The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests [Paperback]

Paul West (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2002

Fiction. Reprint. Paul West is one of the English language's finest novelists. Considered by many to be among his greatest and most rewarding books THE PACE IN FLOWERS WHERE POLLEN RESTS recounts an odyssey from Arizona's Hopi mesas to the California motels where sex films get made, from Vietnam's battle zones to the very stars. First published in 1988, this edition contains a new introduction by David W. Madden, and two provocative essays by West on contemporary fiction. "West's astonishing novel...reveals a Joycean genius in its exuberant play of language, and its epic and mythic resonances..."--Paul West.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"West's astonishing novel, which maps the lives of Indians in the American Southwest, reveals a Joycean genius in its exuberant play of language, and its mythic resonances," acclaimed PW , declaring that "West's prose, dazzling in its fecundity, affirms the erotic nature of the literary act."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Shapeless and overlong but ultimately compelling, West's new novel is a portrait of a difficult genius. George The Place In Flowers Where Pollen Rests is an aging Hopi Indian who's spent his life carving kachina dolls, wooden images of deified ancestors. His interior monologues and conversations with his ostensible nephew, Oswald Beautiful Badger Going Over the Hill, dominate the first half of the book. Oswald's graphic experiences as an actor in pornographic movies in Los Angeles and as an infantryman in Vietnam fill the remainder, and they contrast vividly with the "sovereign slowness of things" envisioned by George and celebrated, perhaps too literally, by West himself. Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: Voyant Publishing (May 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966599829
• ISBN-13: 978-0966599824
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,095,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, September 23, 2002

By 

"saiene" (Nutley, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests (Paperback)

To merely say that the prose is lyrically buoyant is not enough, to say that the writing is merely insightful is not enough. I'd probably need the gifts of Paul West to be able to adequately get across to you just how beautiful the experience of reading this book (3x) was for me.

For me to comment on the book's story or plot would be a waste of time, because turning the pages for me was not a matter of what will happen next but a matter of what deftly rendered prose was waiting. You can get lost in it like a Faustian moment, a Coltrane solo, or an inspiration that makes you miss every exit home.

This is West's best work by far, as well as one of the best works to come out of 20th century literature. He is in absolute command of his voice, of his subject, and of his characters. If you love to read for the sake of reading, read this book. You won't be disappointed.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best 100, August 2, 2002

By 

Victor Cresskill (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests (Paperback)

Back when the now-infamous Top 100 Books of the Century list was proposed, there were a number of glaring omissions, including Djuna Barnes's Nightwood, William Gaddis's The Recognitions, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and, yes, The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests. With the exception of William Gass's The Tunnel, I have never read such stunning prose so effortlessly rendered. The book centers around Oswald Beautiful Badger Going Over the Hill; too primitive to adopt white mentality, he is "too tainted with book smarts to be at ease among this tribe." He is overshadowed by the looming presence of his uncle, George The Place In Flowers Where Pollen Rests, a legendary carver of kachina dolls. Haunted by his involvement in the death of a porn actress, Oswald is forced to leave the low-budget film industry. A short time later, the Vietnam War pushes him to the perimeter of sanity. Whitmanesque in its simplicity and affinity for nature, West achieves a lyricism that brings concepts as overarching as constellations into the drawing room and hangs them there like bright mobiles. So detailed and incisive are West's descriptions-whether of life on the mesa, George's carving or Oswald's thoughts-the book is more an experience than a piece of literature. Uncle George tells Oswald "a doll covered with chisel scars is not more beautiful than the universe, of course not; but it is cut to our size, like the television." So West takes art, myth and Hopi cosmology and gives them to us in something handy enough to carry on the subway or leave on the bedstand. West's inexhaustible imagination and uncanny skill with language make the reader realize, as Oswald does, that she or he is part of something as eternal as the seasons and as incalculably vast as what surrounds us.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Place in Twentieth Century Literature Rests Here, February 17, 2004

By 

Dale W. Boyer (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Place in Flowers Where Pollen Rests (Paperback)

This is a difficult, provocative, awesomely beautiful book -- easily one of the great novels of the twentieth century. I can only think of a handful of other books I've ever read that are as brilliantly and thrillingly written: Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner; Robert Penn Warren's All the Kings Men, and Faulkner's Sound and the Fury come to mind. It is the story of a man looking for his place in the universe, a member of a dying tribe trying to keeps its legends alive. It is the story of an artist, the story of someone merely trying to live and make sense of what living means. It is the story of every person, every culture, every tribe. I loved it.