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Silence: Lectures and Writings (Paperback)

by John Cage (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Wesleyan U.P.,U.S. (31 Dec 1973)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0819560286
  • ISBN-13: 978-0819560285
  • Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 17.8 x 2.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 473,131 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars quick review, 9 Dec 2005
By D. Lomas "Daniel Lomas" (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
In brief.. This is by far Cages most important text. I'm guessing you are at least familiar with a little of his music.. and may be baffled, intrigued, engaged, etc.. etc..This is definitely your best point of entry.. It's wonderfully playful and persuasive. Enjoy! ..oh! and of course it is his most influential text too! And then there is the argument that his writings are his greatest achievement..

One of the great influential texts of the 20th Century - treat yourself, and spend some time with this wonderful, humane man!

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4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Out of Cage, 2 Mar 1999
By A Customer
Having red an increasingly litterature of and about John Cage, Silence is the one I return to. It reveals his ways and his means, as by actually composing the lectures and writings the same way he composed his music. Even if the content often serves only to fill the composition, it is funny and it is full of wisdom. And beautiful. Add up the Indeterminacy recording from Smithsonian Folkways, and you have the best of his writings.
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4 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Pseudo zen and music babble, 30 Mar 2006
By Mrs K M Pflaum (Bath United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
I was very disappointed by a book that I feel is as inconsequential as the music it represents. Cage has very few ideas, and the ones that he has he drops like a brick on your foot. The fact that we can never experience a 'true silence', as we will hear our nervous system and heart beating, is repeated to death and is quite meaningless. Everyone knows that there are always sounds to be heard, but silence in music means those things producing the music are to make little or no sound.

Most of the rest of the book is some annoying "Zen" babble, with lists of uninspired questions. The only thing I found to be in agreement with Cage about what that he deemed both his writing and his music meaningless, quite true.

I gave this book two stars rather than one because it did show me once and for all that this music is just as pretentious, self-important and unskillful as it sounds, and I no longer have to debate that with myself. Unless I am seriously missing something, or this kind of pointless commentary on pointless music resonates with you, don't waste your money on it.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars What a read!
I think this book is one of the very few.

Cage's extravagant and uniquely enjoyable and humourous character is flowing out of these pages! Read more
Published 3 months ago by Psimikakis Chalkokondylis

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