Product Description: As this acclaimed series celebrates its fifteenth year, Alan Lightman, the best-selling author of Einstein's Dreams, has assembled a diverse, very personal collection of the year's best short nonfiction, writings that celebrate the essay as an independent genre unlike any other. In his introduction, he declares that the ideal essay is "not an assignment, to be dispatched efficiently and intelligently, but an exploration, a questioning, an introspection . . . It thrashes and moves, like all living things." These pieces embrace stylistic freedom and strong opinions while affording the reader a fascinating view of work in progress, offering a front-row seat as the writer's mind struggles with truth, memory, and experience. This year's selection features extraordinary essays by such renowned writers as Mary Gordon, Edward Hoagland, Jamaica Kincaid, and Wendell Berry as well by some talented new voices, on a delightfully dizzying variety of subjects. Andre Aciman wrestles with memories of remembering Paris, and William H. Gass delivers an exuberant defense of the printed book as a safe port in the data storms of the information age. Peter Singer views world poverty with an ethicist's eye, and Andrew Sullivan maps the spread of hate crimes in America. "The qualities I treasure most about these essays are their authenticity and life," Lightman writes. As this volume of THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS demonstrates, this unique literary form continues to thrive as a creative outlet for some of America's finest writers.
Amazon.com Review: Alan Lightman has put together a collection chock full of questioning and struggling. As he writes in his introduction: "For me, the ideal essay is not an assignment, to be dispatched efficiently and intelligently, but an exploration, a questioning, an introspection. I want to see a piece of the essayist. I want to see a mind at work, imagining, spinning, struggling to understand." The Best American Essays 2000 features the usual forays into memory (Fred D'Aguiar on his family), travelogue (Mary Gordon on Rome), and identity (Geeta Kothari on learning to eat like an American). But this guest editor has a marked fondness for essays that make the reader engage with ethical or philosophical problems. In an arresting piece, Peter Singer describes the Brazilian film Central Station, wherein a woman is promised a thousand dollars if she will deliver a homeless boy to a certain address. "She delivers the boy, gets the money, spends some of it on a television set, and settles down to enjoy her new acquisition." When she learns the boy will likely be killed and his organs sold for transplantation, she resolves to return the money and save him. Singer asks, "What is the ethical distinction between a Brazilian who sells a homeless child to organ peddlers and an American who already has a TV and upgrades to a better one, knowing that the money could be donated to an organization that would use it to save the lives of kids in need?" He follows his logic to the end of the essay, where he concludes, "whatever money you're spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away."
Andrew Sullivan, meanwhile, struggles with the appellation "hate crime." He contrasts the gay-bashing murder of Matthew Shepard with the abduction of a girl by her boyfriend: "Which crime was more filled with hate? Once you ask the question, you realize how difficult it is to answer. Is it more hateful to kill a stranger or a lover? Is it more hateful to kill a child than an adult?" And physicist Steven Weinberg takes on the most infinite of domains, wondering "whether the universe shows signs of having been designed by a deity more or less like those of traditional monotheistic religions...." This kind of passionate questioning is the stuff of late-night bull sessions, something most of us don't have time for in our day-to-day lives. It's refreshing, for once, to be put on the spot. --Claire Dederer
Best American Essays 2000 (in 2008) This is my second volume from the Best American "Essay" series. Out of the 24 essays or so only 6 stood out enough to mark them for later re-reading. I guess after 8 years since its publication some feel dated or not as relevant, but it's also possible to get a broader perspective of what has lasting value.
