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The Reenactments
by
Nick Flynn
For Nick Flynn, that game we all play—the who-would-play-you-in-the-movie-of-your-life game—has been answered. The Reenactments is the story of adapting Flynn's memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, into a film called Being Flynn. It is also a searing meditation on consciousness, representation, and grief. Flynn describes the surreal experience of being on set durin...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
January 7th 2013
by W. W. Norton & Company
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This is one of the most intense books I have ever read. But it's almost like it isn't trying to be intense; it's written in these short little snips—a quote here, a paragraph there, a page and a half next—flowing from subject to subject, at a constant remove, an increasing-then-releasing philosophical distance, twisting in and around on itself (what a perfect cover design, BTW), yanking you into and out of its intensity so many times that it leaves you breathless.
This is Nick Flynn's memoir of...more
This is Nick Flynn's memoir of...more
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I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.
Having not read the original memoir I was unsure what to expect. This is a delightful series of short entries of the author on set of the making of the movie of his previous memoir! It is am engaging read with quick passages. It almost feels you are a part of the process. Now that I finished the book I think I need to check out the movie...and his first memoir!
Having not read the original memoir I was unsure what to expect. This is a delightful series of short entries of the author on set of the making of the movie of his previous memoir! It is am engaging read with quick passages. It almost feels you are a part of the process. Now that I finished the book I think I need to check out the movie...and his first memoir!
I think is my favorite prose work by Nick Flynn. The book is written on so many levels that I am certain that each time I read it I will see something new (and learn something new about myself).
The chapters are all very short - the longest being maybe four pages and shortest being only a few words. If you have read all of his non-fiction, you can see a progression and a synthesis of style "The Reenactments," which uses the making of "Being Flynn" as the unifying element into which he weaves memo...more
The chapters are all very short - the longest being maybe four pages and shortest being only a few words. If you have read all of his non-fiction, you can see a progression and a synthesis of style "The Reenactments," which uses the making of "Being Flynn" as the unifying element into which he weaves memo...more
Genius. I think Nick Flynn is my spirit animal.
Flynn's third memoir is a meta-meta narrative that ostensibly is about the experience of turning his first memoir (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City--a brilliant book) into a film. One thematic strand looks intellectually at memory, perception, reality and self; a second strand relates events on the film set and the "making" of a certain (non)reality; a third more thin layer adds story about his life--his father's alcoholism and his relationship with his father, and more importantly, his mothe...more
as with nick flynn's other major prose works, the reenactments is a compelling, vignette-style memoir. flynn's 2004 another bullshit night in suck city was adapted into a film (being flynn) earlier this year, starring robert de niro, julianne moore, and paul dano as the young poet. the reenactments recounts flynn's time spent on set during production, where he engaged with the actors and witnessed the dramatized retelling of two of his life's most consequential events (meeting his father at a ho...more
I think Nick Flynn is a remarkable writer. I recommend his book(s) without reservation simply because his turns of phrase, his minimalist style, and his thoughtfulness always impress me. And yet, I reluctantly give this book two stars because I couldn’t connect with it like I did his two previous memoirs. I couldn’t picture the Agassiz exhibits that housed such a large portion of his childhood memories. I wasn’t enamored with the glass flowers, or as intrigued by how the mind is shaped by memori...more
This is my favorite kind of memoir: made of fragment and juxtaposition and memory. The premise of this book, Flynn watches a movie being made of his earlier memoir, could be a solipsistic hall of mirrors, but it's not. He escapes narcissism by meditating on absence and artifice, by thinking, piece by piece, about how memory, loss, and obsession work.
The writing is, of course, beautiful and lyrical and poetic. I love the fragments from brain science and psychology and art.
A few of the fragments...more
The writing is, of course, beautiful and lyrical and poetic. I love the fragments from brain science and psychology and art.
A few of the fragments...more
This is a stunning book in many ways. Flynn takes the mega-meta concept of writing about a movie about his memoir and makes it feel like he (and anyone who's read his great memoir, Another Bullshit Night In Suck City) is falling down his own personal rabbit hole all over again. I love the parts where he is trying to tell his dad about Robert De Niro playing him in the movie, and I also loved the part where he impulsively reaches out and hugs Julianne Moore. On the downside, I feel like the chapt...more
I've never read anything like "The Reenactments," Nick Flynn's memoir about the making of "Being Flynn," which was based on his book "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" (possibly the most compelling title ever...)
