Essayism: On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction

Essayism: On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction
ISBN-10
1681372827
ISBN-13
9781681372822
Category
Literary Collections
Pages
176
Language
English
Published
2018-09-18
Publisher
New York Review of Books
Author
Brian Dillon

Description

A compelling ode to the essay form and the great essaysists themselves, from Montaigne to Woolf to Sontag. Essayism is a book about essays and essayists, a study of melancholy and depression, a love letter to belle-lettrists, and an account of the indispensable lifelines of reading and writing. Brian Dillon’s style incorporates diverse features of the essay. By turns agglomerative, associative, digressive, curious, passionate, and dispassionate, his is a branching book of possibilities, seeking consolation and direction from Michel de Montaigne, Virginia Woolf, Roland Barthes, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Georges Perec, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Susan Sontag, to name just a few of his influences. Whether he is writing on origins, aphorisms, coherence, vulnerability, anxiety, or a number of other subjects, his command of language, his erudition, and his own personal history serve not so much to illuminate or magnify the subject as to discover it anew through a kaleidoscopic alignment of attention, thought, and feeling, a dazzling and momentary suspension of disparate elements, again and again.

Get the book

Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Search the book
eBay.com
eBay.com
Search the book

Similar books

  • A Concordance to Conrad's Victory
    A Concordance to Conrad's Victory
    By Todd K. Bender, James W. Parins, Robert J. Dilligan

    ossession:-amā'the “oise: , ś head'ail but lying under her as deadly, ... seemed to undes stand, exactly how to deal with conceited death 's head.

  • Understanding Ingeborg Bachmann: Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature
    Understanding Ingeborg Bachmann: Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature
    By Karen Achberger

    Similarly , Nadja in " Word for Word " is reluctant to call Mr. Frankel by his first name , Ludwig , an act which would signal an acceptance of his appropriateness for her , since Ludwig — like Robert , Ernst , Fritz , Erich , Franz ...

  • Bluegrass Cavalcade
    Bluegrass Cavalcade
    By Thomas D. Clark

    Ellen went to Mrs. Donahue's house for help and Pius was soon hurrying to St. Lucy to telephone for a doctor. When Pius returned he brought the Carriers who remained all night. Bill and Pius helped the doctor set the bone and bind in ...

  • Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance
    Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance
    By Karen Tei Yamashita

    The mother was on Donahue. 60 Minutes did the doc and they'll repeat the news at ten. People dying, people killing, people crying— you can see it all on TV. Reality is really on TV. It's just another way to see— starvation in North ...

  • Byron: The Erotic Liberal
    Byron: The Erotic Liberal
    By Jonathan David Gross

    Philip P. Wiener . New York : Charles Scribner's Sons , 1973 . Plato . Plato : The Symposium . Trans . and ed . Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff . Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing Company , 1989 . Plummer , Kenneth , ed .

  • Evening Street Review Number 5
    Evening Street Review Number 5
    By AMANDA ADAMS, ANDREA BATES, CYNTHIA BELMONT

    When the credits started to roll and Carmen, needing her meds and cigarettes, handed Ryan her car keys, Mary Ellen stared in disbelief. “She's giving him her keys!” she thought, eyeing Pepe, trying to catch his attention because he knew ...

  • The Science of Herself
    The Science of Herself
    By Karen Joy Fowler

    Here she debuts a provocative new story written especially for this series.

  • The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology
    The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology
    By Karen Joy Fowler, Alexander McCall Smith, Francine Prose

    We make our way slowly into the assembly hall, where 26 identical pillars cut from one rock line the sides. A fat stupa cut of the same rock stands at the innermost part of the hall; 20 feet high, it's shaped like an overturned bowl ...

  • Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts
    Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts
    By John H. Walton

    ... 126 , 134 174 , 203 , 211 , 212 , 216 Theodorides , Aristide , 93 Wiseman , D. J. , 50 , 51 , 67 , Thomas , D. Winton , 170 , 84 , 85 , 89 , 93 , 170 , 200 171 , 200 Thompson , R. Campbell , Wolf , Herbert , 126 22 , 47 , 113 Wright ...

  • Selected Letters: Nicholas Hagger's Letters on His 55 Literary and Universalist Works
    Selected Letters: Nicholas Hagger's Letters on His 55 Literary and Universalist Works
    By Nicholas Hagger

    Everyone seems to have got something out of the speeches, the Metaphysical Revolution was declared, and Shelley's wind is now scattering “sparks, my words among mankind” (the passage Kathleen Raine quoted). We now hope it translates ...