Juliana Spahr has lived in many places, including Chillicothe (Ohio), Buffalo (New York), Honolulu (Hawaii), and Brooklyn (New York). She has absorbed, participated in, and been transformed by the politics and ecologies of each. This book is about that process. THE TRANSFORMATION "tells a barely truthful story of the years 1997-2001," a story of flora and fauna, of continents, islands, academies, connective tissue, military and linguistic operations, and of that ever-present we, to name only a few. At once exhilarating, challenging, and humbling, THE TRANSFORMATION is a hefty book in its honesty and scope, a must-read.
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From Publishers Weekly
Spahr's latest is a fascinating poetic memoir along the lines of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, charting the personal and political transformation that is at the root of books like Spahr's tender, blistering This Connection of Everyone with Lungs (2005). A prose work in nine parts (plus bibliographical afterword), the book covers the years 1997–2001, when Spahr's primary relationship expanded to include a third partner (forming what she, with wry, Stein-like splendor, refers to as a they); she entered the academic job market (with complicated results); and the excesses of the Clinton-Bush era transformed into the nightmare of 9/11. As the book unfolds, the three partners struggle to define their relationship to each other and, more awkwardly, to other people. Spahr's university job on an island in the Pacific enmeshes the three in the island's fraught race politics; they're on sabbatical in Brooklyn when 9/11 happens. Spahr, who has written about Stein, adapts Stein's repetitive, pronominally elusive style, but where Stein gossips and drops names, Spahr fugues and protects the innocent. That approach piques the desire for dish, and it keeps the focus on the anxieties, excitements and sly, trenchant analyses that the three experience and produce together. The result is a book as unique as it is beautiful. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Juliana Spahr was born in Chillicothe, Ohio in 1966. Spahr received her BA from Bard College in Languages and Literatures and her PhD from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York in English. She has taught at Siena College (1996-7), the University of Hawaii at Manoa (1997-2003), and Mills College (2003-present). She co-edits the journal Chain with Jena Osman. Her books include The Transformation (Atelos, 2007), This Connection of Everyone with Lungs (U of California, 2005), things of each possible relation hashing against one another (Palm Press, 2003), Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You (Wesleyan U, 2001), Everybody's Autonomy: Connective Reading and Collective Identity (U of Alabama, 2001), and Response (Sun & Moon, 1996).
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
dear they,,
By
This review is from: The Transformation (Paperback)
september 7, 2008
dear they, thank you for writing their book and for writing it in the way they did some really enjoyed it especially toward the middle when some began noticing the diseased cells entering their own blood some thought they would like to enjoy all books every single book and all names every single name not in the same way but in a similar way where the enjoyment is related to noticing diseased cells entering their own blood like when some see the name of a writer too conservative in form or a writer too conservative in feeling or a writer too conservative in lifestyle or a writer too conservative in other respects to be much liked these days by those who are the most fun to hang out with well some would like to think hey this writer who is a writer too conservative in form or a writer too conservative in feeling or a writer too conservative in lifestyle or a writer too conservative in other respects is not so bad and trying to make something neat and enjoyable and useful and even if it is in some sense complicit with capital hey when is that not the case and hey isn't it not really that writer who is to blame exactly not because of their parents exactly or their genes exactly but rather the larger forces that have bequeathed them a world of experiences and also the other two the parents and the genes might count somewhat also some think it's maybe right to think of another writer who wrote a number of books in the 1970s that explained how thoroughgoing those types of larger forces are and how in fact nothing is bequeathing them a world of experiences but how in fact they are rather created out of that world of experiences bequeathed not to them but in general by those larger forces and how finally limited their ability to recognize or resist those forces finally is well some think it's maybe right to think of this writer who wrote a number of books in the 1970s when some dislike or dismiss or bark at or even just have a very slight irritated reaction to a person even when that person is a writer too conservative in form or a writer too conservative in feeling or a writer too conservative in lifestyle or a writer too conservative in other respects especially because oftentimes some dislike or dismiss or bark at or even just have a very slight irritated reaction to not the person or to the work but sometimes just to the name of the writer too conservative in form or too conservative in feeling or too conservative in lifestyle or too conservative in other respects because of their belief in a particular idea or group that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because their work affirms in a clear way a particular idea or group that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because their work affirms in a not very clear way a particular idea or group that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because their work does not disaffirm in a clear way a particular idea or group that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because their work does not disaffirm in a not very clear way a particular idea or group that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because of their belief in a vague idea or group or a constellation of vague ideas or groups that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because their work affirms in a clear way a vague idea or group or a constellation of vague ideas or groups that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because their work affirms in a not very clear way a vague idea or group or a constellation of vague ideas or groups that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because their work does not disaffirm in a clear way a vague idea or group or a constellation of vague ideas or groups that some think lowers the world's ok-ness or because their work does not disaffirm in a not very clear way a vague idea or group or a constellation of vague ideas or groups that some think lowers the world's ok-ness but that way of thinking about the writer who wrote a number of books in the 1970s and about the names of those writers too conservative in form or too conservative in feeling or too conservative in lifestyle or too conservative in other respects should not function as an excuse because without disliking or dismissing or barking at or even just having a very slight irritated reaction to certain things that lower the world's ok-ness those things might be forgotten or exacerbated or considered too regular to be worth barking at so maybe some should bark at those writers too conservative in form or too conservative in feeling or too conservative in lifestyle or too conservative in other respects and bark at their work and bark at their names or maybe some should sleep with those writers or marry them or date them or have a baby with those writers but maybe some should ignore those writers and seem cool when in close proximity to those writers so that those writers will want to be more like them and in that way by being cool some are making the world a better place with less capital more trees sincerely, some january 20, 2009 dear they, they felt this way but also felt that they probably should not feel this way or should not feel good about feeling this way at least sincerely, some april 12, 2009 dear they, some sit here in a classroom discussing a thinker from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s who claims to read the work of the thinkers from a country across the Atlantic with lots of thinkers from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s in a simple and compelling way but some think this might not matter and some think this might matter a whole lot and some think that it might only matter if some leave this classroom and stand in the street wearing many many layers of different colored clothing and ask the passing streetwalkers whether there is anything to be done with these thinkers or these items of clothing while slowly removing the many many layers of different colored clothing piece by piece some would like to draw you a picture of the suffocating and the despair at the failure of sitting in classrooms in order to be ready to sit in other classrooms and of sitting in classrooms in order to be ready to sit in the same classroom again in the near future, perhaps somewhat closer to the front sincerely, some
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the transformation,
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