Earlier this month Dinty W. Moore, editor of the micro-essay blog Brevity and all-around nonfiction guy published in the Mississippi Review a piece entitled “Self-Critique”, which he believes to be the shortest essay ever. Here it is:
I have a tendency towards glibness.
Now: I’m not trying to pick a fight with Dinty Moore here. I was in one of his workshops at the 412 Festival a few years ago and found him funny, pleasant, truly helpful, and I’ve enjoyed much of what I have read of his work. But can someone please explain to me, in sober, clear, and intelligent terms, what makes “I have a tendency towards glibness” an “essay”?
I’m not nay-saying or shit-talking. I just need someone to answer this question for me. I have done a few of these things myself, but I’m certainly no aficionado. And I’m aware of the trend of micro-lit out there right now, and generally enjoy it, if only because it highlights basic structures/values of the form it chooses, regardless of how short; sort of a celebration of what the form can do without much text-adornment, which is always fun. SMITH’s Six Word Memoir Contest–inspired by the Hemingway story “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”, which is undoubtedly a fully-realized piece of narrative, matching many well-known traits of short fiction (character, conflict, etc.)–traffics in this territory very successfully. “Memoir” for their purposes seems to be “that which is remembered,” like: “Canoe guide, only got lost once.” and “Birth, childhood, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence . . .”; and the SMITH memoirs sometimes tend to take on the form of personal narratives that have more in common with fiction, as memoir often does, such as Justin Taylor’s “Former child star seeks love, employment.” (I stole examples from here).
Cell Stories take the form of text messages and generally have a resemblance to some aspect of genre form, and even Creative Nonfiction–the kind of father journal to Moore’s Brevity–has a daily, Twitter-driven contest that asks followers to “tell a true story in 130 characters or less” (examples here, here, and here), yet CNF really isn’t concerned with explicitly defined form, just that it’s a “story.”
The identification of “Self-Critique” by both its author and its journal as an “essay” is a curious one, and I have been wondering since I read it where, exactly, the thing overlaps with the essay form as we know it. Moore’s piece is funny and contrary, which might fit with aspects of what Philip Lopate talks about excellently in the preface for The Art of the Personal Essay (which I’d quote from if it was not on a bookshelf several states away). And I suppose one could look at Moore’s piece as a basic, rhetorical act, proposing an argument about whether or not the author’s persona is glib, if its a “tendency” or something more, etc. But if we look at essay in this light–as the written half of a conversation with the reader; the posing of an idea for them to chew on; a perspective for them to absorb–in the case of “I have a tendency towards glibness,” what can the reader possibly give back? Or has “essay” just become this kind of catchall, a grab bag for true, yet undefinable prose?
And yes, yes, I’m aware that the “argument” posed by the thing might just be “is this an essay?”, but I’m collecting opinions anyway: is it?
Dead serious here. I really want to know. Leave posts in comments, and I’ll highlight the most helpful ones.
ALSO: More (smarter?) things from HTMLGIANT here.
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My immediate, gut-level reaction– which I fear may not be clear, sober, and intelligent– is that this piece operates first and foremost as a *definition* of the essay. An essay, Moore seems to be arguing, is a written manifestation of the having-of-a-tendency-toward-glibness.
So although this “essay” may not take the traditional form of an essay (mostly because of length?), it perhaps embodies the essence of the essay– or, at the very least, argues for what the essence of the essay might be. (You will only write an essay if you want to make a “try.” And this piece says: It often takes a lot of talking to make a “try.”)
And of course, Moore gamely presents this glibness in a single sentence. Too-cute, or clever? Both?
To me, Moore’s piece is definition first. Essay second?
I mean no disrespect to Moore when I say it’s difficult for me to call this an essay if I accept that length is a factor in defining forms. I hope this doesn’t make me stodgy. Sure, in some cases length is irrelevant to identity (prose poem, or micro-fiction?), but, broadly speaking, length helps determine if a reader mentally frames a piece as a novel, novella, or short story– right?
Joe: I thought about the thing as a mechanism for proving its own argument re: glibness, but Is *glibness* what the “essay” is really conveying, or is it steered mostly by *irony*?
Glib: http://bit.ly/U0MNo
Irony: http://bit.ly/RVYN2
I 100% agree that this piece is steered (and sustained) by irony. It’s ironically making an argument that at the heart of this essay (and all essays) is “glibness”.
That said, I don’t think I agree with this argument. Which may be part of the point of it, that readers are likely to disagree? (What you were saying about the essay’s role in conversation, maybe?)
Furthermore– and this echoes what I think you’re saying– this piece TELLS “glibness” but SHOWS “irony.”
Mike:
I’d ask the same question with just about the same degree of (mostly sincere) curiosity. It seems like Moore could’ve re-written his “essay” to be even more brief, if brevity is the point. “Tendency toward glibness” would seem even more glib of a statement, implying that the narrator is so glib that he has stopped bothering with (believing in) complete sentences.
I guess the main trouble I’m having with Moore’s essay is that I don’t make an immediate connection between glibness and brevity. It’s the same problem I have with belabored similes, i.e. similes that don’t create an immediate physical comparison between two things. I mean, what’s the point?
That’s all I got.
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