george_salis's review
3.0
"In his essay, 'Blindness,' Jorge Luis Borges wrote that James Joyce mastered the near-infinite language of English, that 'he knew all the languages, and he wrote in a language invented by himself, difficult to understand but marked by a strange music.' In the last bit he was, of course, referring to Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Written over a period of seventeen years, it is a linguistic experiment combining archaic language and portmanteaus, stream of consciousness and free association. Its Freudian nature could be one reason why Vladimir Nabokov was so averse to the novel, calling it 'a cold pudding of a book.' Experimentation is naturally contrarian, destined to rub many people the wrong way, regardless of talent or merit.
Structurally, AT Grant’s Wake is more of a novel-length visual and prose poem, with unconventional spacing and punctuation. Throughout, there are stage directions, referring to the spotlight, the dialogue of characters, the dark audience of three figures, and the like. One expects that literary taxonomy will break down under such pressures."
Read my full review here: http://atticusreview.org/the-language-of-the-subconscious-a-review-of-wake-by-at-grant/
Structurally, AT Grant’s Wake is more of a novel-length visual and prose poem, with unconventional spacing and punctuation. Throughout, there are stage directions, referring to the spotlight, the dialogue of characters, the dark audience of three figures, and the like. One expects that literary taxonomy will break down under such pressures."
Read my full review here: http://atticusreview.org/the-language-of-the-subconscious-a-review-of-wake-by-at-grant/
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