RaveArtsfuseB-Side Books: Essays on Forgotten Favorites assembles 40 commentators, and each writes a brief (approx. 4-10 pages) summary and appreciation of an overlooked book. The mix of writers is impressive: it includes art historians, a Slavic-language expert, novelists from several nations, a science historian, an anthropologist, a gender historian, a religious studies professor, and essayists. There is a plurality of lit-crit academics (from several continents, and not just full professors), but that’s all right. This is what they do for a living — convince other people to explore and love books that have been (unfairly) pushed to the margins ... a helpful and thoroughly enjoyable curated guide, perfect for quick bedside consumption. The volume will keep your reading list full for years to come, or it can simply serve as a reminder to be grateful for literature’s fertile nooks and crannies.
Anahid Nersessian
MixedThe Arts Fuse... a ham-fisted application of literary theory, a traditional work of literary exegesis on six sophisticated odes, and a personal narrative that alternately does and doesn’t directly relate to the poems ... Too often this study comes off like an acrimonious couple’s counseling session ... Nersessian weaponizes Keats’s delicate odes and turns them into blunt instruments to smash the bourgeoisie ... There’s no question that Nersessian has some ingenious, and often apt, applications of Marxist theory. Other times, however, the heavy-handed ideology drags down her prose ... Ironically, Nersessian is gifted at exactly the kind of formalist literary criticism Marxist critics of the ’70s and ’80s fought so hard to discredit. This analysis is seldom central to her argument, but she makes a great many perceptive observations ... Nersessian has a fine ear as well, and she often finds meaningful rhetorical justifications for Keats’s sibilants, open vowel sounds, and alliterations. But she isn’t hypnotized by Keats’s technique, either. She will call it out when it is overcooked or strained ... She isn’t afraid of bringing her educated, loving, and damaged self (or at least the persona of one) into the discussion ... At times, these moments are powerful and revealing. But I must confess I sometimes struggled to see (or was reluctant to participate in) how these confessions were supposed to help me understand Keats’s odes ... but it’s a start on an exciting new approach to criticism.
