Songs of Myself

This issue presents a collection of nonfiction held together by the first-person singular, that lynchpin pronoun that can be the conduit to some larger idea, or the confidences of an inner life. In a way, the first person possesses a certain center of gravity, around which the elements of an essay collide and cohere into something resonant and new. That force of attraction comes with risks, of course: If things revolve too tightly around the teller, the essay collapses, leaving the reader stranded in the outer orbit of wasted time. The line between self-centered and generous is arguably the thinnest one you could walk in autobiographical prose. The authors gathered here walk it rather deftly.

The themes of these personal inquiries begin with the body—its frailty, its repair, and the grace found in both conditions. Andrew Hudgins offers a wry diary of the days following his wife’s foot surgery. He clumsily picks up the slack, calendars the uptick in chaos left by her absence from their daily rhythms, and in doing so articulates bittersweet truths about our flimsy grip on this world, especially as we age. Meera Subramanian, meanwhile, recounts her experience donating a kidney to a friend’s boyfriend, someone who ignored his poor health until it led to crisis. At first, she’s doubtful whether he’ll even appreciate the gesture enough to care for the part of her that saves him. She’s troubled, too, by the ethical dilemma this doubt implies. Ultimately, the essay is a mediation on the power of giving, the burden of gratitude, and the humility necessary to fully appreciate both.

Humility can be achieved in unexpected ways, including at edges of talent, in the difficulty of trying to break through to a higher level. Carlo Rotella’s essay on learning lap steel guitar includes an artful argument on how his struggles as a student of music make him a more empathetic teacher of literature. At the very least, he demonstrates the pleasure of being in awe of a teacher whose talent eclipses and motivates his own.

This dynamic between the artist and talent runs through the feature portfolio by Orhan Pamuk, an excerpt from his forthcoming collection of visual diaries. Across years and books, Pamuk’s notebooks served as small canvases for watercolor landscapes and notes to self. In their directness and detail, they are as much confessionals as they are liner notes to his novels. Particularly moving is his nagging curiosity about the life he might have led as a painter, an ironic longing in light of his literary success. With an introduction by Merve Emre, these notebooks present a global literary celebrity in a way that is remarkably, intimately human.

A key theme within Pamuk’s contribution is the influence of place on the imagination. It’s an idea shared by works from writer Bethanne Patrick and photographer Louie Palu. In Patrick’s case, West Berlin in the mid-1980s was a city and culture where she fought for a definition of herself, pushing against the suffocating limitations of being an army wife just to protect her sense of self-possession and ambition. Looking back, she finds subtler lessons in memory than she realized she was taking in at the time. Palu, meanwhile, contributes a photographic essay based on his near-obsessive documenting of Arctic geopolitics, showing us how Nordic armies are preparing for inevitable Russian aggression. Palu, a Canadian photographer, has spent countless hours decoding the idea of the Arctic in his imagination and on assignment. His work serves as a harbinger of how the Arctic will be defined for generations to come, and a reminder of the cyclical rhythms of history.

All these feature essays are framed, of course, under the terms and conditions of memory. Whether told through a linear arc or diaristic bridging, the events that matter accumulate in a way that makes sense of experience. And form makes all the difference. Wilson Sims offers a vivid and bravely structured memoir on his chilling proximity to abuse as a boy. He uses an impressionistic form in order to capture the overwhelming power of adults in a child’s world. Told in this riveting fashion, and with his sharp reflections discreetly sewn in, the story of his younger self speaks for many more than one.

Sarah Khatry’s essay is one of the more outspoken combinations of argument and memoir in this issue, a love letter to big ideas. Bearing all the hallmarks of narrative memoir, the essay is a nostalgic remembrance of her transformative experience as a student of quantum physics and makes an enthusiastic argument: Physics is beautiful. Even if you don’t share that sentiment exactly, Khatry’s lyrical details convey how even the most knotted experiments can be as sublime as the grandest vista across a sea of fog.

The ways in which we capture and suspend memory for others to observe are fundamentally ancient: Show it or tell it. It’s the contours within those modes—of voice or attitude, syntax or structure—that deliver the rich multiplicity that makes autobiographical work so irresistible. And among the contributions we’ve assembled, there are numerous angles of approach we might take to recognize a thing or two about ourselves.