Any person is the only self : essays Cover Image

Book

Any person is the only self : essays / Elisa Gabbert.

Summary:

"Who are we when we read? When we journal? Are we more ourselves alone or with friends? Right now or in memory? How does time transform us and the art we love? In sixteen dazzling, expansive essays, the acclaimed essayist and poet Elisa Gabbert explores a life lived alongside books of all kinds: dog-eared and destroyed, cherished and discarded, classic and cliched, familiar and profoundly new. She turns her witty, searching mind to the writers she admires, from Plath to Proust, and the themes that bind them--chance, freedom, envy, ambition, nostalgia, and happiness. She takes us to the strange edges of art and culture, from hair metal to surf movies to party fiction. Any Person Is the Only Self is a love letter to literature and to life, inviting us to think alongside one of our most thrilling and versatile critics"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780374605896
ISBN: 0374605890
Physical Description: 230 pages ; 21 cm
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : FSG Originals / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024.
Copyright: ©2024

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [223]-227).

Formatted Contents Note:

On recently returned books -- The stupid classics book club -- Weird time in Frankenstein -- Party lit -- Proust and the joy of suffering -- On jealousy -- The intolerable, I guess -- Against completism -- Second selves -- A complicating energy -- Infinite abundance on a narrow ledge -- Insane places -- The uncanny child -- Somethingness (or, why write?) -- Nostalgia for a less innocent time -- Same river, same man.