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geoffdgeorge's review against another edition
Some really powerful, valuable ideas in this one. Was jiving 100 percent with the title essay's exploration of empathy as something that takes work and will rather than being inherently possessed. Also enjoyed the pieces on Morgellons sufferers, the ultra-runners of the Barkley Marathons, and the West Memphis Three.
I'm seeing a lot of other reviews on here ding the author for inserting herself too much into these essays, but the practice didn't feel intrusive to me. If anything, her weaving of the personal with what she was seeing and trying to relate to outside of herself seemed to be a key part of the whole project.
Jamison mentions her time at the Iowa Writer's Workshop quite a bit, which gave me the feeling that she worked on a lot of these pieces during or not long after her time there. Certain passages have a heavier academic air about them, to such an extent that it did sometimes halt my momentum as a reader (thinking of passages like this: "Wound implies en media res: the cause of injury is past but the healing isn't done; we are seeing this situation in the present tense of its immediate aftermath"). I have Make It Scream, Make It Burn sitting on my shelf, waiting, and I'll be curious, when I get to it, to see how/whether her style has changed with more distance from the writing program. (Though I see on Wikipedia that she jumped from the IWW to a PhD in English Lit at Yale, so ...)
I'm seeing a lot of other reviews on here ding the author for inserting herself too much into these essays, but the practice didn't feel intrusive to me. If anything, her weaving of the personal with what she was seeing and trying to relate to outside of herself seemed to be a key part of the whole project.
Jamison mentions her time at the Iowa Writer's Workshop quite a bit, which gave me the feeling that she worked on a lot of these pieces during or not long after her time there. Certain passages have a heavier academic air about them, to such an extent that it did sometimes halt my momentum as a reader (thinking of passages like this: "Wound implies en media res: the cause of injury is past but the healing isn't done; we are seeing this situation in the present tense of its immediate aftermath"). I have Make It Scream, Make It Burn sitting on my shelf, waiting, and I'll be curious, when I get to it, to see how/whether her style has changed with more distance from the writing program. (Though I see on Wikipedia that she jumped from the IWW to a PhD in English Lit at Yale, so ...)
paterklatter's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
nunnabunny's review against another edition
2.75
Some of the essays, especially those that were closer to the author’s own experience, were thought provoking and interestingly said. I particularly liked the first and last essays. I would have given those alone 5 stars.
Like other reviews have mentioned, it is a bit jarring to see empathy for people from a different racial and economic background amount to little more than her guilt about having things they did not. I think I especially picked up on this reading Creep by Myriam Gurba at the same time. Comparing the way the two authors spoke about Didion is helpful. Gurba gives us a nuanced understanding of the racism in Didion’s work, while Jamison seems to quote her to show us how she came to see Bolivia. I think for the collection to truly explore empathy, Jamison would need to try to perceive the numerous Latin American countries she mentions outside of her narrow lens. She seems aware of the issues with her framing but unwilling to do the work to frame things another way.
Like other reviews have mentioned, it is a bit jarring to see empathy for people from a different racial and economic background amount to little more than her guilt about having things they did not. I think I especially picked up on this reading Creep by Myriam Gurba at the same time. Comparing the way the two authors spoke about Didion is helpful. Gurba gives us a nuanced understanding of the racism in Didion’s work, while Jamison seems to quote her to show us how she came to see Bolivia. I think for the collection to truly explore empathy, Jamison would need to try to perceive the numerous Latin American countries she mentions outside of her narrow lens. She seems aware of the issues with her framing but unwilling to do the work to frame things another way.
travisclau's review against another edition
4.0
A strong, wide-ranging set of essays. Jamison has such a distinctive voice that carries through the pieces that traverse near and far geographically, emotionally. We see empathy and its demands, the many faces of feeling. Some pieces were crushing to read, and they are models for nonfiction essays. Yet what took away from the volume was a sense that many of the essays could have been abbreviated. Some read like manifestos (especially the defense of sentimentality and the saccharine), some read like prolonged journal entries. Jamison has some powerful one-liners, but sometimes she can be excessive with her prose, which does not always benefit the essay's power. Sometimes, her playing with the essay form lets her get away with it, but some essays worked better than others.
shirleytupperfreeman's review against another edition
This is a book of essays - most of which touch on the topic of empathy in some way. I really appreciated some of the essays and I found a couple of them hard going. The author has had a variety of experiences in which to give and receive empathy. It was interesting to read about her experiences as an actor-patient for medical students practicing empathy, visiting a man in prison who appears to be wrongfully accused, supporting her brother in a seriously extreme sport. Her own illnesses and medical situations are also fodder for analysis. Her thoughtful conclusions are often painfully won - it would be hard to be her mother. I especially liked this paragraph from the first essay - "Empathy isn't just something that happens to us -- a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain -- it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves.....To say 'going through the motions' - this isn't reduction so much as acknowledgement of effort -- the labor, the motions, the dance -- of getting inside another person's state of heart or mind." Nicely said, Leslie Jamison.
erboe501's review against another edition
5.0
I'm not sure if this could be considered a memoir (as Robert Polito addresses in the book's Afterword,) but I'm going to go ahead and put it there. I think this speaks to how fantastic EMPATHY EXAMS was: it crossed genres with its personal reflections and journalistic approach. I don't personally identify with the wounded female that Jamison addresses multiple times in the book, but I still appreciate her thoughts. Throughout the book I found myself stopping to find a pencil so I could underline a certain sentence or paragraph that rang as so so true. Jamison hit the nail on the head in her musings on empathy. The topics covered in THE EMPATHY EXAMS range from Morgellons disease to the West Memphis Three without sounding disjointed. Wow wow wow.
cjhh's review against another edition
2.0
This was an odd one for me. There were lines or ideas that I really enjoyed, but the writing style was not my dream. It often lent itself to repetitive writing techniques that got old quickly. She has an odd tendency to use lists in her writing.