Customer Reviews

Essays

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This short work is divided into two parts linked by a common pursuit of the Moral Self in a chaotic world of war, poverty, inequality, but also beauty, love, and wonder.

The first part, "Reality," is more explicitly centered around the 'political' side of Wallace Shawn. Never losing his uniquely poetic voice, Shawn describes the evolution and development of his worldview as a child of privilege who comes to feel restlessly uncomfortable with the accepted absurdities and inequalities of his world.

Self-consciously torn between feeling a duty to exalt the hierarchy that has blessed him so, yet abhorring the war, misery, and national aggression that it necessarily produces, Shawn reveals to the reader a man genuinely struggling to "live morally" in a world wrought with obstacles, traps, and incongruities.

From the Vietnam war to Israel's attack on Gaza in 2008, this section is somewhat free-wheeling and informal, but nonetheless poignant.

The second section, "Dream-World," focuses more on Shawn's 'aesthetic' side. He talks about how it was that he came to be drawn towards the theater--and writing plays in particular; what he sees as the role of art in 'softening the human soul;' and his views on the special niche that poetry fills in the world of letters.

The most interesting piece in this section I found to be the one addressing Shawn's obsession with writing about sex. Clearly sex is a topic of contradictory standing in our society: on the one hand, it's used to sell hamburgers, but on the other hand, it's deemed as something really not appropriate for 'polite conversation.'

Wondering how it is that something so pleasurable could be so alternatively shunned and fetishized, Shawn puts forth a number of theories that the reader may or may not agree with, but will definitely find entertaining.

All in all, this is one of those books that gives true meaning to the notion of an artist "baring their soul to the world."

(If you're interested in this book, you might also like:
Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers
Notes from the Middle World
Hopes and Prospects
The Pen and the Sword: Conversations with Edward Said
The Portable John Reed

Shawn's essays are a spatter of thoroughly enjoyable commentaries and completely generalized drivel. It feels as though the good and bad show themselves in alternating fashion throughout the book. The interview with Chomsky was extremely enjoyable however the essay in which America is stated to be founded through genocide or the assumption that George Bush's actions are solely due to his thirst for human blood appear as idealized simplifications tailored towards a particularly biased crowd. This work was at times refreshing but at others just a dressing up of basic sociological issues like class conflicts or identity. Shawn is a very entertaining conversationalist and playwright but should avoid venting on paper.

It would be a wonderful world if we were all more like Wallace Shawn. I attended a conversation between Shawn and author Bruce Wagner at West Los Angeles' Hammer Museum of Art on a recent Wednesday evening promoting "Essays." It was an outstanding pairing, though it ended somewhat abruptly due to the discomfort caused by an outburst from Wagner in response to insulting comments from the audience. Still it was a memorable evening, resembling an alternate version of "My Dinner With Andre," with Wagner playing the antithesis of Andre Gregory.

In this version Wagner dubbed Shawn "the reluctant mystic." The discussion that ensued that evening was an appropriate preface to reading (or rereading since most have been previously published) Shawn's outstanding collection of essays. These show Shawn to be a "reluctant mystic," a man of faith.

Shawn writes about art, theater, politics, family, and sex. Noam Chomsky basically sums up Shawn's thesis in their interview when he states, "It's simply very easy to subordinate oneself to a worldview that's supportive of one's own interests." How to un-subordinate, or figure out how to live ethically in subordination, is Shawn's dilemma and our own. "Well," Shawn claims, "the first thing we have to do is face it."

I am very comfortable with the way Shawn faces the world. It's an elegant stance of thought and noble ideals. As Shawn notes in his one-person performance, "The Fever," many are well acquainted with interior identity, intentions. "We're prisoners of self-love." It is the exterior identity, what we actually do, which is less familiar. It is also less interesting and lovable. "We understand the crimes of others but can't understand our own." Even if we understand them we can't endure the correction.

Shawn confessing to being a "killer," his awareness of his interior identity, did not cause discomfort to those attending the Hammer presentation and it will not greatly disturb those reading "Essays." Such interior awareness is soothing. The audience discomfort was caused by Wagner's non-apologetic stance that more honestly depicted the way most in that privileged audience live, or "do."

A telling moment that evening, which caused the crowd to grumble in disgust at Wagner, but reflects the tenor of "Essays," arose following Shawn's recollection of sitting in a restaurant and wondering why he was being served and not the other way around. Wagner rebutted that perhaps the waiter was quite happy in his role as server, implying that those serving and those being served were serving each other. The audience, perhaps on their way to an exquisite meal in Westwood, found this untenable.

Shawn reluctantly admits to walking down the street in foreign lands comforted by the knowledge that the United States military can overpower any nation's forces. We are perhaps comforted by believing that those who serve must envy those they serve. If not all the efforts those who read Shawn's essays have made to become the served have been for naught. If such musings are of interest "Essays" is an outstanding read. I left it thinking what a wonderful world it would be if Wallace Shawn could be like Wallace Shawn.
The Fever (Evergreen original)

Shawn's essays are designed to make the reader question his own assumptions. They are to the point and honest observations by an author who thinks well ahead of the herd.

