This is a lyrical explosion of a book, a challenge to literature, and particularly to narrative non-fiction, as we know it.
Our books no longer reflect the way we understand our lives, Shields argues. They are not fractured enough, not various and stolen, too hemmed in. We are all of us increasingly hungry for the "real", and have created monuments of commodified irreality in a desperate attempt to find it.
This book is indeed a manifesto in the best sense, a call to action for readers and writers. Shields is demanding reader interaction, greater risk, more serendipity and - as difficult, possibly, to acheive as it is easy to say - more reality in our use of the written word. It's a stirring book full of more questions than answers, and one I'm very excited to have as the topic of a conversation here at the store..
News of Note
Active Boundaries
Written by Dustin
Wednesday, 02 December 2009
By Michael Palmer (New Directions, $19.95)
Michael Palmer is a poet of excellent range and precision, but these collected essays and lectures feel more like my dream of pub chatter; they're erudite, impassioned, and unfailingly interesting, but also a bit rambling. His insights may be brilliant, but leave an audience with the suspicion that they have no use beyond this one night in this shadowed bar. Naturally, I loved each one.
Michael Palmer is a poet of excellent range and precision, but these collected essays and lectures feel more like my dream of pub chatter; they're erudite, impassioned, and unfailingly interesting, but also a bit rambling. His insights may be brilliant, but leave an audience with the suspicion that they have no use beyond this one night in this shadowed bar. Naturally, I loved each one.