Customer Reviews

Tropisms

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A fascinating book for any writer or student of language. Tropisms doesn't tell a story so much as paint a scene and/or communicate feeling. Sarraute's language --originally written in the late 1930's-- for the most part still feels modern and fresh, in part due to her unconventional and brave writing style. Tropisms is a thin book I carry with me in my daytime planner and read over and over again. Sarraute's ability to clearly describe the most mundane actions and feelings is an excellent training ground for writers. I learn something new about words, language, and humanity every time I open this book.

For anyone who loves language and literature, this book is a must. In Tropisms, Sarraute succeeded in creating a work that is inspiring, heartbreaking, and so full of life that it still seems fresh and new. A must for any would-be writer--this is what great use of language is all about.

What on Earth are tropisms? Is there a cure? But don't ask me; read the cover blurb, which provides one definition: they're "moments and movements in time, delicate and precise intimations of what may be going on inside an individual or a family group, but all of them freed from the confines of plot, characterization, and time." At any rate, this brief (71 pages) volume is made up of a series of twenty-four delicately wrought prose sketches, or short-short stories, if you will. As an experiment in prose, it's fairly interesting--thanks largely to Sarraute's appealingly limpid style--but really nothing to get excited about.