Remember the familiar essay?

Probably not. In short, familiar essays are somewhere between the personal and the critical essay. According to Anne Fadiman, in an interview from All Things Considered, the familiar essay is "autobiographical, but also about the world". She also says, in an interview on powells.com, that "one of its hallmarks of that it is about the author, so it is a subset of the personal essay, but it is also about a subject". Not that anyone's asked me, but this is my blog so you get my opinion, to me, the familiar essay is an essay that is indeed of a personal nature but is ultimately about something bigger and more relatable to everybody. I just read that last paragraph, can you say redundant?

You will notice about that I only quoted one person in regards to the familiar essay and I didn't mention Charles Lamb once, which is terribly remiss of me but there's a reason for it. I promise. That reason is that I think Anne Fadiman is a genius. Charles Lamb is long dead and if you don't have a literary head or a desire to slog through the muck of nineteenth century prose you probably won't get to much out of it. If, however you read Anne Fadiman's essay on Mr. Lamb you may well get as sucked in as I have been. Her writing can make even the most long dead person seem to appear in your living room and sit down for tea (don't worry, only in your imagination, not like a ghost) and exercises your brain by using words you've never even imagined. I truly fell in love with her when I had to run for the dictionary while reading her essay on ice cream. Yes, ice cream. I'm a sucker for a woman who requires a dictionary...

* You can get Anne Fadiman's books on powells.com or amazon. Or just do a search for her and read some of her interviews, they are fascinating and she is a delight. (I've never met her, but I imagine she is a delight from the interviews.)