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Portrait of My Body
Phillip Lopate's richest and most ambitious bookyet--the final volume of a trilogy that began withBachelorhood and AgainstJoie de Vivre--Portrait of MyBody is a powerful memoir in the form ofinterconnected personal essays. One of America'sforemost essayists, who helped focus attention onthe form in his acclaimed anthology TheArt of the Personal Essay, Lopatedemonstrates he...more
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
September 15th 1997
by Anchor
(first published 1996)
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Jun 12, 2009
Peter Weissman
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
readers who like personal essays
I liked Lopate's Against Joie de Vivre enough to purchase Portrait of My Body a few weeks later. Again, Lopate delves into himself and presents his findings with self-deprecation, where warranted, and assertion, even indignance, where it makes sense. It's a pleasure to find someone who expresses himself so well and with such uncommon sense.
If his essays have a flaw, it's in his overaffection for the past. Lopate knows this aspect of himself, and says as much: the desire to dwell in rich remembra...more
If his essays have a flaw, it's in his overaffection for the past. Lopate knows this aspect of himself, and says as much: the desire to dwell in rich remembra...more
I must have been coming off one of my gas-huffing binges when I bought this book. Because I can't otherwise explain why the idea of a middle-aged Jewish writer rhapsodizing about his penis -- 'it has a brown stem and a pink mushroom head' -- would have appealed to me. Lopate doesn't merely gaze at his navel - he sticks his finger in and takes a good long, contented sniff ('a very ripe, underground smell', in case you were wondering).
Didn't some French guy named Montaigne already do this, like, 5...more
Didn't some French guy named Montaigne already do this, like, 5...more
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A wonderfully droll, poignant and ultimately inspiring book by a master of the personal essay! So witty and wise, very funny and never sentimental. Lopate's heart shines throughout though, especially in the last essays when his bachelorhood is revoked and his child is born.
Retrato de mi Cuerpo
Traducción de Ana Marimón Driben
Ediciones Tumbona.
Traducción de Ana Marimón Driben
Ediciones Tumbona.
I feel as if I should be stoned for giving PLo only 2 stars. I mean, I am a non-fictioner, right? And he's the god of the personal essay, or at least one of the major ones. But, I found him to be so self-centered and could not draw any kernel of meaning from his essays, nothing to tuck in my pocket and carry forward with me.
A fascinating example of how to be brutally honest without being crude.
I found this book randomly at the library and really enjoyed the essays!
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Phillip Lopate is the author of three personal essay collections, two novels, two poetry collections, a memoir of his teaching experiences, and a collection of his movie criticism. He has edited the following anthologies, and his essays, fiction, poetry, film and architectural criticism have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Essays, The Paris Review, Harper's, Vogue, E...more
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