Humor Leads to Questions; Questions are Serious Business
I am supposed to be participating on a panel discussion very soon about non-fiction readers' advisory. I will cover very popular, humanities-related non-fiction genres. I am currently reading a couple of personal essay collections. I just finished Barbara Kingsolver's Small Wonder and am now a third of the way through David Sedaris' Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.
When reading the Kingsolver, I wondered if our cultural values have shifted so that we respect the essay for its journalistic, factual potential but not for its artistic merit. I wonder if, when we read Kingsolver or Sedaris, we treat them as consumable information or entertainment, but not as, say, a Thoreau or Twain of our times. Is it an audience's or a market's shi(f)t in taste; is it a decline in literary quality? Which?
Looking at Sedaris, I wondered what people thought of him:
* How do you find him as (maybe) a literary essay writer?
* How do you find him as a public queer?
* How do you find him as a Southerner?
When reading the Kingsolver, I wondered if our cultural values have shifted so that we respect the essay for its journalistic, factual potential but not for its artistic merit. I wonder if, when we read Kingsolver or Sedaris, we treat them as consumable information or entertainment, but not as, say, a Thoreau or Twain of our times. Is it an audience's or a market's shi(f)t in taste; is it a decline in literary quality? Which?
Looking at Sedaris, I wondered what people thought of him:
* How do you find him as (maybe) a literary essay writer?
* How do you find him as a public queer?
* How do you find him as a Southerner?