The Disappearance of the Outside: A Manifesto for Escape [Paperback]

Andrei Codrescu (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1991

Drawing on his life, Codrescu contrasts totalitarian states and the United States, the 1960s and the 1990s . . . and finally warns everyone against a shopping-mall culture bereft of imagination and escape.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Codrescu warns of a "new electronic globe" where machines and gadgets are stifling creativity, thought and imagination. These are "acute if alarmist essays for a rebirth of the imagination, with a nod to surrealism and Dada," said PW. Codrescu "maps a terrain where life seems increasingly devoid of meaning."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

"I am writing this literally in the ruins of the Communist world, in my hometown of Sibiu, Romania," writes Codrescu at the beginning of his 21st book, a long, uneven essay of at times pontifical statements by a minor poet whose contributions to his adopted country, while often interesting, are usually unexceptional. Like some emigres from Central or Eastern Europe, especially those who lack the talent or the reputation of, say, a Solzhenitsyn or a Kundera, Codrescu takes America to task for its superficiality, its lack of some quality seemingly found only where a lack of personal freedom ensures the primacy of the word over the image. Readers who feel the need to read Codrescu will be better served by his poems.
- Vincent D. Balitas, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley (March 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 020157098X
• ISBN-13: 978-0201570984
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,305,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrei Codrescu (codrescu.com) was born in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania. His first poetry book "License to Carry a Gun" won the Big Table Poetry award. He founded Exquisite Corpse: a Journal of Books & Ideas (corpse.org), taught literature and poetry at Johns Hopkins University, University of Baltimore, and Louisiana State University where he was MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English. He is a regular commentator on NPR's All Things Considered since 1983, has received a Peabody Award for writing and starring in the film "Road Scholar. In 1989 he returned to his native Romania to cover the fall of the Ceausescu regime for NPR and ABC News, and wrote "The Hole in the Flag: an Exile's Story of Return and Revolution." He is the author of books of poetry, novels, essays; the most recent are "The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess," (2009) "The Poetry Lesson" (2010) and "whatever gets you through the night: a story of sheherezade and the arabian entertainments" (2011), all published by Princeton University Press.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Verbose, but not chatty., March 12, 2008

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Fernand Raynaud (California, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Disappearance of the Outside (Paperback)

There's a certain charm to this. You tool along, enjoying the ride, figures of speech, noodles and oodles, conceptina or accordeon, or was it Napoleon, some like it hot, remember or not, there's a sheep in the pasture, don't tell and don't ask her. I kinda like it, there is a lot of thought put to use, and erudition, but I have no idea where he's going with this, and I get bored, but I come back later and maybe some day I'll finish it and learn which is the "outside", but by then maybe it will have inverted. In other words, this is a bit of a book for a book's sake. Not the worst sin in the literature genre, just a little too deconstructed for my taste.