A Wanderer in the Perfect City: Selected Passion Pieces (Paperback)

by Lawrence Weschler (Author), Pico Iyer (Foreword)

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Amazon.com Review

A few months ago, a friend I was talking with began to tell me about a friend of his named Gary Isaacs, who was working at the downtown headquarters of one of the city's top investment houses as an executive in the division monitoring the savings-and-loan crisis. Though Isaacs was just thirty-two years old, my friend recounted, he had previously worked on the Street in several other capacities as well, and before that he'd had a notably successful career in an entirely different field; what's more, it seemed he was about to quit this one, too, and to head off in yet another direction. When I asked my friend what the previous career had been, and, for that matter, what the new one was going to be, he replied that it would be far more entertaining for me to hear the whole story from the man himself, which is how, a few days later, I came to find myself in the sleek elevator of one of downtown's better-known headquarters zooming up towards I didn't have the faintest idea what.

Lawrence Weschler is, simply put, one of the best journalists ever to have written for the New Yorker--of an equal rank to masters like Joseph Mitchell, Philip Hamburger, and John McPhee. Most of the articles in this volume were first published in 1988 as Shapinsky's Karma, Boggs's Bills, and Other True-Life Tales (the story of Boggs has been extracted and expanded into its own book); each of them profiles a creative individual who "works and works at something, which then happens of its own accord: it would not have happened without all the prior work, true, but its happening cannot be said to have resulted from all that work, the way effects are said to result from a series of causes." For republication, Weschler has provided updates on each of his subjects, from Maus creator Art Spiegelman to the now-deceased musical lexicographer Nicolas Slonimsky (whom Weschler profiled at the age of 92, and arguably at the peak of his career). He's also added two new "passion pieces," including a profile of comic artist Ben Katchor. A Wanderer in the Perfect City is as close to perfect as books get, and my advice to you is to get a copy, read it, and then reread it whenever your faith in literature needs restoring. If at all possible, get two copies, so you can share this graceful anthology yet never have to part with it. (Oh, and in case you were wondering, Gary Isaacs was a former rocket scientist who ran away from Wall Street to join the circus.) --Ron Hogan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"Weschler is the owner of a large dose of novelistic vision, and a particularly poetic set of ears, but... as important an endowment as a novelist's eye or a poet's ear is still the journalistic nose which led him down the proverbial alley." - National Post (Canada) "Weschler is a thoughtful observer and a superb storyteller." - Minneapolis Star Tribune "Weschler's essays are exquisitely written - so perfectly and unobtrusively organized that one can't imagine telling them a better way." - New York Times Book Review"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (April 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226893901
• ISBN-13: 978-0226893907
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #359,058 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic -- at least for me, February 28, 2002

By	Jonathan Rimorin (Cormorant Island) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Wanderer in the Perfect City: Selected Passion Pieces (Paperback)

I bought this collection from Amazon without any knowledge whatsoever of its contents or scope: I had read some Weschler pieces years and years ago with great profit, and after having randomly encountered his "Mr Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder" recently, wanted to re-acquaint myself with his work. Imagine then my shock and delighted astonishment to find "Wanderer In The Perfect City" to be an almost complete re-issue of his "Shapinsky's Karma, Boggs' Bills," a beautifully made volume (printed by the North Point Press, seemingly defunct now, alas) of beautifully written "passion pieces," so-called in that they're focussed on artists singularly focussed (alternates: obsessed; crazed) upon a visionary (alt. quirky; really quirky) purpose that consumes and sustains their lives, their artistic being. A better review than this one would now list some examples of what I've just written, but unfortunately for you I'm only writing this review; and to be honest, a list of "those kooky artists and their kooky dreams!" would be a disservice to the sympathetic care Weschler employs in these portraits.

Reading the original edition of "Shapinsky's Karma, Bogg's Bills" was one of my watershed discoveries made at the time of life when everything is a discovery. "Shapinsky's Karma..." was an eye-opener for me, an inspiration; it was also the second hardcover book I'd ever bought, a weighty commitment for a boy like me, but a most fortuitous one. (The first hardcover I ever bought was "Heretics of Dune." _That_ wasn't nearly as inspirational.)

Coming across "Shapinsky's Karma..." again in this new form and fourteen years later, is therefore an occasion of some contemplation and a little rue: to remember the impressionable kid I first reading that beautifully blue tome; and to see it again in this perfectly fine edition, a little faded, a little dated. Some of its subjects who languished in relative obscurity back in 1988 have become well-known, like Boggs and Spiegelman; a great many others seem to have simply faded away. Perhaps this is an indirect demonstration of passion and its curatives, its flutterings and gutterings.

This new edition differs from the original in that the 1988 piece on Mark Boggs has been pulled; Weschler has expanded it into book-length. It's been supplanted with a piece on, I think, Ben Katchor, or whoever the "Mr. Knipl" cartoonist is.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Weschler is a Superb Non-Fiction Writer, August 17, 2006

By	Howard Goldowsky "ChessWriter" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The one thing that strikes me most about Weschler's writing is that he allows his subjects to talk. His quotes are long. One good thing about this is that the reader really gets to know the subjects well. It's almost like a Q&A format. Thus, there is very little room for subjective opinions in Weschler's writing; he tells it like it is.

This style leads, ultimately, to long articles -- one is almost 70 pages, the length of a short novella -- each naunce of the topic is covered from multiple perspectives, giving the reader a complete picture.

My favorite article in the book is about a former rocket scientist turned Wall Street broker turned circus clown. Weschler chronicles the decision of one MIT grad to live his life-long dream of attending clown school. Along the way, Weschler convolves Aerospace engineering, bond trading, and circus performing, and allows the reader to see why each activity is just as difficult as the next.

Recommended for all aspiring non-fiction writers. Study the craft of Lawrence Weschler!

6 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars curious look into eccentric lives, May 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Wanderer in the Perfect City: Selected Passion Pieces (Paperback)

In this book the author writes nonfiction articles about various interesting characters. He talks to an art promoter, a cartoonist and all sorts of others. The art promoter was an Indian who discover an unknown abstract expressionist in New York, and gets him know in the art world. It's a strange thing how it works out. There is something funky, and offbeat about all these characters, but what is really cool about the authors writing, is that it is very easy too imagine what these people are like. Very cool book.