Review (PDF) Selected Writings Michaux
A collection from one of the great figures in modern French poetry. This selection is from L’Espace du Dedans, which collected eight books of prose poems, sketches and free verse. Brilliantly translated by Richard Ellmann, Michaux asks readers to join him in a fantastic world of the imagination. It is a world where wry humor plays against horror––where Chaplin meets Kafka––a world of pure and rare invention.
Paperback: 297 pages
Publisher: New Directions; Reprint edition (September 17, 1990)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0811201058
ISBN-13: 978-0811201056
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #158,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #12 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > European > French #601 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > European #637 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > United States
While the other reviewers have rightfully testified to the singular vision of Michaux's work, no one has yet made any specific statements about how these writings so greatly differ from much of what you'll read (even compared with most contemporary authors). Without being too reductionist, I believe the strangeness of Michaux lies in how he took consciousness itself as the central character of his both his prose and poetry; all the refractions and reflections of ontology, all the degradations and sublimations of Earth's only self-conscious organism: the human animal.The variety of effects which Michaux draws from his central focus on consciousness keeps these barely classifiable selections from becoming an abstrusely philosphical mess. Demonstrating Michaux's excellent comedic timing and absurdist wit, a series of stories involving an extremely passive and unfortunate man named Plume who makes a dinner order which ends in an investigation by the secret police among many other amusing misadventures."My King" is another humorous piece in which the narrator continually affronts his master all to no avail; it is, however, also a very incisive work in its portrayal of the incontestable though idiotic nature of sovereign power."And More Changes Still" and "My Properties" show the writer's more surrealism-drenched introspective side of Michaux, which some may find difficult; the former piece begins with a narrator who, having lost the limits of his body, documents his continual shapeshifting into various creatures and objects, while the latter is the narrative of a lonely man who tends to his damp, dark property where new phenomena spontaneously emerge and vanish in spite of his attempts to develop his land into an ideal form.
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