Reading Brooke Shields: the garden of failure (Native Agents) [Paperback]

Eldon Garnet (Author)

Book Description

Series: Semiotext(e) / Native Agents | Publication Date: January 1, 1995

This dialogue about depression and culture constitutes Canadian author Eldon Garnet's "confessions" as a failed cultural critic who, after writing all his life, is faced once again with the desire. Awakened from semiretirement by a magazine commission on Brooke Shields, an icon of virginal perfection, Garnet has his narrator weave a dark tale of professionalism, the abyss of failure that remains when the fifteen minutes of fame have long since dried up. The "subject" of the narrative, Brooke Shields, becomes an untouchable, idealized figure in a world of personalities and faces. It is through the very absence and untouchability of this fetishized celebrity icon that Garnet describes the vicissitudes of his narrator's decline. Sinister, comical, and profound, Garnet's novel is a work of cultural politics and radical honesty.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eldon Garnet was the editor of IMPULSE, an influential international magazine of art and culture. Simultaneously pursuing his interests in visual art, theory, and literature, Garnet has become one of Canada's most original contemporary artists, with exhibits at the National Gallery of Canada, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, and the Amsterdam Center of Photography. He is the author of Reading Brooke Shields: The Garden of Failure (Semiotext(e), 1995), called by The Toronto Globe & Mail "a terrific book, an unforgettable pop novel." Garnet lives in Toronto, but spends months alone in his remote cabin in the Canadian wilderness.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Semiotext(e); 1 edition (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157027052X
• ISBN-13: 978-1570270529
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,394,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars cool writing style-, February 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Reading Brooke Shields: the garden of failure (Native Agents) (Paperback)

Reading the back of this book alone, I would have never purchased it- But in the bookstore I read the first page and the writing style was the thing that sucked me in- A self depricating first person narrative of a very neurotic man-- very intriguing- almost page turning-- ending a bit disappointing but besides that, i recommend it wholeheartedly-- Its an honest narrative with a narrator who makes no apologies for his many shortcomings...