The self unstable

Elisa Gabbert

Book - 2013

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Subjects
Published
Boston : Black Ocean 2013.
Language
English
Main Author
Elisa Gabbert (-)
Physical Description
83 pages ; 19 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780984475292
  • What was the Self?
  • The Self is unstable: humans & other animals
  • Transcending the body: memories, dreams, fears, & fantasies
  • A crude kind of progress: art & aesthetics
  • First-person shooter: games & leisure
  • Enjoyment of adversity: love & sex.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Gabbert's (The French Exit) latest is a treatise on a deconstructed world, which she describes as "the ‘so what' school of criticism"-the exact opposite of a cheerful self-help book: "in truth," she writes, "both irony and sincerity are filters." Of course, this is a shrewd and basic truth we often willingly choose to overlook. But this experiment in positioning the self outside of all systems of values and ideology yields, at best, mixed results: on the one hand, the book is full of sleek, provocative lines, and the koan-like structure of each essay invites the reader to linger over it, pondering each line's implication for hours: "Be careful what you wish for, in that it tells you what you want." On the other hand, the book's tone is cold and oppressive: "It is difficult to feel moved in general," she writes. "Statistically, most worlds are boring." The most vivid moment in this compressed book of misery and boredom masquerading as nonchalance is of a famous poet throwing his half-eaten ice cream cone in the trash: "this is boring." David Foster Wallace suggested the next generation of literary rebels would "eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue," be "artists. willing to risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama." In this instance, Gabbert does not represent such a vanguard. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.