Customer Reviews

The Difficulty Of Being

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I find the "lightness" that is so unbearable to others... absolutely alive. I rank this deeply personal exploration of self as a fascinatingly layered first person account of a tattered fringe of human experience. I reel from both the cadence and subtle content.

Cocteau will not appeal to thinkers who admire clarity and concise thinking. He is not a professional thinker one might say. he prides himself on his amateur standing and will appeal to others who find the word amateur appealing. He is a dilettante, granted he is the grandest of the dilettantes but a dilettante nonetheless. His rather slender examinations of different topics makes one realize he is driven exclusively by his own ego whose highest value is sensibility, namely his own, so the essays strike one as self celebrations more than serious investigations. This will interest those who love Cocteaus every word and gesture but there is not really that much in his writing to recommend him to a wide readership. he can be very amusing and occasionally you will find an insight that is striking and completely original but not that often. Mostly this is someone who writes in a comfy chair and concocts little sketches which remain rather sketchy albeit charming much of the time. In his time there was something rebellious about being defiantly amateur but there are limits to what one can accomplish when ones wayward instincts remain ones only driving force. That and the continual refining of sensibility. He remains a kind of enfant terrible and when he got older he was a much mellowed enfant terrible. He is an important figure that everyone interested in any or all the art forms must respect because he certainly made a contribution to nearly every form there is but these essays are not for rigorous thinkers. There is a vagueness in everything Cocteau did that makes it seem that maybe this was the key to his sensibility. I would recommend the book Les Enfant Terribles over this, there is literary power in that. These essays just leave you feeling hungry they are so slight.