nightwood
Simplest: you should go read this book.
To be a bit more precise, if you've experienced at least one intimate and intense relationship you should read this book.
The last sentence was going to be qualified by mentioning maturity. But it would have been misleading and overcomplicated. You do need some maturity and experience to get the most from Nightwood, but you can love it without either.
It's poetry - intense and complex. At first it's off-putting, the first twenty pages or so are clumsy and alienating until you get the rhythm. But once the words start to flow through you there are pages and pages you'll want to read and quote at friends and people you've only just met. It's like an act of ventriloquism - you feel like you're writing some of the passages yourself. Djuna Barnes takes experiences you know intimately but couldn't draw, and describes them precisely.
Truth. Insight. Intimacy. Real people - fucking, shitting, talking - talking nonsense and truth. Clarity. Intensity. Real relationships - the bullshit, the beauty, the intrusion, the compromise and selfishness, the obsession, the needs and wants. Intoxication.
But it's not a tumble of word-nonsense unformed and strongly felt. There are structural elements that hold the book together. First, what only emerges partway through the book, the central relationship of Norah Flood and Robin Vote. Or their brief time together and Norah's subsequent obsession, sense of loss, and pursuit of Robin. Second, and apparent much sooner, the Shakespearean, cursed loquacity of Dr Matthew O'Connor. He talks, and because he talks people bring him their pain. He doesn't quite tell us everything we know, but it sometimes feels that way. And much of what Norah says about her feelings is in his presence.
Nightwood's only around 150 pages long. Go read it. Then read it again - either immediately or within a couple of weeks.
Don't just read it, buy it if you can and pass it on to a friend afterwards. Hopefully they'll read it two or three times and pass it on to someone else. If it's in the library read that copy and let everyone know it's there to borrow. Personally I've passed on my copy and bought a new one for another friend. I know I'll buy myself another copy that again I'll probably pass on.
That's it, there's nothing more to be said.
To be a bit more precise, if you've experienced at least one intimate and intense relationship you should read this book.
The last sentence was going to be qualified by mentioning maturity. But it would have been misleading and overcomplicated. You do need some maturity and experience to get the most from Nightwood, but you can love it without either.
It's poetry - intense and complex. At first it's off-putting, the first twenty pages or so are clumsy and alienating until you get the rhythm. But once the words start to flow through you there are pages and pages you'll want to read and quote at friends and people you've only just met. It's like an act of ventriloquism - you feel like you're writing some of the passages yourself. Djuna Barnes takes experiences you know intimately but couldn't draw, and describes them precisely.
Truth. Insight. Intimacy. Real people - fucking, shitting, talking - talking nonsense and truth. Clarity. Intensity. Real relationships - the bullshit, the beauty, the intrusion, the compromise and selfishness, the obsession, the needs and wants. Intoxication.
But it's not a tumble of word-nonsense unformed and strongly felt. There are structural elements that hold the book together. First, what only emerges partway through the book, the central relationship of Norah Flood and Robin Vote. Or their brief time together and Norah's subsequent obsession, sense of loss, and pursuit of Robin. Second, and apparent much sooner, the Shakespearean, cursed loquacity of Dr Matthew O'Connor. He talks, and because he talks people bring him their pain. He doesn't quite tell us everything we know, but it sometimes feels that way. And much of what Norah says about her feelings is in his presence.
Nightwood's only around 150 pages long. Go read it. Then read it again - either immediately or within a couple of weeks.
Don't just read it, buy it if you can and pass it on to a friend afterwards. Hopefully they'll read it two or three times and pass it on to someone else. If it's in the library read that copy and let everyone know it's there to borrow. Personally I've passed on my copy and bought a new one for another friend. I know I'll buy myself another copy that again I'll probably pass on.
That's it, there's nothing more to be said.
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