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“'You
sound as if you're in love with her.'
'Do you think so?' he said almost eagerly; he couldn't help regarding her remark a
compliment – one that he'd been
needing for a long time, too.
'Yes. Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can't, and you don't know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You
fit the formula all right, and what's more you want to go on fitting it. The
old hopeless passion, isn't it?'” (124)
- Carol Goldsmith’s conversation with Jim Dixon in Kingsley Amis’
Lucky Jim
A few thoughts about the Essay . . .
 Graham Good, in his book The Observing Self: Rediscovering the Essay notes
that there are four primary kinds of essays. These are not, of course, the "essays" of which your old high
school or college English teacher spoke (such as expository, argumentative, thesis, etc.). No, no. What Good speaks
of are the original Montaignese-types of essay, namely the travel, the moral, the critical, and the autobiographical.
Into these four general categories, most modern familiar essays may be placed, although the likelihood of crossover and/or
variant essay types may be encountered.
In an effort to present my site in a similar spirit, I have chosen
to divide my own non-fictional essays into these categories, as well as a couple of my own, choosing the one seeming
most appropriate when a particular essay involves multiple genres. I hope that you, the reader, will enjoy these essays
and the other stories and works that I have written thus far featured here on my website. Please accept them in the
spirit in which they were created.
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