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Ask HN: Can you introduce me to contemporary state of essay art?

20 points by va1en0k ↗ HN
I believe some HN readers enjoy reading good essays, especially since PG is one of the notable essayists (in my own opinion, at least).

I'm not from an English-speaking culture and English-speaking world still seems very foreign to me, so I don't know where to start looking for modern Borgeses. I've ran against one or two of them, like PG or Eco, but it definitely does not help me to see a big picture.

Maybe there is some magazine with reviews of new essays and authors, or even some books with essays (like a Hofstadter's one (not GEB)), or a blog, or you can just give me a few names. I love good essays, and they seem very valuable for me in this age of lame bloggers, but I need your help to dive in. Thank you

As you can see, I don't even know where such kind of question will be appropriate

17 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 56.5 ms ] thread
dangravell
I have enjoyed Martin Amis's work, for instance "The War Against Cliché" is a compilation of his essays.
va1en0k
Thank you! I didn't know he was an essayist. His works are being slowly translated to Russian, but not essays yet (if I'm not mistaken). I'll try to find an original version of this book
zmmz
Perhaps you could tell us what you are interested in? There is at least one noteworthy publication in each field.

For general reading of good, longer pieces I can recommend: New York Review of Books (not only a book review magazine), Foreign Affairs (although I don't agree with their interventionist political stance), The Atlantic (popular with HN readers) and Harper's. I'm sure that you would find something in interesting in each of these, but again, please post what your particular interests are.

va1en0k
I'm interested in some "general" essays on something which can be named "philosophy", but is not limited by "pure thought".

I think that good essayist creates new "general" concepts and explains them with his wide knowledge. If his ideas illustrated by biological examples, they are not limited by biology.

If an essayist is great and his ideas are great, then his choice of science or area of knowledge is not really necessary be one of my favourites. (Again, that is my own opinion)

So I'd like to read about history, politics, molecular biology, programming on LISP language, literature, music, sociology, theory of chaos, magnetic fields and such - if ideas are good, they are applicable to my life and work, whatever I do; and if an area of knowledge is new to me, then I'll be more educated person then I was before reading essay. And that's what I value.

aba_sababa
David Foster Wallace is full of nuggets. Check out "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again"
kbob
Pointing a new English writer at Wallace is like pointing a Lisp newbie at the SBCL compiler for a code sample.

I love his writing, but it is dense and hard to comprehend. It is not, IMHO, a good example for a beginning writer.

IsaacL
I'm a big fan of Venkatesh Rao - http://www.ribbonfarm.com. I find PG's essays interesting, but I don't think they're that notable (which is just my opinion).
va1en0k
Thank you for the link.

My taste in essays have not even born yet :)

telemachos
George Orwell is one obvious suggestion, and I think he lives up to his reputation. "Shooting an Elephant", "A Hanging" and "The Spike" come to mind right away.

Slightly less obvious, I'm a big fan of Philip Gourevitch. He's somewhere between a reporter and an essayist. A lot of his essays appeared in The New Yorker, and a group of them on Rwanda eventually became a book We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. That is outstanding non-fiction writing.