Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy

by Mark Doty

Although at first glance this slim volume appears to be a quick read, it should be lingered over and reread to uncover the full depth of its beauty and insight. Combining memoir with artistic and philosophical musings, the poet and National Book Critics Circle Award winner (for My Alexandria) begins by confessing his obsession with the 17th-century Dutch still life that serves as the title of this book. As he analyzes the items depicted in the painting, he skillfully introduces his thoughts on our intimate relationships to objects and subsequently explains how they are often inextricably bound to the people and places of an individual lifetime. Further defined by imperfections attained from use, each object from an aging oak table to a chipped blue and white china platter forms a springboard for reflection. Doty intersperses personal reminiscences throughout, but he always returns to the subject of still-life painting and its silent eloquence. Doty's observations on balance, grief, beauty, space, love, and time are imparted with wisdom and poetic grace.


Books like this, that address the sources of creation and the sources of our humanness, come along once in a decade. -Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

"This small book is as wise, sensitive, intense, and affecting as anything I have read in recent years." -Doris Grumbach, author of Fifty Days of Solitude

"A gem." -Library Journal

"Mark Doty's prose is insistently exploratory, yet every aside, every detour, turns into pertinence, and it all seems effortless, as though the author were wondering, and marveling, aloud." -Bernard Cooper, author of Truth Serum

"A dazzling accomplishment, its radiance bred of lucid attention and acute insight. The subject is the profoundly personal act of perception translated into description. Doty succeeds in rendering this most contemplative of arts-the still life-into a riveting drama." -Patricia Hampl, author of I Could Tell You Stories

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Essays, Poetry, Memoir, Philosophy, Art History

70 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Mark Doty is a poet, essayist, and memoirist. He is the author of ten books of poetry, including Deep Lane and Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the National Book Award. He lives in New York, New York.

Reviews

[Candi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief but wonderful visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for my daughter’s birthday a couple of months ago inspired me to finally pick up this slim book from the shelf. I had several blissful moments alone in the gallery on Easter Sunday to stand in front of Still Life with Oysters, a Silver Tazza, and Glassware, painted by Willem Claesz Heda in 1635. Mark Doty, the writer of this eloquent, extended essay stood in front of a different still life painting, but no matter. Reading his contemplative words several weeks later made me feel a connection to this man whom I’ve never met. No doubt he would agree that this is one of the many intents of the still life artist.

“It is the medium in which I and my fellow citizens move. We are all moving, just now, in the light that has come toward me through a canvas the size of a school notebook; we are all walking in the light of a wedge of lemon, four oysters, a half-glass of wine, a cluster of green grapes with a few curling leaves still attached to their stem. This light is enough to reveal us as we are, bound together, in the warmth and good light of habitation, in the good and fleshly aliveness of us.”

Mark Doty ties art, and still life in particular, to ideas of memory and home. There’s a beautiful section about his beloved grandmother, Mamaw. He recalls Mamaw with such affection, the reader can’t help but pause and remember a cherished, long gone relative or two as well. Houses and the objects held within them fascinate Doty. After returning to his grandmother’s home years later, his senses bring those sharp memories rushing back to him. This memory made me think of my aunt Lena and her little home near the apple orchard, a place where she hosted an annual family reunion. Doty’s words about Mamaw’s house, known to everyone else as Lona (nearly like Lena!) could have been written just for me and that little place by the orchard.

“… it was also the smell of the house, a subtle compound of the musty insides of drawers or the mildewing edges of old prints sealed in their heavy frames, and furniture polish, and PineSol, and rosewater, or odd bits of sachets stuffed into drawers, and of the sort of inexpensive bottles of scent favored by old country ladies, perhaps the tang of it smoked a little by the faint back-odor of bacon grease, too. I would like to have that scent now, in a bottle…”

Moving away from grandmothers, Doty also describes the intimacy of still life. They are about pleasure, connection, and things being caught in time and preserved for all to gaze upon. There’s often something erotic about them, particularly these oysters and lemons. Doty has now added a whole new dimension to my next excursion to the oyster bar or lemonade stand.

