Loitering
Ratings3
Average rating4
15
Ratings3
Average rating4
"Charles D'Ambrosio's essay collection Orphans spawned something of a cult following. In the decade since the tiny limited-edition volume sold out its print run, its devotees have pressed it upon their friends, students, and colleagues, only to find themselves begging for their copy's safe return. For anyone familiar with D'Ambrosio's writing, this enthusiasm should come as no surprise. His work is exacting and emotionally generous, often as funny as it is devastating. Loitering gathers those eleven original essays with new and previously uncollected work so that a broader audience might discover one of our great living essayists. No matter his subject - Native American whaling, a Pentecostal "hell house," Mary Kay Letourneau, the work of J.D. Salinger, or, most often, his own family - D'Ambrosio approaches each piece with a singular voice and point of view; each essay, while unique and surprising, is unmistakably his own"--
Reviews with the most likes.
These essays are a little too loosey-goosey for me; they read more like ambitious LiveJournal entries or showboating exercises with a vocabulary list than essays. I learned far more new words from this book than any other book I've read in a long time (or ever), including: “entelechy,” “anfractuous,” “goldbrick,” “cicatrized,” and “scilicet.”
I think I would've given this book 4 stars until I got to the last (long) essay, on a Richard Hugo poem, which I just found to be the most indulgent and navel-gazey - not to mention tiresome - kind of literary criticism.
D'Ambrosio sometimes stretches for a self-important word when something more common would suffice, would better lend to understanding, but the essays each offer proof of how a personal essay should exist. Each is a mix of the personal, the outside world, and even the scholarly. Maybe the essays aren't as good as his fiction, but D'Ambrosio proves his talents here.