Wallace Shawn, who plays ubiquitous characters in films, is a writer that stands alone in the literary and art world. He quickly establishes himself as an observer of the world that is America and sees it for what it is, a raw, seeping wound of self interest, greed and amoralness. He states that his upbringing is both middle class and urban, by parents who suffused his character with a sense of ethicalness and compassion. Both of these traits turn out to be "curses" in a country that has managed to remove both of these traits from its moral compass, or what is left of it.

Shawn's book, Essays, is exactly that, a series of essays written by him over a span of years, dealing with the contortions that are besetting the nation at the time. Published together, these thought capsules serve to offer a contrast to the particular spasm afflicting the nation in a contextual manner. He has the ability to see through the facades that we are so good at erecting to rationalize and to give legitimacy to a particular egregious act or behavior.

Essays, is a must read for thinking people, and it is a must read for non-thinking people for it might kick start that process for them.

I remember going to high school with Wally Shawn, and seeing him constantly huddled in conversation with Jon Schell and others, and wondered wistfully what deep ideas they were coming up with. In the movie My Dinner with Andre, I got an initial answer: Wally asks a lot of open-ended, Socratic-style questions and listens, with poker face, for an excruciatingly long time. When Wally finally responds, he makes it clear he disagrees, but he formulates his passionate response most often with questions and speculations. ("Is it really reasonable for EVERYONE to go to Mt Everest to get enlightened?")

Wally Shawn's essays employ a similar combination of probing questions, but this time we, the reader, are at the table. The first set of essays, titled "Reality",explores how to live, both as privileged individuals and as a powerful country, in a world of poverty and oppression. The second set of essays explores art, especially theater and poetry, in terms of their purpose and their role in making the world a better place.

His essays on Reality are deeply moving in one very specific way: they expose his own unbearable pain trying to have fun and a good life, in a world that is inescapably terrible and sad. He returns to this dilemma several times, and each time, he spoke for me and thousands of others who wake up each day trying to figure this out. The rest of his Reality essays offer familiar information and analysis about Iraq, Israel, etc, but written in a deft and fresh and concise way. It is the underlying emotion - how we are to live with all this - that is truly unique.

His essays on Dream-World continue with questions, but include a lot of information and speculation on the meaning and purpose of art (especially theater and poetry), and sex (which may be art of another kind, or lead to art, or whatever). It was comforting to hear Wally claim that theater lacks a defined purpose these days, and is going all over the place with abandon. This explains the strange, disconnected experiences I am getting with my season tickets to a local repertory theater! His interview with Mark Strand gets into the whole question of who poets are writing for, whether the casual reader should "get" poetry, and the whole nasty business of analyzing poetry with a million margin notes.

Reading these essays is like having an EXCELLENT conversation with a very smart and humble friend. More people used to write like this, from Montaigne to George Orwell and Bertrand Russell, and it is nice to have a voice like this on the scene again. Sane, funny, forever questioning, getting us to think - on such a wide variety of issues. And - perhaps most important - Wally is not long-winded. He has the good sense and humility to put out a small book, which can be read on a subway (I did) in short segments. Bravo.

Earlier today I saw and heard Wallace Shawn read from his new book, Essays, on Book TV (C-SPAN2). He read from Chapter Nine: Up to Our Necks in War. I was intrigued and inspired by his thought-provoking words. Later today, I "searched inside" his book and found what he had read, and enjoyed it again. I recommend that you read Chapter Nine and see for yourself whether you agree that it is intriguing and thought-provoking, or not!

I also found a few interviews online, available in both audio and video, wherein Mr Shawn discusses this book, by googling: Wallace Shawn on Essays. I recommend his interviews as well.

In a recent reading by Wallace Shawn, he admitted outright that he is not the most politically informed or socially-entrenched person out there. He bears no resemblance to what the many Right-Wingers dub as the leftist elitist - because he claims no superiority of any kind. He is humble, honest and willing to self-critique. And throughout his book he explores some of his life's defining moments and it's ultimate impact on his views today.

The beauty in "Essays" comes with his ability to strip down conflicts and injustices to their naked skeletons. Everything is seen in its purest form and the ultimate judgment is left to the reader.

Everyone should read this, and demand that his newest essay (a beautiful dive into the role of an actor paralleled with the lost potential of those in the capitalist system) be included in the paperback. By the end of this collection, you may even find yourself to be a better person.

Many of Wallace Shawn's 13 brief essays and two interviews (with poet Mark Strand and linguist Noam Chomsky) were published in The Nation, which indicates which side of the Congressional aisle he affiliates, but Shawn's political commentaries are more of a compassionate stranger in a strange land, one who blurs self and other, than an ideologue. Throughout the book, his gentle humor and chain of unusual associations makes me envious of how well, how direct, and how simple he writes. Moreover, his insights on art, be it theatre, music, literature, or paintings, are sword keen. I especially find his views on acting--becoming a lie, or necessary fiction---refreshing. Shawn, whom we all met in My Dinner with Andre, who portrayed Grand Nagus Zek of Ferenginar and many other movie and TV characters, is a man of letters, a playwright particularly, and it manifests in his words. It is a shame that we are limited to 161 pages in which to share his mind. Oh, the humanity!

For those who love Wallace Shawn's plays, here is another side of this brilliant man. His superb intellect with palpable sensitivity is on every page. Well worth the read.