On the way to the reading at Foster Auditorium last night, I had no idea what to expect. I had never heard of David Gessner before and had absolutely no idea who he was. All I knew about him was what was included in the short summary on the blog page for class. Apparently he was into ultimate frisbee so I had a feeling he would be a cool dude.
I thought his reading was great. I found his writing to be more relatable than the Tayari Jones reading so I paid closer attention this time. My favorite part about his reading was his comments on hypocrites, and more specifically environmentalists. The way he spoke and wrote about the environment gave the impression that he was very grounded in his personal opinions on the topic. He took a very realistic approach to dealing with the environment, which was a nice change of pace from what one typically hears from all the tree-huggers out there. This isn’t to say I think Gessner is a tree hugger, but I think it still applies. I like how he knew what he stood for and didn’t try to sugar-coat it.
However, I thought his comments about dealing with his editor conflicted with this. When it comes to the world of professional writing I know next to nothing about it. So when he said that the editor is always right, I thought that was somewhat strange. We touched on this topic a little in class today and Ms. Grollmus did provide some information on the subject. But it still doesn’t make sense to me that Gessner can go out on a canoeing adventure and experience all of these wondering moments and thoughts, only to have his publisher tell him what he can or cannot write in reflection.
The actually story of his book were pretty cool too. The way he just went out on a canoeing trip and was able to find so much inspiration in three short days is amazing. All in all I liked this reading a lot. For not knowing what to expect I was pleasantly surprised by David Gessner and his writing.
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