This book is exceptional and ordinarily you might assume a review would be written having read to the end. I therefore confess to being only half way through, but feel compelled to write a sort of review. As much for myself, as to share and to point, “This way, it will be worth your while!”
Watching an artist potter take prepared clay and throw it on a wheel without foreknowledge of their intent is to experience a delicious curiosity, a tension. Not usually of their skills, but a tension enshrined in the set of probabilities for the completed work as we are taken visually on a journey. A journey guided by the artist’s hand, from amorphous lump, via changeling circular vessel, to a new creation whereby we revert to normal breathing; except that it is still clay, not yet fired into permanence. We marvel at the confidence and apparent ease with which the materials are handled and crafted through each stage of development and we experience a joyous anticipation and appreciation of the finished art.
Artists share this tension with those who are invited to experience their working. In the rich landscapes of Rebecca Solnit’s unique story weaving, she ‘talks’, amongst so many others, about the solitude of writing, but at the same time takes us on a journey almost as if we are leaning over her shoulder to observe and marvel at the word flows sharing the process.
Whilst her recursive poetic style may not be to everyone’s taste, there is something very special in her weavings. From the heap of apricots harvested from her mother’s tree she eloquently gathers the threads of seemingly disparate tales to knot them into a personal tapestry; one you may well feel as if it could be a template for your own or perhaps to set you to unpicking threads before weaving again.
You will have to trust Rebecca as your guide, for to review ‘The Faraway Nearby’ is to chart the landscape and potentially spoil your journey. Even at the midway point I know this is a book to relish and return to.
Addendum – You might also like ‘The Raw Shark Texts’by Steven Halland ‘Invisible Cities’ by Italo Calvino
© John Daniels 2015.
