http://thesunmagazine.org/archives/2192?page=3
The Love of My Life
Cheryl Strayed
As soon as I found out we were going to be learning about personal essays, my mind flew straight to Cheryl Strayed, the author of Wild. This essay The Love of My Life is a heavy one. In it she talks about the death of her mother, which leads to her cheating on her husband, getting a divorce, getting addicted to heroin, and having an abortion. She leaves nothing out. She shows all of the warts.
Strayed’s writing style is so honest and compelling. Her language is so vivid and sharp that you can feel the loss and grief in each scene. Yet, Strayed does something important in that she says exactly what she means. She is succinct, poetic, and doesn’t use her words to cry all over the page.
“I did not deny. I did not get angry. I didn’t bargain, become depressed, or accept. I fucked. I sucked. Not my husband, but people I hardly knew, and in that I found a glimmer of relief.”
It is lines like these that make a personal essay, brutal honesty.
She tells us her thoughts about wishing she could replace people around her with her mother. She tells us her horrifically graphic dreams. She describes what people look like.
Throughout the piece, Strayed also uses the words “We” and “You”. Even though it’s a personal essay, she had this way of making it relatable to the reader.
“We narrate our own lesser stories of loss in an attempt to demonstrate that the sufferer is not really so alone. We make grossly inexact comparisons and hope that they will do. In short, we insist on ignoring the precise nature of deep loss because there is nothing we can do to change it, and by doing so we strip it of its meaning, its weight, its own fiercely original power.”
I also liked that you don’t find out what or who is the love of her life until the very end. I like that she took this phrase and applied to her mother instead of what might be expected.
http://www.esquire.com/features/chuck-klostermans-america/klosterman1207
Me, One Shuffle
Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Klosterman is a completely different type of essay writer than Strayed. He uses a bit more sarcasm and humor in his writing. He also usually writes about music or pop culture and uses footnotes in a lot of his essays.
In this essay, he is talking about the question people always ask each other while trying to get to know them, “What kind of music do you like?” Klosterman then tries to figure out how to answer and when he does he still cannot explain why he feels this way.
This essay is unique because it doesn’t really use scene or description to make its point. Instead Klosterman ask questions to himself and the reader. “What makes us love things? Is it possible to know?” This is another technique to place the reader inside the story.
Another thing he does instead of description is make a list. He makes a list of very specific parts of songs that he likes. This also brings the reader into the story because you can find these songs and listen to them and try and find the pattern yourself.
It’s thought provoking and it also reveals other bits about Klosterman, like that he hates parties and small talk.
I also like that the title is Me, On Shuffle because while the piece is about music for the most part. It’s also about all of the random things that make up a person and how sometimes they are impossible to define.
It’s a good thing Klosterman’s writing is more cerebral than Strayed’s because I couldn’t have handled anything with a hint of emotion after the first essay. Good choices and thanks for alerting me to “The Love of my Life.” There is more that could be said about both essays in terms of how they got there points across, but you are on the right track.