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34th out of 449 books
—
385 voters
Inferno
by
Eileen Myles
From its beginning—“My English professor’s ass was so beautiful.”—to its end—“You can actually learn to have grace. And that’s heaven.”—poet, essayist and performer Eileen Myles’ chronicle transmits an energy and vividness that will not soon leave its readers. Her story of a young female writer, discovering both her sexuality and her own creative drive in the meditative an...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
October 15th 2010
by OR Books
(first published November 2008)
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i remember reading some kim gordon interview where she said rock and roll was paying to watch someone else be free. poetry is the same thing but no one pays and it's more personal and pure because, frankly, no one gives a fuck.
except. except.
this messy, score-settling, no-longer-pure-but-still pure memoir has some heft to it. both the heft of trying for decades worth of personal history and also like it was meant to be done right. unrushed. yet it also has myles' great openness, as if it really...more
except. except.
this messy, score-settling, no-longer-pure-but-still pure memoir has some heft to it. both the heft of trying for decades worth of personal history and also like it was meant to be done right. unrushed. yet it also has myles' great openness, as if it really...more
One reaches for some version of the hackneyed phrase: so perfect in its imperfection. My astonishment, for myself anyway, feels new: I can't remember the last time I loved a work of literature that's so MESSY. I think the 3 parts stand better on their own than together, but Myles has so much swagger that if she says these are her inferno, puragatorio, and paradiso, I buy it.
The great (perhaps healing) joy of Inferno is hearing a woman say EXACTLY the things I have needed to say for as long as I...more
The great (perhaps healing) joy of Inferno is hearing a woman say EXACTLY the things I have needed to say for as long as I...more
I had to read this for class, and of all the assigned novels it was the one I most expected to like. But it's the one I like the least.
It's not fiction, for starters, and that bugs me in a class for writing fiction. The author is a poet and it's the story of her poetic life. I am not that literary a writer. I am not overly-enamored of literary events. Just the same way I suppose I prefer musicals to straight plays; I am easily bored.
This book has a very long chapter detailing readings the autho...more
It's not fiction, for starters, and that bugs me in a class for writing fiction. The author is a poet and it's the story of her poetic life. I am not that literary a writer. I am not overly-enamored of literary events. Just the same way I suppose I prefer musicals to straight plays; I am easily bored.
This book has a very long chapter detailing readings the autho...more
I loved Inferno because to me it represents a perfect antidote—a kind of artistic redemption—to the depressing tedium that so often accompanies two-dimensional declarations of being gay in a civil rights era. To read Inferno, in which Myles decides to become a poet and a lesbian (or to re-invent herself, which I believe is why it’s called a “novel” and not a memoir)—and she uses the word “career” to describe both choices, which is painful, hilarious, and not exactly PC in the manner of much of t...more
Much like my experience with highly-praised movies, I opened Inferno expecting to be absorbed in a captivating and innovative narrative. Innovative, well, yes (there is, after all, an 84-page section guised as a grant application; why Myles uses that particular lens, I'm not terribly certain) and the writing follows unpredictable threads that sometimes halt right when a reader expects development. The highlights, for me, included the final sections of the book, which seem to focus more on the de...more
i've been reading this while watching the housewives of orange county -it's an interesting mix.
Finished! what a book! unlike anything else i've read this is almost like beyond literature! It's a mixture of poetry and memoir and yet is called 'a poet's novel' - alison bechdel calls it a 'shimmering document'.
so it's great and meditative and without a linear narrative, it was hard not to think of Patti Smith's 'Just Kids' while reading this as it covers a similar time period and place - it mentio...more
Finished! what a book! unlike anything else i've read this is almost like beyond literature! It's a mixture of poetry and memoir and yet is called 'a poet's novel' - alison bechdel calls it a 'shimmering document'.
so it's great and meditative and without a linear narrative, it was hard not to think of Patti Smith's 'Just Kids' while reading this as it covers a similar time period and place - it mentio...more
I had not read any of Eileen's work before but was so impressed with this book i'm sure I will in the future! She has a wonderful eye for detail, you get under her skin in this book, it's a biography of sorts but the kind of biography I love, it doesn't just take you through the day to day, it delves into the mind, the thoughts that are running through her brain as she deals with life in New York in the 70s. She lives in an apartment in New York, meets the great and good who reside there, It alw...more
I don't want to say too much because I want you to read it. I will say it Has a Part at the End. When I was done reading the Part I closed the book and hit it five times against the wall. It damn near killed me. You will see.
RIP Lola
1986-2010
"Myles, Eileen. Inferno: A Poet's Novel. (2010) pp228-236"
RIP Lola
1986-2010
"Myles, Eileen. Inferno: A Poet's Novel. (2010) pp228-236"
"Everything was pathetic and it wouldn't stop. I'm a mess. And I could show how that looked. I resigned myself to continuous movement. Like I'm drawing. Like if there is "a form" it exists independent of me, or else I'm complicit in it. I'm wandering in it. Underlining. Changing horses all the time. And each decision left a mark.
