies of work and and render judgment on them, while still intriguing the reader to know more despite the fact that judgment has been rendered (and thus the ostensible purpose of the review fulfilled). But then on a less superficial level they communicate–Hemingway! He is over the hill now, and I’m about to tell you why, while still demonstrating that I grasp the virtues of his youth and maybe even can tell you how he lost his way.
You can read the rest in The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent.
The Names by Don DeLillo (1982)
The Box Man by Kobo Abe (1973, English 1974)
Head in Flames by Lance Olsen (2009)
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk (2006, English 2010)
The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas (2006, English 2009)
On the contrary, this sentence, far from being perfect, is a muddle. The first bit says that The Fifth Column “makes the occasion.” Now what does “make the occasion” mean? Usually it’s used in the sense of improving an event: “A regular wine is ok, but having a fine one makes the occasion.” But then it could be neutral, “occasion” in that sense being generic and stripped of its flavor of something other than everyday. So maybe it isn’t positive after all. Then we learn that The First Forty-Nine Stories constitute the book’s “virtue” (suggesting—does it?—that The Fifth Column doesn’t exhibit any). Would that be in the sense of “moral excellence”? Or does it mean “virtue” in the sense of “good quality”? Or maybe it’s “manly courage,” macho stuff—ok, that fits, too. So which is it? Who can tell? For my part, I don’t care much for macho stuff, so if “virtue” means that, for me at least it’s bad. I don’t care much for preachy stuff, either, so if it’s virtue in the sense of “moral excellence,” that might not be so good, either, depending on what the sentence-writer understands by “moral excellence.” Then comes “a difference of essence.” What could that mean? That the two parts are different kinds of things entirely, probably. But is that a judgment? Two things can be different—have different essences, even—and still be both excellent or both wretched. No, this sentence might redeem itself in the context of the essay it heads off, it might be clear once that essay has been read, and it might even come to encapsulate the essence (there it is again!) of the essay for the initiated reader, but by itself it’s all but hopeless.
I’m with Gary on this one. I don’t find the sentence hopeless, but nor do I find it particularly arresting. “A difference of essence” is too abstract a thesis — presumably any two stories (even those by the same author) exhibit differences of essence. And what does essence mean anyway? Style? Syntax? Some kind of conceptual machinery?
Trilling was a lucid and enthralling critic, but this sentence, taken out of context, is a dud.