This essay is getting plenty of votes so maybe I am an uncultured yokel, but to me this essay smacks of an inflated sense of self-importance. Lines like "My generation of writers—and yours, if you are reading this—lives in the shadow of Auden’s famous attack on the relevance of writing to life, when he wrote that 'poetry makes nothing happen'" and "Only in America do we ask our writers to believe they don’t matter as a condition of writing" and "I know I’ll have a shorter career for being American in this current age, and a shorter life also. And that is by my country’s design. It is the intention." It comes off as one of those essays that is trying to use a veneer of profundity to mask unsupported hyperbole.
Maybe I am being too harsh here...this is just a person who has written something they feel passionate about and that reflects their personal experience. The stories were touching, but what is the takeaway here? Raising awareness that writers and their craft are under attack? Helping writers to feel better about their self-worth? I'm curious to know what about this piece resonated with other readers.
Maybe I am being too harsh here...this is just a person who has written something they feel passionate about and that reflects their personal experience. The stories were touching, but what is the takeaway here? Raising awareness that writers and their craft are under attack? Helping writers to feel better about their self-worth? I'm curious to know what about this piece resonated with other readers.