âReading How Literature Saved My Life is like getting to listen in on a really great, smart, provocative conversation. The book is not straightforward, it resists any single interpretation, and it seems to me to constitute nothing less than a new form.â ââWhitney Otto
In this wonderfully intelligent, stunningly honest, painfully funny book, acclaimed writer David Shields uses himself as a representative for all readers and writers who seek to find salvation in literature.
Blending confessional criticism and anthropological autobiography, Shields explores the power of literature (from Blaise Pascalâs Pensées to Maggie Nelsonâs Bluets, Renata Adlerâs Speedboat to Proustâs Remembrance of Things Past) to make life survivable, maybe even endurable. Shields evokes his deeply divided personality (his âridiculousâ ambivalence), his character flaws, his woes, his serious despairs. Books are his life raft, but when they come to feel un-lifelike and archaic, he revels in a new kind of art that is based heavily on quotation and consciousness. And he shares with us a final irony: he wants âliterature to assuage human loneliness, but nothing can assuage human loneliness. Literature doesnât lie about thisââwhich is what makes it essential.â
A captivating, thought-provoking, utterly original way of thinking about the essential acts of reading and writing.
Categories:
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Memoirs
Publisher : Knopf
Author : Shields, David
Language : English
Edition : First Edition
Published :2013-02-05
Number Of Pages : 207
Binding : hardcover
ISBN-10 : 0307961524
ISBN-13 : 9780307961525
Item weight : 0.8 lb
Dimensions : 1.1 in x 5.7 in x 8.4 in
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