The Fatalist [Paperback]

Lyn Hejinian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

A book-length, syntactically surprising poem divided into many sections, it is interspersed with delightful descriptions of daily experience with references to illustrious writers and thinkers of the past and their systems of philosophical inquiry. It offers humorous reflection upon our species' endless attempts to transmit insight regarding our human condition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers have perhaps grown used to American poets writing ongoing, complex, reference and symbol-laden poems as if talking to themselves, making the reader a witness to the activity of a dynamic thinker's mind. Pound and Stevens, in their very different ways, are immediate forebears of this style, but Emily Dickinson before them and John Ashbery since are other obvious markers: poets who find as much poetic force in a symbol revealed as in an opaque reference to a current, but hidden, stream of thought. Hejinian's stature in this tradition increases with the publication of this book. Even more than her long poem A Border Comedy and the shorter pieces that have appeared since (Happily; Slowly and The Beginner), The Fatalist takes advantage of the tropes of fiction while admonishing narrative for not being able to contain the will of the poet: "I'm just an existentialist moving pictures/ in a pool. Certainly I'm no novelist but if I were I would/ (that's for sure) cast these circles around a troupe of troubled comedians/ named Lola de Nova and Relative Inch and Daisy and Martha/ and Gus," as one of the rich, run-on verses of this poem begins. Hejinian has changed styles so many times, it's exciting to see her settle into a new grand, permissive and open format, and reel out some beautiful sentences in startling succession.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Lyn Hejinian is the author of Happily, My Life, and The Language of Inquiry. She recently received the 66th Fellowship from The Academy of American Poets for distinguished poetic achievement at mid-career. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Omnidawn Publishing; 1st Ed. edition (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890650129
• ISBN-13: 978-1890650124
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,431,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Die Ain't Cast, February 22, 2008

By 

Arch Llewellyn "arch-l" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fatalist (Paperback)

The Fatalist is a terrific instance of Hejinian's work in recent years: a lush re-purposing of sinuous, elegant syntactic constructions to hoover up just about anything that happens in the mind in time. Everything from childhood Victoriana to John Zorn ensembles get gathered up into the poem, which becomes a field of surprise and play in every sense: play of signifiers, mind at play, the play's the thing, play that funky music, you name it. Because her lines push clauses through time with the variety and complexity usually attributed to "fine" writing, the poems slip easily past the centurions of craft--there's no doubt among the doubting that this counts as poetry. But beneath the surface shine, The Fatalist in fact works as "a site of resistance to resolution" that refuses any logic (of mortality, of fate) that insists things have to end.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Smug, too Ashberyian, and lacks inspiration, December 27, 2008

By 

Pietro "Pietro Da Cortona" (Pietro Da Cortona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fatalist (Paperback)

I can't say that I enjoyed reading this. It is too much like a diary and the lines are quite plain. It is very dry and only mildly witty. There are hints of Ashbery's introspective yadda-yadda-ing and some general observations. I do not think Lyn could've published this had her name not been accompanied by a tiny bit of scholarly repute (and the street cred by association that she has via John Zorn). Even in Ashbery's blurb on the back cover one almost get a sense that Ashbery was yawning as he wrote it. It is too self-indulgent and pseudo-intellectual. The language is too vague and the diciton is anything but evocative.