Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In the tradition of essayists like Montaigne and Emerson, Gerald Stern reflects, with wit, pathos, rage, and tenderness, on eighty-five years of life, much of it spent engaged with literature and learningas a major American poet, a longtime teacher at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, an insatiably broad reader, and a devoted friend to artists and writers.
In seventy short, intermingling essays Stern moves nimbly between the past and the present, the personal and the philosophical. Creating the immediacy of dailiness, he writes with entertaining engagement about what hes reading at the moment, be it Spinoza, Maimonides, John Cage, Etheridge Knight, James Schuyler, or Lucille Clifton, and then seamlessly turns to memories of his student years in Europe on the G.I. Bill, or early family life in Pittsburgh, or his political and social action. Stern meditates on the lamb in Christianity and Judaism. He elegizes the dragonfly that kept disappearing and reappearing inside his car. He examines the comedy of the Marx Brothers and the idea of adultery in Noel Coward.
Interwoven with his formidable recollections (Stern, it would seem, forgets nothing) are the authors passionate discussions of his lifelong obsessions: his strong but conflicted identity as a Jew who is secular and opposed to Israels Palestinian policy; the idea of neighbors in various formsfrom the women of Gees Bend who together made beautiful quilts to the Polish inhabitants of the small town of Jedwabne, who on a single day in 1941 slaughtered three hundred Jews; and issues of justice in its myriad forms.
Stern accomplishes a magnificent outpouringa last testament like Villons (whom he evokes often) with the pacing of Tony Judts last book, The Memory Chalet. Revealing a writer engaged with justice, imagination, memory, and witness, and written in Sterns signature, associative style, this work is a significant literary achievement by one of our most celebrated and beloved poets.
Synopsis
In what could be boldly called a new genre, Gerald Stern reflects with wit, pathos, rage, and tenderness, on 85 years of life. In 70 short, intermingling pieces that constitute a kind of diary of a mind, Stern moves nimbly between the past and the present, the personal and the philosophical. Creating the immediacy of dailiness, he writes with entertaining engagement about what hes reading, be it Spinoza, Maimonides, John Cage, Etheridge Knight, James Schuyler, or Lucille Clifton, and then he seamlessly turns to memories of his student years in Europe on the GI Bill, or his political and social action. Unexpected anecdotes abound. He hilariously recounts the evening Bill Murray bit his arm and tells about singing together with Paul McCartney. Interwoven with his formidable recollections are passionate discussions of lifelong obsessions: his conflicted identity as a secular Jew opposed to Israels Palestinian policy; the idea of neighbors in various forms from the women of Gees Bend who together made beautiful quilts to the inhabitants of Jedwabne, who on a single day in 1941 slaughtered 300 Jews; and issues of justice.