“They are, in a way, nudes, always in dishabille, partly undraped, the rind peeled away to allow our gaze further pleasure – to see the surface, and beneath that another surface. Often the pith is cut away as well, the fruit faceted so that we can see its wet translucence, a seed just beneath…”

I could go on and on and share one passage after another, but much like the art Doty talks about, his words are also to be experienced intimately. I felt such an affinity to his writing and his sensitivity towards the beauty of the everyday stuff of life. Do yourself a favor and take a few moments away from your own unending scramble with responsibility and time commitments to savor his words. You won’t be sorry!

“Still life. The deep pun hidden in the term: life with death in it, life after the knowledge of death, is, after all, still life.”

[Gelareh Askari · Rating 5 out of 5]

خیلی دوستش داشتم، دلم میخواست طولانی‌تر باشه. چقدر جذاب بود ارتباط بین ادبیات و نقاشی..

[sAmAnE · Rating 4 out of 5]

این کتاب رو به کسانی که به نقاشی علاقه دارند یا نقاش هستند، پیشنهاد میکنم، خیلی المان‌های جذابی از ارتباط هنر و بخصوص نقاشی با ادبیات داشت...
کلا این دست از کتاب‌های نشر گمان خیلی خوبن.

[Shaghayegh · Rating 4 out of 5]

چی شد که خوندمش؟
من از عمق نگاه مأمن و پناه ادبیاتم یعنی مارسل پروست به این کتاب رسیدم. آلن دوباتن تو فصل چگونه چشمان خود را باز کنیم کتاب پروست چگونه می‌تواند زندگی شما را دگرگون کند از موزه‌های هلند میگه. عشق و علاقه‌ی چشمگیر پروست رو به نقاشی‌های ژان باتیست شاردن وصف می‌کنه. اینکه طبیعت بی‌جان و جزئیات بی‌اهمیت رو چقدر دوست داره. اشیائی که ازشون رد میشیم و نگاه ریزبینانه‌‌ای بهشون نمیندازیم. بعد با نوشتار مجموعه‌ی سترگش تطابق میده. که این نوع جهان‌بینی در زاویه‌ی دید راوی‌ای که خلق کرده وجود داره.
برای دلباخته‌ای مثل من، کنکاش و نزدیکی به پروست ضرورت داره. خوندن قلمش از سر فخرفروشی یا پر کردن عدد چالش وامونده نیست. من اسیر نگاه تأمل‌برانگیز و محشرش هستم که نظیر نداره. دوست دارم برای درک بیشتر، به کتاب‌هایی رجوع کنم که رنگ و بوی اون رو میدن. و این کتاب، بدون شک یکی از پیش‌نیازهای دل‌انگیز مجموعه‌ی در جستجوی زمان از دست رفته محسوب میشه.
چرا؟ چون عجین شدن ادبیات و نقاشی رو به صورت زندگی‌-نگاره نشون میده. نقاشی هم جزئی از کل توصیفات پروست به حساب میاد. کنکاش و دیدن ریزجزئیات یه تابلویی به سادگی جلد کتاب، میتونه شما رو کم‌کم با اونچه قراره در مجموعه ببینید مواجه کنه. پس اگه با یه تیر میخواین دو نشون بزنین، خوندن این کتاب میتونه مفید واقع شه. پروست هم اگه نخواین بخونین، بازم دلچسبه.

