In Praise of Moore

I really enjoyed “Son of Mr. Green Jeans.”  In my opinion, the essay’s greatest strength is the way in which it manages to be both profound and irreverent.  Rather than wallowing in self-pity about his relationship with his alcoholic father, the essay contains a playful tone which runs throughout the piece.  By including subjects like quizzes, cartoons, and toilets, to the childlike ABC structure, to the final joking line, “too bad,” the essay is never weighed down by its serious topic of “a meditation on missing fathers.”  The “formal” structure of the alphabetical heading actually seems to facilitate this combination.  The need for a topic to begin with a particular letter lets the essay casually flow into subjects that initially seem like off-topic pieces of trivia.  The fact that these tidbits about television shows and animals initially seem like random but interesting digressions makes it all the more powerful when their deeper thematic significance is later revealed.