This extraordinary new book is essay-fiction-poetry, an experiment in form, "a serial novel for publication in the newspaper" that collapses the distinction between documentary and fiction.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Avant-garde poet Scalapino (Defoe) addresses the phenomenon of meaning in this prose-poem in seven chapters, described as "a serial novel for publication in a newspaper." Attempting to capture simultaneous experiences of observing, absorbing and signifying in the sequential nature of language and description, she writes the viewer's experience of the media, tracking the carnage that our desire for image produces. The fact that little meaning can be gleaned is the point. A character called "Dead Souls" floats among other cartoon-like figures, sumo wrestlers, blond bimbos and the recurrent female "Defoe." Unable to participate in the anti-narratives of our information network, the first person fails. Poets must "lip read themselves" in trying to find the language to enter and undo the pseudo-events we witness. There may be no self left to act either outside or inside the spectacle: "Manipulated is solely public itself. I can't find it."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Opening one of Scalapino's books brings anticipation of everything strange and unusual. Referred to as a "language poet," Scalapino is by no means so easily nailed down. Here she takes on prose, writing what she calls a serial because "the novel is dead." In that one word, serial, Scalapino explores series, connections, actions, motivations, and groupings, creating an interactive, hyperactive text of image, motion, and multilayered meaning. The action (rather than merely calling it plot) is fractured, like the narrative itself. There is sumo wrestling, drug sales, sex scenes, a few good murders, and plenty of metaphor. Yet, what comes across are questions about what is public and private domain, how the self travels through dream and desire, and how and where we search to understand or reinvent ourselves. This is no easy or normal reading. Nothing for the fainthearted. But it is challenging, bizarre, and, surprisingly, engaging language-, image-, and action-play. Scalapino captures the flux and motion that is late-twentieth-century living, and she does so with freshness, daring, and subtle skillfulness. Janet St. John
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