Hi Shawn,
At the time of your sending, I’d never read the two most recent Patti Smith books (only Just Kids). But I decided to spend the intervening days reading Devotion and Year of the Monkey. I’d been meaning to and your email felt like a good enough reason to do so.
Smith’s writing makes me feel so warm. For those who haven’t read her books, it seems necessary to note that Smith shifts calmly from total mysticism to what seems like fact throughout. It’s common to describe the work of an author who writes about their life as “like having a chat with a close friend,” but this wasn’t quite that, not exactly.
You know an imperfect stranger like no one else. No last names, no birthdates, no country of origin. Only eyes. Strange tics. Small indications of a state of mind.
Toward the end of Year of the Monkey, Smith writes this about a man who is present throughout and the description feels useful in trying to describe her own work. It’s hard to boil down, but there’s a potent feeling of closeness in her writing. To be clear, I don’t think is inherent in personal writing, hers feels markedly less constructed. Maybe it’s her willingness to not come across as self-assured or wise at every turn, how forthcoming she is about the moments in her life when confusion arises.
Anyway, let’s get to recommending.
Have you read Mary Ruefle? I’m sorry if you have, but also glad ‘cause I think that means I’m on the right track. Ruefle’s a poet, but I’ve only read her prose (Madness, Rack, and Honey, My Private Property). The former is a collection of lectures Ruefle has given, all with their own “subjects” (sentimentality, Emily Dickinson) that she inevitably bounces away from.
I remember the day I stood in front of a great, famous sculpture by a great, famous sculptor and didn’t like it. Such a moment is a landmark in the life of any young artist. It begins in confusion, guilt and self-doubt and ends in a triumphant breakthrough: I see the world and I see that I am free before it, I am not at the mercy of historical opinion and what I want to turn away from, I turn away from, what I want to approach, I approach. Twenty-five years later I read an essay by John Berger on Rodin and in it Berger was able to articulate all that I felt on that afternoon, standing in front of a great Rodin.
That’s a taste of Madness, Rack, and Honey. My Private Property is much more slim and decidedly less serious feeling. Where Smith feels open to ambiguity, Ruefle feels omniscient.
If you’ve already read Ruefle, I’d go for something by Kate Zambreno, Heroines or Screen Tests.
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