Week 1: Research Edition: Naked Mole Rats
Hey everybody-
Welcome again to week one of Essay Book Club, where writers will share an essay that is of particular interest or value to their writing process, doing a bit to explain what that value is, and follow it up with a writing exercise. Think of this as workshop-lite: a chance to engage in meaningful conversation of a college workshop, but without the assignments and deadlines.
In coming up with a first post, it occurred to me that it might make a bit of sense to bunch these essays together into their own mini-lessons: roughly focused around a specific theme that we can explore over the course of a few months. And for the essay, what better subject than the use of research?
I wanted to start with the essay "Naked Mole Rats" from Elliot Weinberger's Karmic Traces. The essay itself can be found here.
Welcome again to week one of Essay Book Club, where writers will share an essay that is of particular interest or value to their writing process, doing a bit to explain what that value is, and follow it up with a writing exercise. Think of this as workshop-lite: a chance to engage in meaningful conversation of a college workshop, but without the assignments and deadlines.
In coming up with a first post, it occurred to me that it might make a bit of sense to bunch these essays together into their own mini-lessons: roughly focused around a specific theme that we can explore over the course of a few months. And for the essay, what better subject than the use of research?
I wanted to start with the essay "Naked Mole Rats" from Elliot Weinberger's Karmic Traces. The essay itself can be found here.
This essay stands out to me because of its unique form. That is, the piece (with the exception of the last line)
is purely objective: it is, quite plainly, facts about naked mole rats. So the question is: how to make a list of facts
interesting?
is purely objective: it is, quite plainly, facts about naked mole rats. So the question is: how to make a list of facts
interesting?
For me, there are two main aspects that keep me invested and moving forward. First, I find the complete lack
of direction in the essay as, perhaps paradoxically, the major element of the piece that is holding my attention.
I’m expecting the piece to be building to something, but it’s never clear (until the end) what that could be.
I find myself trying to anticipate the pattern, to see where it’s going. At one point, each paragraph seems to
be highlighting a different caste, but then the paragraphs return to focus on the entire community.
of direction in the essay as, perhaps paradoxically, the major element of the piece that is holding my attention.
I’m expecting the piece to be building to something, but it’s never clear (until the end) what that could be.
I find myself trying to anticipate the pattern, to see where it’s going. At one point, each paragraph seems to
be highlighting a different caste, but then the paragraphs return to focus on the entire community.
The second aspect (which has to be the case in a piece like this) is the language itself. It is not overwritten, and
in fact feels somewhat clinical at times. Lines like “They spend their time nuzzling her; have sex, initiated by her, by mounting her from behind for fifteen seconds, bracing themselves by holding their front legs against the walls of the tunnel, and mainly failing.” It is the short phrasing and punctuation that gives it an intensity. The short lines and active language makes me feel like something is happening, when in fact it is not.
in fact feels somewhat clinical at times. Lines like “They spend their time nuzzling her; have sex, initiated by her, by mounting her from behind for fifteen seconds, bracing themselves by holding their front legs against the walls of the tunnel, and mainly failing.” It is the short phrasing and punctuation that gives it an intensity. The short lines and active language makes me feel like something is happening, when in fact it is not.
We have a narrator, but it doesn’t feel like it. If anything the piece feels like a 3rd person omniscience, which I
find unusual in a personal essay. It reads like a textbook in that regard: absent of emotion. It’s that absence
which allows the last two lines to hit so hard:
find unusual in a personal essay. It reads like a textbook in that regard: absent of emotion. It’s that absence
which allows the last two lines to hit so hard:
“Above its head is the civil war in Somalia. Their hearing is acute.”
Whatever I expected this piece to be building toward in a first read, it certainly wasn’t this! To go back to our
narrator, this location and event is meant to push us toward the greater meaning. With a quick bit of research
I know that naked mole rats does only really exist in Eastern Africa, but I wouldn't have known that without
the research. s Again, the narrator itself isn’t giving us a personal connection to the war, or even placing a
judgment on it, but I can’t help but try to make some sort of connection here. What do we see in the naked
mole rats that we wished we saw in a civil war conflict? How does the sound of war shift the context for the
rats?
narrator, this location and event is meant to push us toward the greater meaning. With a quick bit of research
I know that naked mole rats does only really exist in Eastern Africa, but I wouldn't have known that without
the research. s Again, the narrator itself isn’t giving us a personal connection to the war, or even placing a
judgment on it, but I can’t help but try to make some sort of connection here. What do we see in the naked
mole rats that we wished we saw in a civil war conflict? How does the sound of war shift the context for the
rats?
