Chiasson, Dan

Force of Nature [from The New Yorker]

September 12, 2016

"Her images tend to thwart the mind--which keeps rusty handles and voices in separate boxes--in a direct appeal to the senses."

Oswald is a remarkable, often very odd describer. Flies drop in scores from their "winter quarters in the curtains / and sizzle as they fall": the obligatory "z" sounds imitate their buzzing, but the word "sizzle" adds an unsettling association with breakfast. Wood doves "start up litigations in the trees"; crows have "rusty voice-handles"; a snail is the "speechless tongue / of one who is introverted and clings to leaves." Her images tend to thwart the mind--which keeps rusty handles and voices in separate boxes--in a direct appeal to the senses. Or she builds so much weird, psychological subplot into them that they fly loose of whatever they're allegedly describing. [...]
(p. 79)

Container::Boxes

Reading

Dan Chiasson, "Force of Nature," The New Yorker (September 12, 2016). Print.

Titled "Alice Oswald's Natural Terrors" online (September 12, 2016). <Link to newyorker.com>

09/15/2016