And I lay there in the hot New York night writing my poem to Alice, to Susie, to everyone I knew--about being--not in literature, not in relation to some historical for...more
And I lay there in the hot New York night writing my poem to Alice, to Susie, to everyone I knew--about being--not in literature, not in relation to some historical for...more
This is a moving memoir I'd call literature. It is full of memorable psychological insight, plainspoken, inevitable prose, surprising candor, and even some humor. "Inferno" reveals the nuts and bolts of Myles's poetry. It is a coming out story set mostly in downtown NYC where she lived and crafted her writing. This book affirms her estimable wisdom. The cover pencil drawing was at first inexplicable, but its meaning unfolded with the reading. Recommended for anyone curious about this woman-about...more
I loved the first section of this book. Funny and thought-provoking and evocative. I devoured it on an airplane. I laughed out loud. I underlined and asterisked in the margins. I told people about how good it was. But I was a little nervous to continue -- I had a sinking feeling that I would be disappointed by the later sections. And I was. But then, towards the end, it got good again. Occasionally the style reminded me of Gertrude Stein (in her more cogent moments). There were hysterical moment...more
When I first started reading this book, I was a little nonplussed -- it seemed a little self-consciously Bohemian, and I honestly didn't have a lot of interest in the protagonist's fascination with her English professor's anatomy. But the more I read the book, the more I became fascinated with what Myles was doing. The book resonates with overtones of Gertrude Stein, and it works as a dual "coming of age" story for the protagonist as a lesbian and as a poet. Over all, it was an interesting and f...more
this is such a good read for a time in my life where I am trying to figure out how to be a poet. here are some quotations I like from it about poetry so I can save them and also return this to the library because it's due tomorrow:
p. 52: "Poetry readings were like early teevee in that everyone had their own little show. Though teevee got more sophisticated (worse) poetry never did. It remains stupid, run by fools. It's the only way to hold it open."
p. 108: "I mean and I would definitely say poet...more
p. 52: "Poetry readings were like early teevee in that everyone had their own little show. Though teevee got more sophisticated (worse) poetry never did. It remains stupid, run by fools. It's the only way to hold it open."
p. 108: "I mean and I would definitely say poet...more
I mean, what can I say about this book? I wanted to underline every second paragraph or so. EM combines a natural facility for storytelling, hooky, humorous anecdote, and the intellectual & metaphysical brilliance one would expect from a poet of her stature. But what is especially excellent about this book, the factor that will make it worth returning to, is its risky quality - its refusal to stick to a linear narrative, its depiction of a life lived around corners - the suggestion that this...more
I quite liked this amorphic, slippery little book. Although it wobbled about with it's free-form structure lack-of-structure; it managed to never collapse under itself. It was like an engorged clit. Or a jellyfish on steroids. Slippery; because there's a good five to ten pages towards the end that are saturated with pussy; clits and labia, you'll know it when you hit it, hold on tight. There was one spectacular line elsewhere, "(...) and his pretty little asshole was like a bud when Rene found h...more
The subtitle "A Poet's Novel" makes me wonder what makes it different from say, "a novelist's novel" or "an artist's novel." Is it the gonzo approach to grammar, flow, story, and dialogue? Hmmm. Maybe that's it. Myles plays/writes using her own rules. If I were her editor I think my head would explode (after about 20 pages, I probably would realize: Oh, this is art. This is uneditable. This is freaking Eileen Myles!).
I like how this is essentially a memoir with the N-word ("novel") attached to i...more
I like how this is essentially a memoir with the N-word ("novel") attached to i...more
It wasn't as amazing as i'd hoped, with the writing hard to follow sometimes. But i love a memoir about queers and artists floating through certain eras of bohemia. I read this around the same time as i read Just Kids, by Patti Smith, and it was a great complement, in terms of perspective. I sometimes wish Myles was a little less of a funny combination of hater and name-dropper (is that the right way to say it?). Nonetheless, it was very much worth the read.
this poety/prose mash-up works beautifully, except when it doesn't. there are some poingnant, astonshing passages but, in my opionion, some sections really should have been fleshed out some more. in hindsight, i wish i would have read this alongside patti smith's just kids.
"nope, i am destoryed. a shattered boat of a person. a broken window here, a lousy bell there. a crappy old dyke with half of brain leaking a book. a drippy excrescene. a schmear." p. 143
"nope, i am destoryed. a shattered boat of a person. a broken window here, a lousy bell there. a crappy old dyke with half of brain leaking a book. a drippy excrescene. a schmear." p. 143
Dec 17, 2010
Ariel
added it
I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. The meandering narrative made it hard for me to put it down, but not necessarily in a good way. More of a this is making me anxious and I don't know where it's going so I can't stop kind of a way. Glad I read it though. Plus the last page really spoke to me. I have a hard time leaving parties too. Eileen Myles thinks a poem is like a party. I think a lot of things are like a party.
