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geoff.wichert
, January 25, 2012
(view all comments by geoff.wichert)
While trends in mainstream publishing are driving readers towards the use of books as alternatives to other forms of entertainment -- TV, movies, and the newest-and-biggest, on-line computing -- writers like W.G. 'Max' Sebald continue to make the case for literature as a valid extension of real life. In 'Unrecounted,' short, aphoristic poems demonstrate that words can do much more than count experiences: they can penetrate and illuminate them and, perhaps most important, make the essence of life our common property for all to share. Juxtaposing these small gems with Jan Peter Tripp's engravings of the eyes of men and women, images reminiscent of M.C.Escher's finest depictions, advances Sebald's breakthrough, in his novels, of using photographs in the text to lend verisimilitude to already highly-detailed stories and bring back to the serious novel its revolutionary power to convince us of the reality of life in the mirror.
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