Reviews
Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery
caitatoes's review against another edition
1.0
stopped reading almost immediately because the author said 'despite saying he was asexual in interviews Gorey did [instert list of gay men's stereotypes] so everyone knew he was Really Gay. i mean we never saw him with any partners or anything, but it was an Open Secret because who would do [gay stereotypes] except gay men, which he was even though he literally said otherwise?'
emmaemooney's review against another edition
Listen I love Edward Gorey and wanted to learn more about him but the book itself did not hook me at all. Maybe I’ll try again someday.
marginaliant's review against another edition
4.0
In Born to be Posthumous we follow Edward Gorey from young, eccentric Midwesterner to old, eccentric Capecoder along a path strewn with Boggersloshes, Posbys, Crunks, Twibbits, Yawfles, bats (or possibly umbrellas), doubtful guests, murderous adults, and plenty of dead children.
And it was delightful!
I remember reading in some review of this book that this was the perfect marriage of author and subject material and I really do believe that that is the case. Mark Dery has a great Gorey-esque sense of comedy--not in the sense of telling jokes, but rather in his deadpan delivery and excellent sense of timing. He recognizes that one of the great things about Gorey is the disconnect between him and the outside world and so he will juxtapose those anecdotes (say, someone probing Gorey for meaning and then a nonsense answer from Gorey himself) in such deadpan and matter-of-fact ways that made me laugh out loud.
This is a book for people who are already fans of Edward Gorey. It is at times mind-numbingly thorough, listing each book he did in order and going on and on about his obsession with the New York ballet. Mark Dery spends a lot of time teasing out the influences to Gorey's style which can verge on the psychoanalytic at times (and at times absurd--as in one case when he attempts to demonstrate Edward Gorey standing in a "contraposto" "ballet pose" which just looks like someone leaning their weight on one leg. Ok, Dery.) I also find the endless questioning of Gorey's sexuality to be tired, especially when he has given his own description of his sexuality (both "gay" and "unsexed") I don't think it helps us to quibble about our own modern obsessive identity-politics-driven need to categorize people into ever more specific labels. But that's just me.
This is a small complaint but I think stands in the way of some people being able to enjoy the book: There are relatively few pictures illustrate whatever point about style or content that Dery is trying to make. So, Dery will be trying to make a point about style or subject matter but I don't think he's terribly gifted at describing Gorey's pictures so I'd have to go look them up and it would break my reading flow. And this is from someone who already owns several Gorey books and grew up with the Gashlycrumb Tinies poster on by bedroom wall. I'd dread to think what someone who has no familiarity with the subject matter and style would think.
The bottom line is that if you love Gorey and are interested in seeing this kind of deep analysis of his life and work, it's more thorough and I think more entertaining than any other book about Gorey's life.
And it was delightful!
I remember reading in some review of this book that this was the perfect marriage of author and subject material and I really do believe that that is the case. Mark Dery has a great Gorey-esque sense of comedy--not in the sense of telling jokes, but rather in his deadpan delivery and excellent sense of timing. He recognizes that one of the great things about Gorey is the disconnect between him and the outside world and so he will juxtapose those anecdotes (say, someone probing Gorey for meaning and then a nonsense answer from Gorey himself) in such deadpan and matter-of-fact ways that made me laugh out loud.
This is a book for people who are already fans of Edward Gorey. It is at times mind-numbingly thorough, listing each book he did in order and going on and on about his obsession with the New York ballet. Mark Dery spends a lot of time teasing out the influences to Gorey's style which can verge on the psychoanalytic at times (and at times absurd--as in one case when he attempts to demonstrate Edward Gorey standing in a "contraposto" "ballet pose" which just looks like someone leaning their weight on one leg. Ok, Dery.) I also find the endless questioning of Gorey's sexuality to be tired, especially when he has given his own description of his sexuality (both "gay" and "unsexed") I don't think it helps us to quibble about our own modern obsessive identity-politics-driven need to categorize people into ever more specific labels. But that's just me.
This is a small complaint but I think stands in the way of some people being able to enjoy the book: There are relatively few pictures illustrate whatever point about style or content that Dery is trying to make. So, Dery will be trying to make a point about style or subject matter but I don't think he's terribly gifted at describing Gorey's pictures so I'd have to go look them up and it would break my reading flow. And this is from someone who already owns several Gorey books and grew up with the Gashlycrumb Tinies poster on by bedroom wall. I'd dread to think what someone who has no familiarity with the subject matter and style would think.
The bottom line is that if you love Gorey and are interested in seeing this kind of deep analysis of his life and work, it's more thorough and I think more entertaining than any other book about Gorey's life.
lanternheart's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
A largely enjoyable, curious, and artistically inspiring read on the life and times of Edward Gorey: a man who, despite all of his Victorian-Edwardian Anglophilic love, was none of those three things and a unique man all his own. Dery's prose can, at times, veer a bit too much into editorializing for my taste (unless billed as such, I rarely enjoy unexpected intrusions of biographers in a biography about their own subject). However, he's clearly a Gorey-phile, and his tireless exploration of Gorey's life and work is informative, showing just how much of a breadth he truly worked in with the macabre whimsy.
One note, though: while I overall enjoyed this book and will return to it for inspiration, the author (Dery) does seem to have a problem with accepting Gorey's own accounts of his own sexuality. I understand and would underscore myself a queer reading of Gorey's work, but to remark about his own professions of asexuality as if it's mutually exclusive to being gay did strike me as a bit out of step to our current models of romantic and sexual attraction (wherein homoromantic asexual people, as if I were stretched I'd place Gorey within, do indeed exist).
One note, though: while I overall enjoyed this book and will return to it for inspiration, the author (Dery) does seem to have a problem with accepting Gorey's own accounts of his own sexuality. I understand and would underscore myself a queer reading of Gorey's work, but to remark about his own professions of asexuality as if it's mutually exclusive to being gay did strike me as a bit out of step to our current models of romantic and sexual attraction (wherein homoromantic asexual people, as if I were stretched I'd place Gorey within, do indeed exist).