RaveThe RumpusCole has taken the nonfiction forms he steeped himself in to create a new authorial presence—one who mixes and is mixed up by autofiction, postcolonial rumination, and political discourse ... Cole’s trademark meditative, descriptive ramblings remain ... The novelistic strength of Tremor lies more in rhetoric like this than its drama ... Cole has taken the tragedy of a transcontinental survivalist to spin a narrative that transcends the conventional perimeters of a novel.
Maggie Nelson
MixedThe RumpusIt’s a brave yet difficult undertaking, difficult because this is a tough treatise to like. Not only is the subject matter enervating—I often put the book down, worn out by the constant knife edge of violent images—but I struggle with Nelson’s ambivalence as the end-all of her enthrallment. She offers only occasional judgments, no consensus, no classification. Sadly, the absence of any structured groundwork or conclusions about many aesthetic and cultural questions feels like a missed opportunity ... Though I understand Nelson’s style of exemplification—let the pieces and their horror speak for themselves—I was left with no broader understanding. Most of all I wanted her to pull back and provide some pragmatic analysis. What are the consequences of such violence in art, not just in her but in the culture? ... By the book’s end, I sensed a trade-off: I was more aware of this art’s disturbing purposefulness and less willing to sit with its pummeling whether by the artist or the critic. Which may be the (double) value of her book. An education in, and a flight from, distaste.
