Book description
From the internationally bestselling author of
What I Loved
and The Summer Without Men
, a dazzling collection of essays written with Siri Hustvedt's customary
intelligence, wit and ability to convey complex ideas in a clear and
lively way. Divided into three sections - Living
, which draws on Siri's own life; Thinking
, on memory, emotion and the imagination; and Looking
, on art and artists - the essays range across the humanities and
science as Siri explores how we see, remember, feel and interact with
others, what it means to sleep, dream and speak, and what we mean by
'self'. The combination offers a profound and fascinating insight into
ourselves as thinking, feeling beings.
'Fascinating...what gives the book its originality is that she wavers
on the edge of the various disciplines, preferring her own imaginative,
deeply personal reflections to the potential certainty that might be
offered by doctors...Although a desire for clear-cut answers is
understandable, Hustvedt suggests that this is often far from possible.
And she leaves the reader thinking about his or her own bouts of illness
in a thoroughly fresh way.' Siri Hustvedt's first novel, THE
BLINDFOLD, was published by Sceptre in 1993 and her second, THE
ENCHANTMENT OF LILY DAHL, followed in 1997. Both were highly acclaimed
and translated around the world, while part of THE BLINDFOLD was made
into a film (Of Women and Magic, directed by Claude Miller). Her third
novel, WHAT I LOVED, was published in 2003 to even greater acclaim and
has been an international success; her next novel, THE SORROWS OF AN
AMERICAN, followed in 2008. Her work has been published in The Paris
Review, Fiction, and The Best American Short Stories, and she is also
the author of READING TO YOU, a poetry collection, and three collections
of essays, YONDER, MYSTERIES OF THE RECTANGLE: Essays on Painting, and A
PLEA FOR EROS, and a non-fiction work, THE SHAKING WOMAN: A HISTORY OF
MY NERVES. Her most recent novel is THE SUMMER WITHOUT MEN. She lives in
Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, Paul Auster.