Inferno (a Poet’s Novel), Eileen Myles, electronic
This “novel” had all the pitfalls of Patti Smith’s memoir of a year or two ago: name dropping, an inert narrative line, self-absorption. I did not find the artistic musing and questioning engaging, though bits of the scene portraits (like, St. Mark’s in the Bowery, down the street from my father’s E. Tenth St apt) were intrinsically interesting.
This “novel” had all the pitfalls of Patti Smith’s memoir of a year or two ago: name dropping, an inert narrative line, self-absorption. I did not find the artistic musing and questioning engaging, though bits of the scene portraits (like, St. Mark’s in the Bowery, down the street from my father’s E. Tenth St apt) were intrinsically interesting.
Eileen Myles's occasionally stream-of-consciousness memoir novel is a snapshot of many things: the New York poetry scene in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, episodes in slutiness, the authors coming out as a lesbian (in which she describes her first three pussies, literally, in detail), and the development of her poetic temperament. It's a coming-of-age story with a style that takes some getting used to; Myles tends to end anecdotes with other anecdotes, then later pick up where she left off, and on and o...more
Loved this! It's so stylistically disparate that it feels like a document of different modes of writing throughout Myles's life. Not necessarily a bad thing though. It's hard for me to read it and not idealize her artistic mania. She says she often treats her life as research for writing--just "grist for the mill."
Aug 22, 2012
Bonnie Clas
marked it as to-read
I illustrated the alternate cover for this publication (which you'll see Myles use for readings) and my friend Steve designed the lovely cover displayed here. I can't WAIT to read this book. I've begun it through eBook format, but I don't want to hinder my experience with it so I'm waiting until I buy an actual copy.
A book full of stubborn brilliance and insight on art, sex, queerness, money, and poetry. I loved it so much that after reading it I wrote to Myles and asked if I could interview her for The Rumpus. (Results here: http://therumpus.net/2011/04/the-rump... )
This was really really good... the style/content (except for the queerness) reminded me a lot of patti smith, but without the sheen of nostalgia that seemed to cover smith's work. Basically, it's like patti smith but less pretty, more real, and I liked that a lot.
Here is a lesbian poet finding herself as a poet and a lesbian in New York (mostly East Village) in the early 1970s (in the golden time before cell phones and Facebook). It’s a lot more fun than you might think.
Eileen Myles is not giving it up easy here (and just in case you missed that but for some reason are still reading, she sort of points it out in the second half) but provides ample award for hanging on.
Nov 13, 2010
Liza
added it
I read this because I heard it had a lot of sex in it, and due to some kind of error the publisher sent it to me for free. Other times I tried to read Eileen Myles I couldn't get past the feeling that she was full of it in the bad way, but in this book she seemed more sympathetic because there are parts about being young and not knowing a lot, and there is that great line about being an old crappy dyke with half a brain leaking a book. There wasn't as much sex as I was hoping but still some pret...more
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i'm so tired and because of this i nearly became tired again, breathless, not in the tired exhausted way i've been but more like this kind of boosted me with the sort of energy as if you've done something, you're doing something, and because of that now you're full of the exhaustion that comes of doing something if not totally satisfactory and right but something large, something at all, because you need to, because what else is there to do.
A - Just great…typical Myles abt her life. Great funny sense of humor. At times it seems it goes all over the place…but really entertaining and great.
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| AfterEllen.com Bo...: Discussion space for Inferno. | 2 | 42 | Nov 07, 2012 11:53am |
Eileen Myles (born 1949, Cambridge, Massachusetts) is probably America's best-known unofficial poet. Her latest book is Sorry, Tree in which she describes “some nature” as well as the transmigration of souls from the east coast to the west. Bust Magazine calls Myles "the rock star of modern poetry" and Holland Cotter in The New York Times describes her as "a cult figure to a generation of post-pun...more
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“All the details of my life were in exact order and yet I was tumbling in them-out of order like a tremendous wave had hit me and I was thrown off the ship and I awoke or dreaming, or dead I knew not-no I couldn't speak.”
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3 people liked it
“The poet’s life is just so much crenellated waste, nights and days whipping swiftly or laboriously past the cinematic window. We’re hunched and weaving over the keys of our green our grey or pink blue manual typewriter maybe a darker stone cold thoritative selectric with its orgasmic expectant hum and us popping pills and laughing over what you or I just wrote, wondering if that line means insult or sex. Or both. Usually both.”
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2 people liked it
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Oct 13, 2010 01:47pm
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