In the beginning that is, the 1570s there was Michel de Montaigne.

Noted by many to be the

essayists exemplary model (Lopate 107), Montaignes essays skeptical, ironic, looking at a subject
one way and then another while he forms a position that he will undoubtedly qualify, if not completely
undermine (Atwan ix) laid the groundwork for the essay as a genre, though it would be a groundwork
unseen or looked down upon by many. Seeing essays as just another outlet for the ego, other breeds of
authors considered essayists to be, according to E. B. White, second-class citizens (Atwan ix), never to
be as famous or revered as writers of fiction or poetry.
Indeed, the ego is a critical and I would say necessary factor in being a successful essayist. The
desire or willingness to talk about yourself and your experiences and thoughts is at the core of the
genre. Any characteristic that you assign to the essay stems, in some way, from that desire. Lopate
asserts that exploration and argument are both major components of a good essay, and its something
you see in many David Foster Wallaces Consider the Lobster, in which he questions the ethics of
boiling lobsters alive; Tim Kreiders A Man and His Cat, about the relationships between people and
their pets; Roger Angells This Old Man, where Angell discusses what it means to be old. In all of
them, the reader is dropped into the mind of the writers, following them through their personal
thoughts. Even in essays that read more like commentaries or straight journalism Joan Didions Holy
Water or Wallaces Big Red Son the reader is always made aware of the writer, by the insertion of
their personal thoughts and quirks. The essayist, driven by ego, desires to be heard and to be felt, not
through over-complicated and metaphor-laden prose that one must dig through to find meaning, but
through simple showing and telling. Even when youre not entirely sure of what an essayist may or may
not be arguing, or what the point of an essay might be, youre always aware of the feelings theyre
trying to convey.
Alongside the ego, good essayists are also, I believe, in possession of a quality that I dont
necessarily have a word for. If the ego is the desire to be heard and felt, then this secondary quality is
the desire to share an understanding or view of something. Consider the Lobster is not just about
boiling lobsters alive its about how barbaric human beings can be while dismissing the idea that they
might be doing anything morally wrong. A Man and His Cat is not just about a man and his cat its
about the relationships people have and the importance of them. Even Didions essays, detached
though they may be, have insights to offer in their subtle contrariety, quietly (rolling her eyes)
commenting on the culture she was a part of, wondering why people made such a fuss about the
Governors Residence when it was so absolutely ordinary.
Of course, not all essays have such broad, sweeping messages. Some are merely exactly what
they claim to be, with no underlying issue: It Will Look Like a Sunset by Kelly Sundberg, about the
abusive relationship that Sundberg survived; My Grandma the Poisoner by John Reed, in which Reed
speculates that his grandma habitually poisoned him and others, possibly killing some; or Reflections
on Indexing My Lynching Book by Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, whose title speaks for itself. There are no
personal experiences made worldly, here. There are no underlying motives. The authors intent is to
simply offer a piece of themselves. But an understanding is still shared: Sundberg makes it clear that an
abusive relationship isnt truly over even once youve separated, and for people who havent gone
through anything like it, thats a difficult concept. Reed acknowledges that even if his grandma did
terrible things theres no way to really prove it, and he doesnt really care anyway, because he knows
that his grandma never would have hurt him, and to him, thats what matters. Rushdy goes in-depth
about what immersing yourself in a topic can do to your emotions and personal life.

My definition of the occasional essay, then, is this:

occasional essay
noun
A literary genre that focuses on the experiences, opinions, biases, interests,
and/or emotions of the writer, relying on a certain occasion(s) as a backdrop.
Typically conveys some personal or worldly understanding of an idea or
situation.
Honestly, its a bit too stuffy for my tastes, but its a definition theres really no room for my
typical floweriness. Otherwise I would probably say something like, An occasional essay is something
personally-driven that allows the reader to briefly look into the heart of the writer, bared for all to see in
an attempt to connect or guide. I feel like thats a bit too romantic though, which isnt a surprise,
considering my likely-too-romantic view of the essay and the essayist. Lopate himself admits that hell
sometimes write an essay just to be contrary, or that hell pull a topic out of his ass because he cant
really think of anything else to write. Meanwhile, I think of essays as something more personal, closer
to the heart; essayists as people who write what they want with a disregard to normal conventions (and
sometimes their audience). I dont believe that essayists use the essay to teach, so much as they use it
to open peoples eyes to other ways of thinking, or simply as a release.
But, romantic or not, its those kinds of ideas that ultimately separate the occasional essay from
other types of essays. The article, the programmatic essay, the research paper theyre more selfcontained, about a single subject that rarely has anything to do with the human condition or the truly
personal aspects of a persons life or feelings. Another factor is the tone thats used. Other types of
essays are more academic and, therefore, more formal, with little room for the writer to fit in their own
voice. The occasional essay, as already noted, is focused entirely on that voice, even if the writer is
using a persona, since even the persona has traces of the original.
The occasional part of the occasional essay is yet one more difference between it and other
types of essays. Though really no different from the personal essay, adding occasional forces the
reader to be more aware of the occasion for which the essay was written, or during which it was
written. (Admittedly, youll first need to realize that occasional here doesnt mean once in a while.)
The occasion doesnt need to be an event, as the word might imply; it can be a period of time, as it is in
Angells This Old Man; it can be an object, as in Zadie Smiths Find Your Beach; or it can be an
observation, as in Kreiders A Man and His Cat. Simply put: without the occasion, there would be no
essay, and referring to it as the occasional essay seeks to draw attention to this fact.
If I had to choose a single piece to represent the occasional essay as a genre (in an abstract
sense as opposed to my stiff definition, mind) it would surely be Joan Didions The White Album. A set
of smaller essays written between 1968 and 1978 some previously published, most not the essay as
a whole comes off as rather disjointed, a collection of memories more than anything. Of course, this is
Didions intention. The structure of The White Album reflects Didions own struggles, namely her

