Sy Safransky

Sy Safransky founded and edits The Sun, a fantastic literary journal I only recently discovered. The Sun features striking black and white photography and intense, quirky writing -- mostly personal essays that explore philosophical themes in a down-to-earth way. The writers regularly published in The Sun, such as Poe Ballantine, don't sound like they swallowed a thesaurus, as so many "serious" authors do. And they have something to say, as so many contemporary authors don't.

So I really expected to like this. Unfortunately, Safransky isn't a great writer. His fatal flaw is excess abstraction. He writes at great length about childhood, and fear, and love -- but always using words like "childhood", "fear", and "love"! He rarely shares with us the specifics that would give his essays life.

The best essay in this collection is about the fear and betrayal young Sy experienced when his father let him sink in the water of a pond. In this essay, Sy for once gives us some sensory details to go along with the internal monologue. And he shares with us some rawer feeling, couched in less abstraction.

The rest of the writing would benefit from an infusion of sensory detail such as this. More rawness and immediacy in the internal monologue. And a bit of dialogue, too: Although Safransky mentions the other people in his life -- his third wife, his daughter, his father -- we don't get much of a sense of what they are like, other than abstract symbols of fear or love. We rarely get to hear something they said.

Safransky's writing is not without merit. He is an earnest seeker and crafts his pieces carefully. He strives to be honest even when it embarasses him or portrays him in a bad light.

But there are few "aha!" moments in this collection. I didn't find myself laughing or crying in reaction to anything he wrote. I never envied a turn of phrase or ruminated on an idea of his long after I closed the book, as I have done with many of the pieces published in The Sun.

I'm really sorry I didn't like this more.… (meer)