Loitering

D'Ambrosio sometimes stretches for a self-important word when something more common would suffice, would better lend to understanding, but the essays each offer proof of how a personal essay should exist. Each is a mix of the personal, the outside world, and even the scholarly. Maybe the essays aren't as good as his fiction, but D'Ambrosio proves his talents here.

These essays are a little too loosey-goosey for me; they read more like ambitious LiveJournal entries or showboating exercises with a vocabulary list than essays. I learned far more new words from this book than any other book I've read in a long time (or ever), including: “entelechy,” “anfractuous,” “goldbrick,” “cicatrized,” and “scilicet.”

I think I would've given this book 4 stars until I got to the last (long) essay, on a Richard Hugo poem, which I just found to be the most indulgent and navel-gazey - not to mention tiresome - kind of literary criticism.