Enough Already, is quite right Mr. Edmundson. I hate being tricked into reading pieces that I think will be fascinating, enlightening or at the least, understandably uninteresting. This piece is a tirade by Mark Edmunson about boring people who are prone to uninvited lengthy monologues. Little does he know, his nearly seven pager is an even more boring monologue on said subject. Pithy FAIL.

In his essay on talkativeness, Plutarch suggests that the bore, despite appearances, may often be out to win the esteem of the victim. The words are an offering. They come as something like a sacrificial tribute. Whatever the surface flow may be, the subtext reads like this: I care about your judgment; I want your esteem. I want to show you how smart I am, how learned, how good. Schopenhauer, Lord of Pessimists, seems to concur on this view: “Vain people are talkative, and proud, taciturn,” he says. “But the vain person ought to be aware that the good opinion of others, which he strives for, may be obtained much more easily and certainly by persistent silence than by speech, even though he has very good things to say.”

Words are an offering, sure, but I am not a glutton. Unless those words are delicious.