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Product Description
Review
A more individual talent than Stevie Smith's you don't get. An artist of utmost sophistication... Her pre-war Novel on Yellow Paper is an unforgettable work that has nevertheless needed to be rediscovered several times since the day it was first greeted, correctly, as a masterpiece - Clive James, the New Yorker
Book Description
* As provocative and amusing as when it was first published over sixty years ago.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first read this books when I was about eighteen and I must have read it at least 6 times over the last 20 years. Every time I read it I find something new that I missed before: some reference I didn't understand when I was younger. Sometimes I just dip into a chapter or two, especially when I'm feeling sad. It really is one of those books that can make you laugh and cry. It's a book for adults about friendship, depression, love, laughter and everything that goes into making us mature and kind people. The greatest praise I can give this book is that when I come to the end, I usually find myself starting at page one again.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This novel is personal: it puts on paper the life of the author. Others are described from the detached point of view of the sceptical author. Consequently there is very little in the novel that is formal. What is inscribed does not forget the blank of its eye, the author who appears between the lines is not blinded by ideas, but uses words to catch themselves in action. It knows that the writer is not being something, but doing something, and she is concerned to know better what she is doing. This use of words is amusing and difficult; if Stevie Smith could say what she means she would be able to hold a mirror up to her nature and that would be to forget that what we say is what we make of events, we may use ideas to defend ourselves and by so doing deny their actual effect.
What I felt when I read this book is a voice sustained by a rhythm that gives it momentum and this momentum is turned by its own activity. Smith's voice is sometimes directed towards the reader who may not share the reflexivity of the author:
But first, Reader, I will give you a word of warning. This is a foot-off-the-ground novel that came by the left hand. ... And if you are a foot-on-the-ground person, this book will be for you a desert of weariness and exasperation. So put it down. Leave it alone. It was a mistake you made to get this book. You could no know. (p. 38/9)
I take it that a foot-on-the-ground person is someone who believes they can say what they mean; someone for whom the use of words is transparent; i.e. someone who believes what they say and expects to be accepted by others according to the standing that identity is generally accorded. No doubt this is a type of mutuality and gives rise to strong emotions, but this novel shows that for Stevie Smith it is a mutuality that wilfully forgets the work being done to present the image.
It might be expected that the author can point out to the reader a less wilful mutuality, but any such expectations will be disappointed. It seems that a foot-off-the-ground person is condemned to orbit the earth for ever. And their realisation of this brings the desire to die hard on its heels. But does not this book disclose a neighbouring alterity?
What I felt when I read this book is a voice sustained by a rhythm that gives it momentum and this momentum is turned by its own activity. Smith's voice is sometimes directed towards the reader who may not share the reflexivity of the author:
But first, Reader, I will give you a word of warning. This is a foot-off-the-ground novel that came by the left hand. ... And if you are a foot-on-the-ground person, this book will be for you a desert of weariness and exasperation. So put it down. Leave it alone. It was a mistake you made to get this book. You could no know. (p. 38/9)
I take it that a foot-on-the-ground person is someone who believes they can say what they mean; someone for whom the use of words is transparent; i.e. someone who believes what they say and expects to be accepted by others according to the standing that identity is generally accorded. No doubt this is a type of mutuality and gives rise to strong emotions, but this novel shows that for Stevie Smith it is a mutuality that wilfully forgets the work being done to present the image.
It might be expected that the author can point out to the reader a less wilful mutuality, but any such expectations will be disappointed. It seems that a foot-off-the-ground person is condemned to orbit the earth for ever. And their realisation of this brings the desire to die hard on its heels. But does not this book disclose a neighbouring alterity?
11 of 47 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anyone looking for some light, unchallenging entertainment should steer well clear of this monstrosity. Pompey is incapable of focusing on anything for more than a few paragraphs at a time, which, along with the very dated colloquialisms, makes you want to scream and throw the thing out of a window. If you are deeply interested in the 1930s, I daresay this is an interesting and enjoyable book. But not for me , I'm afraid.
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