A review by matthew4
Excess--The Factory by Leslie Kaplan

4.0

I originally bought this book after reading Linhart’s ‘The Assembly Line’, and wanting to learn and read more about the experiences of those who engaged in the practice of ‘établissement’, and had not realised that Kaplan’s account of the factory took the form of poetry. Admittedly my initial reaction was one of disappointment, but I soon grew comfy with this format, and enjoyed the ways in which it allowed Kaplan to express the monotony, misery and alienation that the factory causes between oneself and other people, things and spaces. The translators’ essay on the text at the end is also very interesting - although perhaps would have been more useful to have been put at the start of the book rather than at the end!