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6 reviews
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
AMAZING. Much more than a memoir of severe insomnia.
23 Oct 2011
Format:Paperback
This book is GREAT. A memoir about insomnia, the mind, dementia, art, suburbia, philosophy, the Self, nightmares, and fantasies that is much more than a topical account; the language in this book is as deep and gorgeous as the most acoustically pleasing poetry, and the ideas are presented in a way that is emotionally and intellectually moving.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Stream of (Un)consciousness
19 Nov 2011
Format:Paperback
Strangely I have had trouble sleeping since I started this book.I'm 75% through and had the compulsion to look on Amazon to see what experience other readers were having. These three reviews reassured me that I was at least awake and that NOTHING, the book, actually exists. At times it has put me into a trance. If I were to read it again 10 times, I'm sure that each would turn up new observations. It's not an "easy" read but it is rewarding; and filled with original and poetic language and ideas and seeds of ideas. Clues. At times it feels like automatic writing but is rarely indulgent or purposefully cryptic. He's telling the truth, it would seem. At times I let go of my attention and let the words just flow through me like smoke and gradually the stream of logic emerges again. The book is not so much about insomnia as the book IS insomnia itself. I myself experienced enhanced creativity and "looser" thinking and writing when I "suffered" sleeplessness years ago.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Hallucinatory Introspection
6 Nov 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I am looking forward to the upcoming collaboration between Blake Butler and David Lynch. They're made for each other, after all - both are masters at concocting strange rooms illuminated with stranger light. Both are masters at stalking the somnambulistic side of life and reporting back with terrifying accuracy.
OK, the collaboration is a fantasy, at least thus far. But it most certainly doesn't seem inconceivable. There is something cinematic about Butler's ability to describe his bizarre mis en scenes. His three previous books - Ever, Scorch Atlas and There is No Year - were works of powerfully visceral fiction, hallucinatory and troubling and claustrophobic. And now we know why.
Nothing - A Portrait of Insomnia is in fact a portrait of a hyper-sensitive zombie (a contradiction, no doubt, but it feels about right). When he works in an analytical, almost scientific mode, he gives David Foster Wallace a run for his money when DFW was in journalistic mode. But as the hours tick past and exhaustion gives way to hallucination, Butler travels to very strange places indeed.
At times this is a somewhat tragic family portrait, at others a meditation on houses and homes and at yet others a pharmacologists wet dream. It veers into the realm of experimental fiction and as a stylist Butler is up there with Ben Marcus who, indeed, he references in this text.
There are numerous cultural references scattered throughout, from Aleister Crowley to Antonin Artaud to David Lynch and Inland Empire. One that I felt was missing was that of Michael Gira and his band The Swans. In an interview I once did with Butler he commented that: "I've probably listened to the song `Blood Promise' more than any other song. One year for about a month all I did was lay on the floor and let it repeat."
This in fact says a great deal about Butler's clearly obsessive state of mind. Gira's haunting lyrics to that song echo the tonality and thematic of Butler's own writing: "When silence falls/And light remains/And time is born/Beneath the sun/I'll hide your name/ Inside a word/And paint your eyes/With false perception..." (The album that song appears on, The Great Annihilator, makes for a great soundtrack to Butler's books).
But there are, no doubt, innumerable other influences and touchstones that Butler could have included in the mix and, as it stands, he balances a delicate cocktail of reality and the fantastical.
Butler's first book, Ever, was only published in 2009 by the small but vibrant Calamari Press. Both There is No Year and Nothing - A Portrait of Insomnia have appeared in 2011 via Harper Perennial. Sleeplessness, it would seem in Butler's case, has one clear benefit - extra time to write.
OK, the collaboration is a fantasy, at least thus far. But it most certainly doesn't seem inconceivable. There is something cinematic about Butler's ability to describe his bizarre mis en scenes. His three previous books - Ever, Scorch Atlas and There is No Year - were works of powerfully visceral fiction, hallucinatory and troubling and claustrophobic. And now we know why.
Nothing - A Portrait of Insomnia is in fact a portrait of a hyper-sensitive zombie (a contradiction, no doubt, but it feels about right). When he works in an analytical, almost scientific mode, he gives David Foster Wallace a run for his money when DFW was in journalistic mode. But as the hours tick past and exhaustion gives way to hallucination, Butler travels to very strange places indeed.
At times this is a somewhat tragic family portrait, at others a meditation on houses and homes and at yet others a pharmacologists wet dream. It veers into the realm of experimental fiction and as a stylist Butler is up there with Ben Marcus who, indeed, he references in this text.
There are numerous cultural references scattered throughout, from Aleister Crowley to Antonin Artaud to David Lynch and Inland Empire. One that I felt was missing was that of Michael Gira and his band The Swans. In an interview I once did with Butler he commented that: "I've probably listened to the song `Blood Promise' more than any other song. One year for about a month all I did was lay on the floor and let it repeat."
This in fact says a great deal about Butler's clearly obsessive state of mind. Gira's haunting lyrics to that song echo the tonality and thematic of Butler's own writing: "When silence falls/And light remains/And time is born/Beneath the sun/I'll hide your name/ Inside a word/And paint your eyes/With false perception..." (The album that song appears on, The Great Annihilator, makes for a great soundtrack to Butler's books).
But there are, no doubt, innumerable other influences and touchstones that Butler could have included in the mix and, as it stands, he balances a delicate cocktail of reality and the fantastical.
Butler's first book, Ever, was only published in 2009 by the small but vibrant Calamari Press. Both There is No Year and Nothing - A Portrait of Insomnia have appeared in 2011 via Harper Perennial. Sleeplessness, it would seem in Butler's case, has one clear benefit - extra time to write.
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