Montaigne/Austen Essay

David Forster Wallace believed that thought was too rapid to be captured by pen.  The two authors Montaigne and Austen have different approaches to combat this dilemma.  Montaigne’s writing is most well-known for trying to keep up with his thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness narrative.  Austen’s style, on the other hand, seems to be thought-out and conservative.  The two authors use very different methods to convey their thoughts; Montaigne writing them down before he loses them and Austen organizing them until they made perfect sense.  
Montaigne’s techniques and flow between topics seem to serve as a counterexample to Wallace’s observation.  His writing flows from topic to topic as his mind draws connections.  His essays rarely end anywhere close to where they began.  Just look at the titles and the amount of time he actually focuses on that topic.  That being said, I believe that Montaigne would actually agree that your mind is too quick for the pen to keep up with.  While Montaigne certainly attempted to capture his thoughts as the rushed past him, probably wouldn't go as far to say that he captured all of them.  He could only scratch the surface and hope to give the reader a peek into his thoughts.
Austen’s conservative style of writing contradicts the style of Montaigne.  She organized her thoughts into a chronological story, making it very easy for the reader to follow.  Her developed characters face real problems, illustrating concrete themes.  She is a writer who probably made multiple drafts and made every sentence and every word count.  Margaret Drabble’s preface to the book credits her writing process.  Though Austen says the book “wants to be stretched out here and there,” she is credited for her novel’s “poise and coherence of subject and style.”  For example, she plans Elizabeth’s initial reaction to Darcy to be negative, she sees him as haughty and arrogant.  Her haste in judgment develops the plot by putting more history between her and Darcy.  The first impressions like this all carry weight throughout the novel, demonstrating Austen’s planning process.
When writing, an author must make a decision how to make sense of the explosion of synapses going on in their mind. Montaigne tried to capture each explosion and put it on paper before it was gone.  Austen let the explosions pass and forced her thought out through a sieve, weeding out whatever was incomprehensible or unnecessary.  Both techniques deserve their merits.  Clearly you cannot transcribe every single thought onto paper, but you can choose a method to make a portion of them last.