Rate this book

Loitering: New And Collected Essays (2014)

by Charles D'Ambrosio(Favorite Author)

4.67 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1935639870 (ISBN13: 9781935639879)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Tin House Books

review 1: I'm not huge for essays on the whole, but maybe I'd dig them more if more were like D'Ambrosio's writing. There is an immense swath of compassion running through his work at the same time that he is meticulous and cuttingly observant. He manages to bring both himself and the subject together at a crossroads and though the essays wander back and forth across that line, the line is still where the essays start on the page and where they stay grounded. I'm probably not going to become a heavy essay devotee after this, but I certainly would pick up more of D'Ambrosio's work.
review 2: Charles D'Ambrosio writes with the kind of talent that makes most other writers furiously jealous. His prose is not just great - it's "I'd probably read his shopping list" great. He... more possesses a remarkable gift for metaphors, or what he would call "an eye for resemblances," a capacious store of literary allusions, and a fluidity of style that complements his keen insight such that he can make pretty much any subject fascinating, whether it's an eco-village in Texas, a Pentecostal haunted house or the emptiness of manufactured homes. Anchoring his writing are a sense of perspective formed by experience and tragedy, which is another way of saying he has that ineffable thing we call "voice," and a sense of place, specifically the Pacific Northwest, that grants his prose immediacy and strength. D'Ambrosio is haunted throughout by his family's history of suicide and mental illness, yet each essay manages to be global and personal at the same time. These aren't light pieces and despite the frequently sad subject matter, they aren't dark either. There is genuine pathos, such as the piece on Russian orphans, and there can be humor here but no comedy, such as his essay about appearing as a character in an ex-love's novel. The final essay should be required reading for anyone who cares about the humanities. It begins as a close reading of a Richard Hugo poem, but soon reveals itself to be an erudite contemplation of falling and descent and of the place of literature in the wake of devastation. D'Ambrosio presents the view that one can write against death, that one can write as a way to fend off feeling bereft of love. It's an old and familiar claim in literature, but no one makes it more persuasively than Charles D'Ambrosio. less

Download links for: Loitering: New and Collected Essays

Advertising