“…my
blogging eye was never far off the actualities which engendered them. Blogs are
getting increased attention, read by campaign workers and reporters, cited in
newspapers and by TV commentators. That one collects them now is, I hope, a way
of aligning them with the short pieces which writers since, say, the
seventeenth-century character writers or essayists considered forms of mental
play. They are closer, say, to diary entries than to the intricate and touching
`try-outs’ of a Montaigne, but the hope is that some will be enjoyed despite
their ever-increasing distance from the news events which prompted them.”
The
first thing to admire is Stern’s gracefully conversational translation of the French
infinitive essayer, usually rendered “to
try” or “attempt.” He refers to the form pioneered by Montaigne as a “try-out.” This suggests a dress rehearsal, prototype or
experiment. The outcome isn’t known in advance. You start with
a hypothesis and test it. The best essays and blog posts should not
be confused with science. They may suggest truths, but they don’t
mathematically define Truth. Given all of that, I’ve always favored blog posts
(and tried accordingly to write them) closer to essays than a diary. Diaries, like recitations of our dreams, are rather dreary affairs, useful as therapy but too tiresome for public consumption.
Stern’s
posts have their longueurs. Like many writers, he’s excessively interested in
politics and devotes too much time to tennis. But then you come upon a sentence
like this: “I like to compare what’s happening on Tuesday, June 18th, with what
I’ve been reading or what I remember from the past.” That’s a mental tic I can
get behind. Stern’s is the sort of mind that’s moves seamlessly from Lewis
“Scooter” Libby to a story by Borges. His final post, dated Feb. 3, 2009, is
dedicated to John Updike, who had died a week earlier. He’s not an unqualified
admirer and says, rightly, only three or four of Updike’s fifty-some books “hold
a reader from line one to the finish in such a way that he is shaken to the
point of tears.” Stern suggests Rabbit at
Rest. I would counter with the early story collections, and none of the
novels. Then Stern cinches the true nature of Updike’s gift:
“Seldom
has sheer intelligence been coupled with great narrative or dramatic gift.
Shakespeare is the acme of such fusion; Tolstoy, Proust and Joyce are the
closest novelists have gotten to it. Updike’s novels may not have it, but his
remarkable literary criticism does. It is as masterful as it is in part because
Updike can summarize and even energize other people’s narratives in such a way
that they don’t merely illustrate the critical points he’s making about their
work but add a narrative dimension to the criticism, a sort of dessert special.”
Stern’s
praise for a fellow novelist, a “competitor,”is a deeply
touching lesson in generosity:
“I
don’t believe any country has ever had a writer who brought depth of
understanding, often beautiful and uproarious understanding, to so much. What a
national, what an international resource this man was.”
So
too, Richard G. Stern (1928-2013).
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