In his new essay collection, BEGINNING ANYWHERE, James P. Blaylock takes exception to the adage “youth is wasted on the young.” In fact, he claims, the young tend to find perfectly appropriate and worthwhile things to do with their less regimented years–like, for instance, collecting a pocket full of pill bugs.
He could as easily have defended the complementary position, that age confers the possibility (though not the inevitability) of wisdom.
James Ellroy has sneered at the “kid wisdom” of Donna Tart’s The Secret History, thereby making two valuable points: First, that true wisdom is not the province of the young, and second, that any two people may differ wildly in what they believe wisdom to be.
Blaylock’s wisdom, maturing over decades, is rooted in compassion, curiosity, and openness. He is not, however, overly impressed with himself, quoting Oscar Wilde: “I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the wisdom of indifference.”
These essays tend to a particular form: the memory of one or more related incidents from the past, viewed from the perspective of the present (most of them written between 2018 and 2024), not sepia-toned with nostalgia, but observed through the sharpened focus of experience, where meaning is a fourth dimension, and acts as small as cleaning up after a picnic or as profound as saving a child from drowning echo down through the years.
One story in particular, “Leaves,” embodies all the virtues of this remarkable collection. Father/son relationships are always fraught, even when they are sustained by deep and abiding love. Blaylock’s father “had spent much of his life figuring out how to make things work when his body failed him.” Blaylock’s efforts to save his father’s house from its inevitable collapse are allegorical but never obvious, as understated and as wrenching as Raymond Carver at his best.
Fans of Blaylock’s fiction will find that same wit, intelligence, and self-deprecating humor in his essays–along with a generous helping of wisdom.