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A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write by Melissa Pritchard, Bret Anthony Johnston
kellylynnthomas's review against another edition
3.0
I absolutely loved some of these essays, and couldn't stand others. It's not that they were poorly written, it's just that I didn't care about the subject matter (like the one about the dog--I love dogs but I just didn't care). The one she wrote about the female US soldier and the Sudanese refugee were fantastic and heartbreaking, and the ones she wrote about writing were sharp and insightful.
It was still a weird sort of mish-mash of topics, and I'm not sure why the sub title is "Art of the Essay" because it's not about writing essays at all--Pritchard is a fiction writer. But on the whole, a solid collection, and if you're of the writerly persuasion, worth picking up.
It was still a weird sort of mish-mash of topics, and I'm not sure why the sub title is "Art of the Essay" because it's not about writing essays at all--Pritchard is a fiction writer. But on the whole, a solid collection, and if you're of the writerly persuasion, worth picking up.
karabc19's review against another edition
3.0
Melissa Pritchard’s collection of essays A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write is an homage to language, the medium of the writer. It’s different from other writers writing about writing in that she unabashedly engages the spiritual—and not in the hippie dippie way that Natalie Goldberg does in Writing Down the Bones (which I adore)—but in a full-on mysticism kind of way, in a Walt Whitman poet as prophet kind of way. The essay titled “Spirit and Vision” draws heavily from Whitman and nineteenth-century Romantic ideals of the poet creator. Rather than adding anything new to that vision, she simply recycles it. On the one hand, this version of the writer is incredibly inspiring—awaken to the world, speak the Truth, etc. etc. etc. There’s a reason I love going back to Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” or Whitman’s “Song of Myself”—to recharge my self-confidence with the power of “I.” On the other hand, as a call for The Great American Author, the poet-God comes out of a masculine tradition and borders on the eye-rolling absurd—writers are expected to be “witnesses to the spirit of their age,” but a witness is detached from the scene. In such a Romantic view, the poet-Genius is above the world and everyone. It’s a position of privilege. And Pritchard’s essays often smack of that armchair privilege.
The essays are autobiographical, a number dealing with the death of her mother, and many taking place in some amazing writing retreat or other: London, Scotland, Africa. She’s an easy target for the unknown, struggling writer to hate. There were definitely inspirational gems and moving stories from this collection. She has tear-jerker essays on a female soldier in Afghanistan and a child slave from Sudan, and she has a hilarious essay on the quirky habits of her dachshund. It was cool reading this book after Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, which had as part of its mission to affirm the value of the arts. Pritchard’s reiteration of Whitman’s poet reclaims the importance of the Writer to the world, and in this age of dwindling interest in the book, its worth reiterating. Also like Mandel’s novel, Pritchard’s collection features ghosts floating through it. Perhaps I was particularly tuned in to that trope, but Pritchard’s essays were haunted by ghosts, which is probably not surprising given the sharp infusion of spirituality in the pieces. Maybe writers are a haunted people, weighed down by the ghosts of our past, by the unresolved cares of the world around us. We write not to expel the ghosts but to give them a voice, come to terms with them, live with them. The writer who can see into the shadow worlds, tell the stories of ghosts, is the writer who speaks the Truth.
The essays are autobiographical, a number dealing with the death of her mother, and many taking place in some amazing writing retreat or other: London, Scotland, Africa. She’s an easy target for the unknown, struggling writer to hate. There were definitely inspirational gems and moving stories from this collection. She has tear-jerker essays on a female soldier in Afghanistan and a child slave from Sudan, and she has a hilarious essay on the quirky habits of her dachshund. It was cool reading this book after Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, which had as part of its mission to affirm the value of the arts. Pritchard’s reiteration of Whitman’s poet reclaims the importance of the Writer to the world, and in this age of dwindling interest in the book, its worth reiterating. Also like Mandel’s novel, Pritchard’s collection features ghosts floating through it. Perhaps I was particularly tuned in to that trope, but Pritchard’s essays were haunted by ghosts, which is probably not surprising given the sharp infusion of spirituality in the pieces. Maybe writers are a haunted people, weighed down by the ghosts of our past, by the unresolved cares of the world around us. We write not to expel the ghosts but to give them a voice, come to terms with them, live with them. The writer who can see into the shadow worlds, tell the stories of ghosts, is the writer who speaks the Truth.
gondorgirl's review against another edition
As a fan of Pritchard's writing I was excited for the chance to read this essay collection. And it didn't disappoint! The best part of this book is that it didn't feel like you were reading a collection of disconnected essays- more like you were having an afternoon chat with a friend. Highly recommended!
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