mental illness, as well as those struggles faced by the nation.1 Truthfully, its a difficult essay to analyze,
for the simple fact that the analyst reads in order to make connections, to see the narrative and there
isnt one. Didion herself, in part 15, says, Writing has not yet helped me to see what it means.
In this way, The White Album is, really, a shining example of my definition using an occasion
to share an understanding, or, in this case, a lack of understanding. In part 1, Didion asserts that we
live entirely by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ideas with which we
have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience. Basically, we try to
dress things up. We try to insert deeper meanings, messages addressed to humanity, in things that
really dont have any meaning beyond what they are.2 When Didion finds herself breaking away from
this viewpoint, she comes to realize that, in the end, not everything has a narrative. Not everything has
that message addressed to humanity. Sometimes shit just happens, and theres absolutely no reason for
it to happen, at least not in a philosophical or poetic sense. Sometimes shit happens to you and there is
no reason for it, as Didion learns when shes diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (but the name had no
meaning). In many ways, shes also saying this about the era, making the claim that this confusion, this
sheer senselessness, was a defining characteristic of the 60s in particular. And really, what else could an
era be characterized as when a piece of Scientology literature and a copy of Stranger in a Strange
Land are considered souvenirs of that period?
There is one thing about Didions pieces that always catches me off guard, though, a thing that
runs counter to my idea of the occasional essay, especially in The White Album: her style. She isnt as
blunt as Wallace or Lopate or Angell; instead, her work reads more like my idea of prose, a term that I
know has a very broad definition (much like essay) but with which I always associate words like flowery
and romantic and another word that doesnt exist, but if it did, it would mean pretty bordering on
beautiful, comforting like a warm hug from your mom (or whoever makes you feel less alone). Other
essays that Ive read are more akin to banter with your friends Wallace in particular makes me think of
the screaming arguments that my friend Deunan and I have sometimes when were in a car together,
after which she and I will start laughing because of how ridiculous we are.3 Didion, in contrast, is more
of a gentle mentor not an authority figure, but someone who has earned your respect who subtly
insults you until you get it. Its a style that I didnt immediately like, one that I honestly found a little
bland, but some aspect of The White Album made me change my mind, made me even relate to it,
because in Didions style I can see bits and pieces of my own.
At the very beginning of this class thats not something I thought would happen seeing a little
of myself in an assigned reading, in someone like Didion, who seems so detached.4 I didnt even think I
would enjoy the assigned reading, much less relate to it. My idea of the essay was purely academic: the
research paper for science or the argumentative essay where we had to stick to a side, writing about
1

When I made the connection between The White Album (Didions book) and White Album (The Beatles album)
and the subsequent Manson reference, I had the staggering desire to know if Didion loves the song American Pie
by Don McLean as much as I do. After all, when you think about, McLean and Didion are really talking about the
same thing the ending of an era and the direction that life is going in. (Whatever direction that is, who knows.)
2
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar indeed.
3
Occasionally it happens when someone else is in the car, someone who is not wholly used to this kind of
occurrence. Needless to say, the look of confused horror on their face is always great.
4
I see myself in Wallace, too, but that has more to do with passion and the desire to just say what the fuck than
actual style or voice or anything else worth mentioning.

things that I didnt care about, that I had no real opinion on. And even if I did, I had to bury my voice
under English Lit jargon and one did this, one did that because god forbid you say you in an essay.
God forbid you address the reader. Thats probably where my romantic idea of the essay comes from
all the hatred I have for the essays I had to do in the past, and for the ones I know in my heart that Ill
have to do in the future. Those wont be easy to write. I see a lot of self-editing in my future, to say the
least.
One thing that I do want to talk about, even though it completely breaks my transitional flow (if
it ever existed), is how truly excited I was to see that different aspect of the essay, concerning how it
relates to people. Weve all made the argument that the essay is something that relates to everyone a
personal experience made worldly, as I had once phrased it in this very essay prior to my revelation.
And then, while looking through The Best American Essays 2015 for an essay to mimic, I read pieces that
completely turned that theory on its head, ones that, in Didions words, had no narrative. The link
between all of them, though, from The Getty to Big Red Son to It Will Look Like a Sunset, was the
experience, the occasion, and its impact on the writer. Its such a simple little thread, and yet it connects
all of these big things. Maybe thats what makes it so difficult to pin down. After all, we do so love to
overcomplicate things.