Poets often speak of the turn of a poem, and I love that this essay has one as well. It’s another interesting tool:
to insert a line that completely re-contextualizes everything that came before it. In “Naked Mole Rats,” it matters
that the moment comes at the very end without any attempt to wrestle with it, no commentary from the author
where they attempt to unpack or explain. The literary equivalent of walking away from the big action movie
explosion.
to insert a line that completely re-contextualizes everything that came before it. In “Naked Mole Rats,” it matters
that the moment comes at the very end without any attempt to wrestle with it, no commentary from the author
where they attempt to unpack or explain. The literary equivalent of walking away from the big action movie
explosion.
I like the idea of a turn the same way I like the idea of a lyric essay with spoilers. There is a unique moment
of shock or interest when you encounter the ending for the first time, and there is a joy at re-reading to see
what led us to that point. It’s especially impressive considering that it comes entirely out of a list of facts about
an animal I never really cared to know about. I’m not sure where “more useless trivia” fits on my personal list
of important characteristics of an essay, but it’s probably higher than it ought to be.
of shock or interest when you encounter the ending for the first time, and there is a joy at re-reading to see
what led us to that point. It’s especially impressive considering that it comes entirely out of a list of facts about
an animal I never really cared to know about. I’m not sure where “more useless trivia” fits on my personal list
of important characteristics of an essay, but it’s probably higher than it ought to be.
Writing Exercise: Nothing too fancy here. I think this piece offers a pretty interesting structure that is relatively
easy to replicate. For this exercise, think of an important event: either personally important or on a grander scale
(i.e. civil war in Somalia). Find something to research that is adjacent to the event itself. Try and tell the story of
your event using only facts about your adjacent subject.
easy to replicate. For this exercise, think of an important event: either personally important or on a grander scale
(i.e. civil war in Somalia). Find something to research that is adjacent to the event itself. Try and tell the story of
your event using only facts about your adjacent subject.
I didn't super love this essay on my own read... but I love the way you write about it, David. And I've been thinking about it since. It reminded me a little of Brian Doyle's "Joyas Voladoras":
ReplyDeletehttps://theamericanscholar.org/joyas-volardores/#.XkLw3xdKhE4
-Aaron
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete(had to fix a couple of typos that popped out when I posted this before)
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the language in this essay, I think it rises above that of a textbook by the use of similes (“like something that has lost a great deal of weight”) and the direct address to readers (“One naked mole-rat can fit across your fingers”). Those techniques don’t get used much, but they’re effective when they are used. I’d be tempted to use them more often, if this were my essay. But I also like some other moments when the narrator pops up as a real person, such as in the 4th paragraph, with the tiny bites being “mysteriously” fatal and the assumption that the two colonies of mice might tunnel into each other “by chance.” (Is it really by chance? Who could say?) The assumption of cruelty in the 8th paragraph also stands out. That seems to be a human perspective, though since the essay is trying to make us see the world and experience of naked mole rats, maybe assigning that particular motivation to them might be unfair. I suppose it depends on how one wants to define the concept of cruelty—or how much the essay wants to guess about the motivations of the mole rats.
I read this piece a while back and thought about it for several days, intending to post a reaction much sooner than I actually am. Not surprisingly, the ending was what I thought about most. In some ways I like and appreciate the expansion into the world above, the resonance with the civil war. Like David, I’m impressed by that poetic turn, and such a turn seems essential in order for this piece to rise into essay-ness. But I kept wondering whether that line was earned. I suppose I was wondering mostly about how the writer got there. If all of the info on naked mole rats came from some textbook or article or Wikipedia, then the writer is pretty far removed from the actuality being written about. (And there’s no indication that the writer personally observed naked mole rats.) In terms of naked mole rats, that seems okay. I don’t have any problem with researching something one doesn’t know anything about and using that artistically. I just had more doubts about employing the Somalia civil war, because I wondered whether that was also something from which the writer was very far removed. I think the stakes are higher in that mention that anywhere else in the essay, and I want to know that the person using the Somalia civil war in that way is not doing so from a place of great distance, safety, and disconnection. I want the writer to have some skin in the game there, and I want to know (on some level) that the writer is not simply sitting in an apartment in Brooklyn (cliché! I know) and using an image from the evening news. Not that we can’t write about things happening out in the world when we’re not directly a part of them. I guess I want the essay to make me understand more the narrator’s stake in the topic.
All that said, I really like building an essay out of a list of facts, and reading this piece gave me some ideas of doing something similar for the project I'm working on, which is a book about prosthetic eyes and for which lots of facts can be assembled in interesting and revelatory ways. Thanks for posting this one to get us started. (And apologies for my slow start!)