Flynn combines the surreal nature of watching a movie being made about some of the most tragic moments of his life, while reliving those moments--while reading philosophical and scientific studies on the nature of memory. It all gets jumbled up into a gumbo that's part memoir, part ph...more
Flynn combines the surreal nature of watching a movie being made about some of the most tragic moments of his life, while reliving those moments--while reading philosophical and scientific studies on the nature of memory. It all gets jumbled up into a gumbo that's part memoir, part ph...more
I am a big fan of Nick Flynn. I still remember the first time I read "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City", it was an ARC, and I was in Chicago at a book convention. The publisher who gave me the book said it would stay with my long after I finished it... and here I am now, almost 10 years later and it did. This is a fine follow-up, and a great rounding out of the trilogy of memoirs. I really recommend it, and all of Flynn's other work (a fine poet too!).
I really enjoyed Nick Flynn's writing style, but I ultimately found that the book was unrelatable, as it concerned the author's experience in watching his life story made into a film. I have seen this movie, "Being Flynn", and loved it so, so, so much, so it made the book at times interesting, but I ended up thinking that I should have just read "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" (the book the movie is based on) instead.
A fascinating, lyrical reflection on the author's life, memories of that life, and the writing and filming that allowed him to re-experience those memories. Flynn wraps his mind around the complexities of difficult subject matter (the suicide of his mother, his father's homelessness, his own psychological obstacles, the movie Being Flynn--which is about all of this) with candor, philosophical and scientific scrutiny, as well as poetic beauty. This book will make you think in ways you normally do...more
Once again Nick Flynn manages somehow to use a memoir as the starting point and core of something so much bigger and more profound. Such a shame that the film "Being Flynn" had little or no theatrical release here in Australia. "The Reenactments" completes the triptych that Flynn began with "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" and "The Ticking is the Bomb", pausing only to offer us another book of poems, "The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands". Read them all, read everything he writes, it's that...more
Probably the best book I'll read in 2013. In the trifecta with Another Bullshit Night in Suck City and The Ticking is the Bomb. Nick Flynn is the most important poet-turned-essayist working right now. And maybe my favorite nonfiction writer.
Page 62 is my favorite page in any of his books.
Page 62 is my favorite page in any of his books.
It took me a while to find my way in this. The first 100 or so pages seem so random. A random collection of quotes, thoughts, remembrances. I was longing for something to connect the thoughts.
Flynn does connect things. His tales of the film shoot, weave with his remembrances, his studies on consciousness and grief and representation, and his current life. He presents his emotional journey in stark detail and with a bare honesty.
Flynn does connect things. His tales of the film shoot, weave with his remembrances, his studies on consciousness and grief and representation, and his current life. He presents his emotional journey in stark detail and with a bare honesty.
An extended meditation/poetic memoir on Suck City's movie adaptation. Feels like a companion piece to the original memoir, but remains filled with wonderful ideas organized in a neat fashion. While I loved the book, I wouldn't have appreciated it nearly as much had I not read Suck City.
I won this as a first book and I was impressed. Nick Flynn beautifully articulates the reliving and grief he experienced writing and filming his life. The role of the mind and memory through out the book captures things everyone has felt. I will read his other books.
A deeply affecting book, perhaps Flynn's most fully realized prose work.
Mar 15, 2013
Mills College Library
added it
811.54 F6487r 2013
A wonderful poetic grouping of thoughts, ideas and stories on life, death and memory.
May 17, 2013
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Nick Flynn is an American poet, memoirist, and playwright.
His most recent book is The Ticking Is The Bomb, a memoir about awaiting his first child while simultaneously learning and fighting against American torture during the Iraq War.
Flynn's had written one play, Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins. His most famous book is a memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. He has publi...more
More about Nick Flynn...
His most recent book is The Ticking Is The Bomb, a memoir about awaiting his first child while simultaneously learning and fighting against American torture during the Iraq War.
Flynn's had written one play, Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins. His most famous book is a memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. He has publi...more
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