My Life (Green Integer Books, 39)
by Lyn Hejinian
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of My Life.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
This book is not in any lists. Go add it to a list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 311)
Read in April, 2007
An interesting, very heady read. I read it quickly for school and dashed off a response paper, so I didn't get a lot out of it. There are many beautiful images and sentence fragments but I didn't get a sense of coherence from the work as a whole. I respect Hejinian's craft, but at the same time, I'm not likely to pick up the book again anytime soon because it seems so formidable and intellectual. I'd be interested to hear what other people got out of it, other than the fact that she counted sent...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
If you ever get the chance (and the time), this really should be read in conjunction with the original... The ways in which additions (to earlier sections) and the growth (of the whole) take place are breathtaking. My Life in the Nineties, while lovely in its own right, is an unfortunate departure from the original project, or so I think... Hopefully we'll get a magnum opus My Life, an efflorescence of memory and meaningfulness, soon...
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
I love the sheer imagistic and synesthetic beauty of the first sentence,
"A moment yellow, just as four years later, when my father returned home from the war, the moment of greeting him, as he stood at the bottom of the stairs, younger, thinner than when he had left, was purple--though moments are no longer so colored."
"A moment yellow, just as four years later, when my father returned home from the war, the moment of greeting him, as he stood at the bottom of the stairs, younger, thinner than when he had left, was purple--though moments are no longer so colored."
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2007
I love this book. It was alot of fun to re-read it. Hejinian's attention to sentences, her use of repetition, piling of sentences without heavy accumulation--all of it is very nice. As she writes, "A fragment is not a fraction but a whole piece." That is what it is like to read this book. Yay!
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in June, 2008
this little booklet is so brilliant that i feel the intense urge to underline everything...or place a remarkable indication dot on the ends of each beginning and end...as i do for only certain portions of other works i read. these are the ways in which i dream of writing...
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
recommends it for:
postmodern poets
This peice of art inspires and prompts me to write. It is of Hejinian's poetic autobiography, personal narrative, a woman's fiction, and an ongoing dialogue with the poet and her experience. She reveals an artist at work, and I feel one-of-the-same. ONE OF MY FAVES!!
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Hejinian is a master poet. You must go int this collection with zero expectations, she is a Language Poet and writes emphasizing the readers role in interpreting and bringing meaning to what she has written.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
recommends it for:
anyone who has a soul
if you don't like postmodernism, you'll be annoyed. if you do like postmodernism, you'll fall in love.
this little, litte, little book is amazing, but it is not for the faint of heart or mind.
this little, litte, little book is amazing, but it is not for the faint of heart or mind.
Like this review?
yes
1 comments
Almost done but I don't know if I'll ever finish this. It's prose poetry -- and I originally thought it was translated from Swedish, but no, it's just prose poetry.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
my life is a fantastic foray into language poetry. Sometimes I read pages at a time while at other times a sentence is all I need.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This book was very influential to my own writing. I am grateful to have read it and to have it on my shelf.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 2007
Absolutely brilliant. This is maybe my favorite book ever.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 4.44 (245 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 4.43 (223 ratings) number of reviews: 14popular shelves
other editions
quote
"People must flatter their own eyes with their pathetic lives. The things I was saying followed logically the things that I had said before, yet bore no relation to what I was thinking and feeling."
more quotes »