Hello all,
I shall now publicly eat crow, or the metaphysical equivalent, my own words.
I let my own emotions get the better of me and I wrote that 'boycott' stuff
and it was childish. I have done penance, I have said a hundred 'Hail
Mary's, under gone days of self-flagellation, wandered through the heat of
the desert bare footed garbed in sack cloth ashes, I .... did I leave
anything out? Did I cover all the usual bases?
> Dear Gary,
>
> You wrote 8/6 11:42 -0700:
> 'I'm boycotting all non-essay readers'
>
> I'm sorry Gary. I usually don't have time to read all MD contributions,
> reflect and reply on some of them via MD (I am lagging more than 3 weeks
> behind at the moment) AND read essays. I have to choose and the few essays
I
> read led me to conclude that I appreciate shorter contributions (as on MD)
> and the back-and-forth of discussion better. I experience MD as a joint
> effort of clarifying and crystallizing views which I prefer to someone
> spending a lot of time clarifying and crystallizing individual views
without
> the possibility for others to interrupt. The fact that essays are
published
> on the website with considerable delay doesn't contribute to their value.
> I have tried to make this into more than a quick aside and hope therefore
> that you are not insulted.
>
> With friendly greetings,
>
> Wim
>
Gary's response: My original response to this email and this topic has
changed after having written a direct apology to David off site. I was
going to babble on about how reading these essays is actually a time saver,
my own was only 17 pages though it was summarizing 9 books which totaled
3,190 pages.
"And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good-- Need we ask anyone to
tell us these things?"
I will quote myself, something I confess I always enjoy doing, this is from
my email to David:
"To be honest, I found 'Lila' on the first read to be an abysmal
disappointment. I thought the whole book was a waste. Everything that was
great about ZMM Pirsig left behind. This was fiction, it was not 1st person
narrative but 3rd person, it felt contrived. The opening chapter was such a
contrast from the beauty of ZMM. I put it down and thought it was such a
waste, such a shame. But I had faith and I had my instincts. My inner
voice said there was something there. I went back to the book a year or two
latter. It was only then that I thought it had any worth. A year or so
later still, on my third read, Pirsig had finally done a better job writing
the book. I was impressed."
So, are the essays of value? "Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
Good question. They do contain typos, spelling errors, and grammatical
errors. [This is the stuff of nightmares for anyone who dares to take up
the hallowed mantle of Writer.] Are they overly grandiose? Do they seem to
go off on the wrong path?
Writing is a humbling experience. It is the hardest and most challenging
task I have ever undertaken. Being forced to write an essay should actually
be listed up there with the other acts of penance. If you have not done so,
or have not done so lately, it is worth doing. Writing, formal writing,
trying to craft a poem, a story or an essay, is also a wonderful
exhilarating experience.
What is good? What is not good?
I can only speak from personal experience. I have read them and I have
found them to be of worth.
A humbled writer,
Gary
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