issue 35 > nonfiction
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Art
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Metamorphosis, Numinosity, Focus
by Donald KuspitLooking at Marlene Yu’s paintings of nature, which capture and distill what has been called the creative flux of ever-changing nature with their own painterly, dramatic flux, one is struck with their boundless, relentless energy, seemingly formless and wild yet oddly fixed in shapes that seem to have spontaneously precipitated out of it, limiting but not controlling its movement, sometimes slowing it down but never stopping it. The rhythm changes, but the flow of energy is constant, a sort of élan vital in perpetual motion, persisting, as though in defiance of the second law of thermodynamics, that is, the tendency of things to entropically run down and die.
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The Divine Sarah: Seeking Immortality through Film
by Judith E. StoneManifest in the wealth of photographs taken of Sarah Bernhardt, the legendary Nineteenth Century tragédienne - on stage and off, in Paris and abroad on tour, from adolescence to old age - is Bernhardt’s heightened awareness of the nascent medium’s ability to confer immortality on its subjects. The canny actress knew well, of course, that even the most compelling stage performance was by its very nature ephemeral, and would ultimately be lost to collective memory, if not rescued by solid, durable visual record. Initially photographed in 1863 by the legendary Nadar, on her own, 17-year-old initiative, the Divine Sarah went on to commandeer the camera skills of many other established photographers of the period.
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Reviews
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L.S. Bassen. Summer of the Long Knives
review by Paul D. GreenL.S. Bassen’s gripping novel Summer of the Long Knives is intelligent and eminently readable. Set in Nazi Germany in the early years of Hitler’s rise to power—1933 and 1934—Summer of the Long Knives deals with well-documented events: for example, Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany in 1933; the burning of the Reichstag; the Nazi book burnings; and the increasing tension between Hitler’s SS and the brown-shirted Storm Troopers, culminating in Hitler’s decision to execute leaders of the Storm Troopers in 1934. What prevents this well-written, suspenseful novel from being completely “historical” is its delineation of the successful assassination of Hitler. Historically there were numerous plots against the Führer, all of them unsuccessful, as indeed there is an abortive assassination attempt in this novel before the successful one occurs.
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Kelly Cherry. A Kind of Dream
by Garnett Kilberg CohenKelly Cherry’s engrossing novel, A Kind of Dream, the third in a trilogy, begins with a condensed and slightly ironic family saga/prologue that introduces a few of the main characters (many of whom appeared in the earlier books). Most segments in the prologue start with an italicized word or a grammatical term used to explain connections in language. These terms also serve as metaphors for relationships between people. For example, the section entitled, “Art and Eleanor” starts with “Compound subj. As people do, Art and Eleanor began as individuals.” Yet Cherry quickly shows us that as complex as liaisons in language can be, they are no match for the perplexing relationships involving actual people: “Ellie perhaps has always wanted Arthur to be more like her father, but for that to happen she would have to be more like a daughter, and she can’t be a daughter when she has to be a mother. Except that she can’t be a mother because she has to work all the time.”
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Odi Gonzales, trans. by Lynn Levin. Birds on the Kiswar Tree
by Emily YoonOdi Gonzales’s Birds on the Kiswar Tree (2014, 2Leaf Press), with both the author’s Spanish originals and English translations by poet Lynn Levin, presents to the Anglophone reader vivid documentary poetry of the painted world of colonial-era Quechua artists. Birds on the Kiswar Tree would be a welcome addition to a book shelf of those with an interest in Peruvian Andean cultural identity, ekphrastic poetry, and the literature of resistance.
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