The personal essay has come
into its own as never before;
I was a fan long before it was
hip. My favorites of the genre
are now ancient history. Bruce
Chatwin, What Am I Doing
Here? (travel essays); Brigid
Brophy, Baroque & Roll; Joan
Didion, Slouching Towards
Bethlehem; and Isak Dinesen,
Daguerreotypes,
especially
the essay, "On Mottoes of
My Life". One of her own
mottoes was "Pourquoi pas?"
an indefatigably optimistic
pair of words, taken from a
French ship that sank near
Iceland. Another, fittingly, was
"navigare necesse est vivere
non est necesse,"—"to sail is
necessary, to live is not." H
HYLAND
FSG Classics
ISBN-10 0374531382
