Bow Before Matt Cheney

Have you read Matt Cheney's blog Mumpsimus? It's always interesting and well thought out. For my dollar, something from Matt is always worth looking at. If he ever gets a novel published, I'll be among the first to buy it. It's not a word I like to throw around, but there are times when I think that Matt is brilliant.

Then he goes beyond what I expect from him and writes essays like this.

There's a lot to look at here. There are a lot of ideas presented by Matt, and more questions raised than answered. The initial problem of how do you get a new reader to see beyond the words and look for potential meaning in the text is never completely addressed. I think that in a lot of ways, Matt does now know the answers himeself.

This essay does what Matt Cheney writing always does, it makes you think. Matt is not the type of person to throw off some words on a page (like I do) and be satisfied with them. He thinks about what he's going to commit to the page before he does it. Every word was selected carefully.

One of the more striking passages is this:

The first time I read William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, I threw it across the room after the first twenty pages. I had never actually thrown a book before, but I couldn't figure out what kind of novel this was, I didn't understand what was happening, I couldn't find a way in, and I felt stupid, a fool. But I also felt guilty for throwing the book, and so I walked over and picked it up and continued reading. After reading thirty more pages, I threw it across the room again. Still, I felt guilty. I picked it up, continued reading. After forty more pages, I threw it across the room again. I screamed. I gnashed my teeth. I whined and moaned. I picked up the book, and continued reading.

It remains my favorite novel, the only book that gives me absolute, euphoric pleasure when I read any page of it.

I read this essay out loud to my wife--a high school English teacher with a Master's in Education--and she stopped me when I finished this passage. She said, "That's exactly right. When I first read A Portrait of Dorian Gray in high school I found it so ponderous. But now, it's one of my favorite books and I discover new things every time I read it." I was lucky enough to come to some texts as an adult and have my English/Philosophy degree behind me before I tackled them. Texts like the aforementioned A Portrait of Dorian Gray, The Scarlet Letter, Frankenstein, and The Great Gatsby. At the same time, I still struggle through writers like Derrida and Hesse, because I know the pay off will be worth it, but it's hellish at the time.

What's the point of this little 'love poem' to Matt Cheney? Well, if you're trying to figure out who to nominate for Best Fan Writer, nominate Matt Cheney. He has a lot of work online, so you should have no problem finding examples to read.