My six favorites are William Gass' "In Defense of the Book" (Harper's Magazine) which poetically describes the many ways books are superior to digital. This is a common theme among many writers but Gass approaches it in a new and original perspective, and without being Luddite. In Richard McCann's "The Resurrectionist" (Tin House) he describes what it was like to loose a kidney and have a transplant, I was really moved by his heroic fortitude and truth of experience. Peter Singer in "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" (New York Times Magazine) lays bare the ethical delima of rich nations and poor nations on a very personal level. He posits, what would you do if you could save a child from being hit by a train by sacrificing your car in its path (which contains all your worldly goods). Likewise he provocatively suggests individuals from rich countries should be sending excess wealth - beyond basic needs - to those in the poor countries. The essay "Gray Area: Thinking with a Damaged Brain" (Creative Nonfiction) is a fascinating first-person essay by Floyd Skloot who has a serious brain injury. He describes its effects both in an external social sense and inner self. Cheryl Strayed in "Heroin/e" (Doubletake) writes about her mothers death from cancer and her own subsequent degeneration into a serious heroin addiction. A dark, sad and aesthetically beautiful piece. Andrew Sullivan in "What's So Bad About Hate?" (The New York Times Magazine) discourses on what exactly is a "hate crime" and concludes there is no such thing, every person is motivated by complex inner motivations and not an external single emotion. Similar to the "war on terror", the "war on hate" is a war on an emotion that is misplaced and causes more problems than it solves.
Collection of Essays It's nice to see what certain editors deem the "best" american essays of a certain year.
politically correct and lame This is the most disappointing collection of Best American Essays I have read in a decade. Most seemed included because they take a particular greeny-wishywashy-save the worldy point of view, not because they are outstandingly original or thoughtful meditations on their subjects. Some are pretentious (Jamaica Kincaid), most are just wet. Ian Buruma's on The Perils of Victimhood is about the only one that will stand the test of time.
Same old same old trendy lefty PC rubbish If you listen to NPR you'll love this collection of soothing nothings from your old pals. If you loathe NPR you'll wonder where the controversy, contrast and color is. Editors could not seem to find anything at all worthwhile from Reason, National Review, Weekly Standard, American Spectator, etc. which do publish excellent essays. So we are forced to read essays by little would-be commissars who would like the power to dictate what is in all our lives a necessity and what a luxury. Andrew Sullivan's piece is the only thought-provoking one in the book and look at all the amazement it has elicited from the other reviewers.
Save your dough. Save your time. This whole waste is the ultimate example of preaching to the choir.
21 different flavors in one book Essays are a bit like wine: the amount of material consumed is small, the taste can be extraordinarily intense, and the effect often lingers long afterwards. Essays can be bubbly and bright, like Champagne, or dark and moody like a Shiraz. An anthology like this book is something of a wine tasting, prepared by an experienced sommolier.
Alan Lightman, the editor of this year's volume, is apparently one who practices what he preaches, beginning his introduction with a lively essay about his family's Year 2000 new year's eve celebration. Just as I was thinking to myself that it was as if I had actually attended that party, he abruptly ends that story to explain the philosophy of choice that guided him in selecting the 21 essays appearing in this book, writing "The qualities I treasure most about these essays are their authenticity and life. In reading an essay, I want to feel that I'm communing with a real person..."
I doubt if anyone will find the taste of each of these essays immediately pleasing. Is it the point of such a sampling to be consistently pleasurable to every reader? I think not. Lightman has carefully chosen for his readers a wide selection of wines, including multiple varieties from several regions, and I had not tasted all of these wines before. Some were exquisite to me, evoking memories that I had not visited for many years, but not all were necessarily pleasing to my palate. Yet each is a sophisticated wine, with complex aftertastes; well-crafted by experienced vintners. You will never know what you like if you don't try new things.
Perhaps some potential readers would appreciate a few more practical details about the content of the book. There are several common themes woven through this collection. Three of the essays deal with the subject of travel--specifically with the cities of New York, Paris, and Rome. The subject of death and chronic medical problems appears several times, as does the related subject of family and its influence on the outlook of the essayists. I found two of the early essays comfortably curmudgeonly, addressing the subjects of misplaced victimhood and single-issue politics. An essay on the nature of hate by Andrew Sullivan resonated with ideas that I've been wrestling with for years. Singer's solution to world poverty should be disturbing to the conscience of just about any reader. Although several of the writers deal with spiritual themes, from my Christian perspective, the religious sentiments are somewhat superficial.
This is a diverse group of well-written essays, chosen as much for their ability to stimulate as for their reading pleasure. A desire to agree with the agendas of each author before reading would miss the point of such book.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Not Available Comics
Trevor
