I liked this very much. Taking as his subject some of the most recognizable images in all art, Strand's proposal is relatively modest: to really lookI liked this very much. Taking as his subject some of the most recognizable images in all art, Strand's proposal is relatively modest: to really look at these paintings & resist the received wisdom about them (that they function as statements on the modern condition & the social isolation of 20th century life, etc). He comes up with a lot of insightful observations about Hopper's representation of space & light, of underlying visual strategies running throughout the entire body of work; he also points out a lot of unexpected oddity within the ostensibly realistic depictions. I certainly don't want all art criticism to be this impressionistic, but it's also nice to be reminded of the value of just taking a long, hard look at something & grappling with it on its own terms.
"I have said Hopper's light is peculiar, that it does not seem to fill the air. Instead, it seems to adhere to walls & objects, almost as if it comes from them, emanating from their carefully conceived and distributed tones"...more
The specifics of Chandler's convoluted, deliciously quixotic plots always seem to slide right out of my memory the moment I finish them, a quality in The specifics of Chandler's convoluted, deliciously quixotic plots always seem to slide right out of my memory the moment I finish them, a quality in most circumstances I'd hesitate to characterize as a strength, but with Chandler takes on the quality of waking from a dream. So vivid when experienced moment-to-moment, afterward only a few scattered impressions and details are all that remain—but that only makes one treasure what has been grabbed onto all the more. I'm not sure I know of another novelist so consistently pleasurable to return to and reread.
That said, I do prefer following Marlowe negotiate the urban jungle of Los Angeles than meander though rural landscapes and small neighboring towns. But really, when it comes down to it I'll always happily follow Marlowe anywhere Chandler decides he needs to go.
"However hard I try to be nice I always end up with my nose in the dirt and my thumb feeling for somebody’s eye."...more
An alternate title could have been "Sex and Sensibility:" while the former is the hook, it's really the latter that carries the whole thing off. For bAn alternate title could have been "Sex and Sensibility:" while the former is the hook, it's really the latter that carries the whole thing off. For better or worse, this is very much what I imagine the results would be like if I ever try my hand at fiction. Well, without the fisting, but very much all the long digressions on topics like Fassbinder, Caravaggio, and LA Plays Itself, as well as a melancholy investment in documenting the fleeting pleasures of now-disappeared places and esoteric technologies. Oddly charming in its own peculiar way.
"Whenever I entered the house of an acquaintance, I would gravitate to the bookshelves. If I found that this person had no books, I would turn around and leave without a word, taking the next bus home. After this happened on multiple occasions, I softened my position towards the willfully non-literate: such people actually existed, but they had no inner lives."...more
Jameson is a notoriously labyrinthine writer, and I often felt more than a bit like Philip Marlowe himself in my attempt to navigate this bewildering Jameson is a notoriously labyrinthine writer, and I often felt more than a bit like Philip Marlowe himself in my attempt to navigate this bewildering textual landscape. But there was something peculiarly pleasant about feeling utterly lost, unexpectedly tripping over a blinding insight, and then losing my bearings once again; this won't be the last time I wander down these mean streets, I'm sure.
2ND READING: A great pleasure to revisit, & as often is the case with densely theoretical texts, I didn't find it nearly as inaccessible as I did on my initial read. There's something I find deeply enjoyable about the brain-teasing quality of "high theory" being applied to Chandler's peculiar, brilliant mixture of populist impulses & artistic pretensions. Jameson doesn't just aesthetically appreciate RC's work but has great personal affection for it too—& somehow that comes through (exactly how I'd be hard pressed to say, but it does). Am tempted to bump this up to five stars for the spectacular first two chapters, but alas I find the third a bit of a dud.
"...a case can be made for Chandler as a painter of American life: not as a builder of those large-scale models of the American experience which great literature offers, but rather fragmentary pictures of setting and place, fragmentary perceptions which are by some formal paradox somehow inaccessible to serious literature."...more
I'm coming up to my ten year anniversary as a San Francisco resident, so it seemed high time to give our city's urtext a go (well that, and I was inviI'm coming up to my ten year anniversary as a San Francisco resident, so it seemed high time to give our city's urtext a go (well that, and I was invited to a film festival screening of the first episode of the upcoming Netflix series). I admit it took an unexpectedly long time to nudge myself onto its wavelength: I realized I had always assumed it was a gay text (it really isn't), and found Maupin's prose style surprisingly flat, even when taking into consideration the format restrictions of its original serial newspaper publication (Dickens this is not, and I'm not even a fan). There was also much less specificity of locale than I wanted, considering so much of the city it portrays has disappeared—or is on the verge of it. But as the storylines of the various characters become increasingly tangled, it's impossible not to get swept up in the complex rhythms of everyday life's countless little dramas. I'll likely continue to the next volume at some point, and maybe it won't even take me another ten years to get around to it....more
Sometimes a book will serendipitously meander into your life at the exact moment you need it, and that's exactly what happened with this one. ThreadinSometimes a book will serendipitously meander into your life at the exact moment you need it, and that's exactly what happened with this one. Threading together art history, cultural analysis, and autobiography, Laing's book is a unique hybrid that documents artists and artwork that address loneliness and isolation through a prism of personal loneliness and isolation that she herself experienced while briefly living in New York City. The book became my companion during a period of personal solitude and sadness that unexpectedly unfurled over my summer and then lingered into autumn; my intermittent reading exactly coincided with a very specific period of necessary withdrawal for introspection and personal repair. Laing is particularly gifted at making historical figures come alive through her words, of contextualizing their work and honoring their artistic intentions while never losing sight of the deep and complicated humanity that enabled such creation. I found the chapters on Warhol and Wojnarowicz particularly insightful, though all held endless pleasures and fascinations. A wonderful model of how rigorous analytical writing can indeed be subjective and accessible and exquisitely written.
"People make things - make art or things that are akin to art - as a way of expressing their need for contact, or their fear of it; people make objects as a way of coming to terms with shame, with grief. People make objects to strip themselves down, to survey their scars, and people make objects to resist oppression, to create a space in which they can move freely. All the same, there is art that gestures towards repair; that, like Wojnarowicz's stitched loaf of bread, traverses the fragile space between separation and connection." ...more
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