Andrew Paul Wood
Ithaca by Alie Benge (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2023), 264pp, $35.00
I have a love-hate relationship with personal essays. More often than not, they would be better as short fiction without the pretence of being autobiographical. As a rule of thumb, the personal essay should be avoided unless you have something exceptional to say or you can say it in an exceptional way. But as the poet Paul Valéry once said in a lecture: ‘Sometimes something wants to express itself, sometimes a means of expression wants something to say.’ It sounds better in French. [Read more…]