Good essay! Lopate brings up things about turning yourself (as the narrator of an essay) into a character that I have never thought about before. He talks about how self-curiosity is a quality that will allow readers to connect with the narrator in a way that self-hate or self-hate cannot. My favorite line (and this might be cheating, because it's the concluding sentence of the essay) is:
Turning oneself into a character "means you have achieved sufficient distance to begin to see yourself in the round: a necessary precondition to transcending the ego--or at least writing personal essays that can touch other people." (44)
Lopate talks a lot about what makes a good "I"/narrator. But here is where he really gets down to it. A narrator that readers can connect with is the only type of narrator that is going to mean anything in the long run. This "sufficient distance" is how you make a lasting piece of literature and not just a self-involved rant, tirade, or Psalm of contentment--which-ever it may be.
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