Essays

[lizziee]

John,

Thank you so much for participating. Each and every post makes for fascinating reading.

In the Kyocera thread, you said in reference to your essay "One Knife, One Pot," "It's one of the few things I've written than I can still bear to read."

What other essays are still a bearable read for you? Which ones make you cringe?

[John Thorne]

Like many writers, I have a difficult relationship with my work. It's like being a parent except that your children have to grow up and go out into the world in a few weeks. Afterwards, you can't help but think...if I had only had more time with them. But occasionally the pieces all fall together in a way that you couldn't improve upon, even if you had all the time in the world. (This isn't to say that they're perfect, just that they're as perfect as I'm capable of making them.) At the same time, also like a parent, I don't like calling attention to perceived imperfections in my work; readers are perfectly capable of doing that themselves. (And letting me know about it, besides.) The truth is, I almost never reread my own work except to the extent that I need to find something I've written for some other purpose. I prefer to remember fondly than to risk the results of reacquaintance. I hope I live long enough to feel differently; I often do enjoy the passages of mine quoted by other people. But then I tend to feel that my paragraphs are better than my essays and my sentences better than the paragraphs. The total incoherence of the above is a good example of what I mean.