p.s. I just read your review of Collected Body, which is, of course, terrific. I am intrigued, as I should be. And I especially like these observations:
"Mort transforms the genre of memoir into a figure for memory itself, all its meandering, omission, and contradiction."
"This derangement captures poetry’s peril: runaway metaphors multiplying out to infinity, psychosis holding sway when anything can stand for anything else."
and!
"This figure of the garden, coming not long after the pears, exemplifies the body, but also the book, itself a figure for the body, just as the prose memoir form is a figure for memory. And a tidy body is a lie."
Oh good. I was really worried about the memoir-memory thing--isn't that just literally what a memoir is? But no, it isn't. Memoirs aren't like the act of remembering, typically. Or so I thought. Think. Thanks.
Reviews are strange, or this one was, because these ideas might be mine, but they don't feel like mine, because they came from the book. I didn't expect them to find them in the book, and I didn't see them the first several times I read the book, but they eventually came through, so maybe the ideas weren't mine at all. Writing this review felt like a strange collaboration, but that itself is a testimony to the strength of the book. If as Stevens said, the poem must resist the intelligence almost successfully, that's exactly what this book did for me.
I do have another review in progress; we'll see if this phenomenon continues. I hear that you can sometimes get paid for reviews--is that true?
Re: Thank you!thelicanJanuary 17 2012, 19:40:30 UTC
Right! A lot of memoirs are way too tidy.
Yeah, reviews are strange that way. I always kind of feel like I'm speaking for two, or channeling some authorial spirit and reporting. But it's also oddly personal, because you're putting your interpretation, your reaction, up for all to see - and respond to. But I guess that's what still draws me to reviewing (though I've been drawn more to reviewing movies lately): I want, in a way that's both self-involved and outwardly angled, to work through my impressions and see whether they jibe or clash with the general.
Good! Getting paid for reviews? I hear at the bigger name publications that's true; I'm not sure about the LARB, but have you thought of trying that? (Science pays a $100 honorarium. It all adds up to about, you know, 50 cents an hour.)
Fifty cents an hour, LOL LOL LOL. Loll. Lull. I know CPR allegedly pays, also Iowa Review and New Letters (I think?). None of them pay much, I know, and nothing one could actually live on, but the idea of maybe paying for a month of health insurance while actually advancing the writing career in some oblique way is too appealing.
Science could be fun. Are most markets willing to hand you a book from their review shelf, or is it better to come with a pitch?
But yeah, reviews feel oddly material, corporeal. You can't dissipate the way an author of fiction/poetry does, but you can choose to be artistically present. So strange.
Re: Thank you!thelicanJanuary 26 2012, 06:59:03 UTC
Well, some sort of pittance that lends itself to rationalizing is always good.
My impression of most book review publications is that first, to get your foot in the door, you need to prevent them with a pitch and proof that you're a decent reviewer. After that, they become more likely to just have you be someone to whom they can ask to review such and such.
"Mort transforms the genre of memoir into a figure for memory itself, all its meandering, omission, and contradiction."
"This derangement captures poetry’s peril: runaway metaphors multiplying out to infinity, psychosis holding sway when anything can stand for anything else."
and!
"This figure of the garden, coming not long after the pears, exemplifies the body, but also the book, itself a figure for the body, just as the prose memoir form is a figure for memory. And a tidy body is a lie."
I love these ideas.
You're writing more reviews?
Reply
Reviews are strange, or this one was, because these ideas might be mine, but they don't feel like mine, because they came from the book. I didn't expect them to find them in the book, and I didn't see them the first several times I read the book, but they eventually came through, so maybe the ideas weren't mine at all. Writing this review felt like a strange collaboration, but that itself is a testimony to the strength of the book. If as Stevens said, the poem must resist the intelligence almost successfully, that's exactly what this book did for me.
I do have another review in progress; we'll see if this phenomenon continues. I hear that you can sometimes get paid for reviews--is that true?
Reply
Yeah, reviews are strange that way. I always kind of feel like I'm speaking for two, or channeling some authorial spirit and reporting. But it's also oddly personal, because you're putting your interpretation, your reaction, up for all to see - and respond to. But I guess that's what still draws me to reviewing (though I've been drawn more to reviewing movies lately): I want, in a way that's both self-involved and outwardly angled, to work through my impressions and see whether they jibe or clash with the general.
Good! Getting paid for reviews? I hear at the bigger name publications that's true; I'm not sure about the LARB, but have you thought of trying that? (Science pays a $100 honorarium. It all adds up to about, you know, 50 cents an hour.)
Reply
Science could be fun. Are most markets willing to hand you a book from their review shelf, or is it better to come with a pitch?
But yeah, reviews feel oddly material, corporeal. You can't dissipate the way an author of fiction/poetry does, but you can choose to be artistically present. So strange.
Reply
My impression of most book review publications is that first, to get your foot in the door, you need to prevent them with a pitch and proof that you're a decent reviewer. After that, they become more likely to just have you be someone to whom they can ask to review such and such.
Reply
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