tmackell's reviews
177 reviews

beautiful, raw, dream-like prose poetry. seems simple and as evocative as a dream but also could have deeper philosopical meaning when meditated on for longer. can also be breezed through just to enjoy the imagery and ideas.

more of the same as “the most of it” except even better!! :-)

a beautiful poetry/prose/theory style of writing that at times i guess you could equate to that maggie nelson style of autotheory in the sense that it breaks the fourth well of academic jargon with poetic metaphor, but not so much in the sense that it is autobiographical. it deals with the ancient Greek poet Simonides, one of the first poets to make money for his poetry, which mostly took the form of epitaphs on tombstones that he is commissioned to write, and the poetry of Paul Celan, a Romanian Jew whose parents were killed in the pogroms.

Carson takes a Marxist reading of the alchemical conversion of words, namely poetry, into a monetary value, in the same sense that labor time is converted into monetary value in systems of capitalism. the construction of Simonides' poetry, however, reveals a certain self-awareness of this aspect of his poetry. in other words, Simonides' poems are constructed economically, so as to maximize the space on a tombstone which an epitaph allows for.

Celan's work also involves alchemical conversions of language in the sense that he is writing in German, the language of his oppressor, in a political climate in which the very words he is using are also being used to enact real legislation and real death. Words fail in political climates such as these. this is expressed in Celan's poetry, the loss of faith in words, the violent discombobulation of these words in their construction into new uses, contexts, and formations (which the German language allows for in interesting ways by mash-ups of many words into one big one). Both Simonides and Celan work to create ruptures within the confines of their own strangely mutilated poetry, mutilated by its conversion into ulterior motives and foreign substances, coins in Simonides' case, death in Celan's.

Carson asks, what is lost (or unlost) in these alchemical, lyric conversions in the economy of poetry?

sooo emotionally raw!! Barthes is a classic sappy, sensitive frenchman who overthinks every aspect of every encounter with his lover. but he takes it further than just harping on anxiety, he investigates the "nuance" of the origin of the feelings and ideas of "love" in his head. where do our ideas of what "love" is come from? Barthes would say, I think, that they largely come from the discourse on "love" we see in media (films, books etc.). He mainly uses psychoanalysis (Freud, Lacan etc.) and Goethe's "Werther" as lenses through which to read the experience of love, sometimes through direct quotations, sometimes through the mere reference of a name in the margin (a lone "Nietzsche" next to a paragraph with no explanation). This is the sense in which it really lives up to the name of "fragments". It can often read as disjointed ideas grouped arbitrarily in alphabetical order on a series of topics related to love from "Agony" to a linguistic analysis of the phrase "I-love-you". This also makes it more quickly readable though as it can come across as a series of notes jotted down and not always expanded upon fully, but always alluding to larger more interesting ideas.

honestly i only read this because i love Asad’s work on defining “religion” and “anthropologies of secularism” and wanted more but this was all the library had by him. it is a very succinct argument/exploration of how the west views and interprets “terror” and suicide bombing. asad shines light on issues we tend to deem beyond understanding and unworthy of explanation, like suicide bombing, while at the same time we rationalize and justify mass drone killings that are massively more destructive than suicide bombings and just as terrorizing. asad examines the environment and circumstances that can lead to suicide bombing and refutes ideas that it is somehow a part of islam or jihad.

better than i thought it’d be. relatable in its tackling of mental illness/hopelessness/depression. educational in its portrayal of post-WWII life in NYC for polish immigrants and the world of comics

one of the best, most affecting, disturbing books I’ve read.
thoughts i scribbled in my notebook at night after staying up too late reading the Moshfegh because i couldn't stop:
"it's really telling that you never read the main character's name, but are reminded of the date constantly, so obviously there's a reason Moshfegh wants us to know the date. It all feels so slow, lethargic, but also constantly accelerating towards 9/11, and I'm wondering if that will change any of the direction of the main character, it's so fucked up it's funny it's like I'm actually looking forward to 9/11 in the book because then at least something might happen."

on a personal note:
"only you can get yourself off medication, I realize after having failed to find a psychiatrist covered by my insurance. "real" "psychosomatic" "feelings", (like heartbreak, loss, grief, etc.,) as Dr. Tuttle would call them, can only be "cured" (or addressed properly and managed, rather) by talking/thinking shit out! if you thought yourself into an anxiety hole, you gotta think yourself out, partially through talking it out with others. Maybe it's seeing her prescribed drugs I've been prescribed/tried for mental health purposes (Ativan, Seroquel, trazodone) that's scaring me into wanting to quit the Lexapro I take every day. But I think I can do it. it's been well over 2 years... seems enough.."

I often have these thoughts about this book as a pate/meat gelee; decadently prepared and written but gross, demanding attention