خاطرات اشیاء یتیم مانده
نمی‌دونم اقتضای سن به شمار میره یا از اول هم همین بودم. میل به نگهداری داشته‌های ریز و درشتم از بچگی شاید نشأت می‌گیره. وقتی که به خاطر کار پدر، نقل مکان‌های متعددی داشتیم و تو این حین کلی وسیله گم می‌شدن. جا می‌موندن و به سرنوشت نامعلومی دچار می‌شدن. یادمه یه بار کلی از کتاب‌هام رو تو این پروسه از دست دادم. کتاب‌هایی که سرشار از نقاشی بودن و رنگ‌هاشون برای سن و سال کودکیم، زیبا و ناب جلوه می‌کردن. بعد از اون ماجرا، یه مدت خوابشون رو می‌دیدم. به وقت بیداری، دلم لک می‌زد تا دوباره لمسشون کنم. ورقشون بزنم و بهشون خیره شم. شاید این اولین مواجهه‌ی من با از دست دادن باارزش‌ترین دارایی کودکیم بود. ترس این رو داشتم نکنه مستأجر بعدی باهاشون بد تا کنه و روانه‌ی سطل آشغال شن. سرنوشت تلخ سری انیمیشن داستان اسباب‌بازی‌ تکرار شه و مفهوم اون شی‌ء برای دیگری به اندازه‌ی من ارج و قرب نداشته باشه.
چند سال بعد، خودم تبدیل به همون کسی شدم که می‌تونست (شاید) بدترین بلا رو به سر چیزی بیاره که زمانی مفهوم خاصی برای صاحبش داشت. مرگ عزیزی منجر شد تو خونه‌ش جمع شیم و هر کسی یه تکه از اون خونه رو به یادگار برمیداشت. یکی بالشش رو می‌خواست. همون بالشی که همیشه پشتش بود و بوی اون رو میداد. اما حالا اینقدر شسته شده که دیگه بویی از گذشته و تن صاحب اصلی رو نمیده. فقط یه پوسته‌ای باقی مونده که یادآور سال‌های دوره. یا عصایی که داشت و بعدها به مدت کوتاهی باهاش شمشیربازی می‌کردیم. عصایی که تکیه‌گاه قدم‌های سستش بود. هم ضربه‌های ناشی از راه رفتن عزیز از دست رفته رو تحمل کرد و هم بازی‌های بچگانه‌ی من و خواهرم رو. اگه اون قادر به دیدن برخورد ما با میراثش بود، چه احساسی بهش دست میداد؟ به خصوص خونه‌ی قشنگ و دنجش که حالا شبیه یه متروکه‌ی غمناک شده.
راسیتش من می‌ترسم. از اینکه بعد از مرگ با داشته‌هام چه می‌کنن، قلبم رو می‌شکنه اما به هر حال این روند زندگیه و به فنا مبتلاییم. چه ما و چه چیزهایی که به یادگار میذاریم. گلدونی که ممکنه نوه‌مون بشکنه و دیگه به کار هم نیاد. عروسکی که تار و پودش به مرور مثل جسم آدمی تحلیل میره. کتابی که صفحاتش رنگ عوض می‌کنن. چه حسی بهشون دست میده وقتی بفهمن روایت پشتش چی بود؟

مارک دوتی به زیبایی از اهمیت روایت پشت پرده‌ی این طبیعت بی‌جان میگه. مثلا فرض بگیریم عروسک پاره پوره‌ای تو موزهٔ مرتبط با جنگ در معرض دید عموم قرار داره. وصف کنن که تو دست دخترکی بود که نازی منجر شد به کوره‌ی آدم‌‌سوزی سوق پیدا کنه. جاهایی که لباس عروسک مچاله شده، حاکی از درد اون دختر هست. اینکه از فرط گشنگی به عروسک چنگ میزده. یا رد خونی که به جا مونده حکایت از این میکنه که پارچه‌ی عروسک رو کمی کنده تا روی زخمش بذاره و تو این حین کمی از خونش هم ریخته شده. اگه کسی ندونه و عروسک رو در مکانی به جز موزه ببینه، شاید فکر کنه یه عروسکیه که از زباله سربرآورده. سس گوجه هم بهش مالیده شده و ارزش چندانی نداره. ولی وقتی بدونی که تو اردوگاه پناه دخترکی بوده، نوع نگاهت متلاشی میشه.
با خوندن کتاب، دلم خواست روایت اشیاء رو بنویسم. کتاب‌هایی که خریدم و بهم هدیه دادن (چون از فضای گودریدز خارج نشم). اینکه چطور به من رسیدن. چطور باهاشون وقت گذروندم. اون لکه‌ی چای واسه چی کنج کتاب ریخته شد. اون بخش چروک واسه ریختن اشکم بابت کدوم جمله بود. گل خشکیده‌ی وسط کتاب رو کی بهم داده بود و اون دست‌خط ابتدای کتاب متعلق به کی بود؟ می‌خوام اون من در جزء به جزء زندگیم پدیدار شه. بعد از من بفهمن که این قلم چه چیزهایی رو ثبت کرده. این دوربین به کجاها سفر کرده. این لباس برای چی رنگی به رو نداره و قابل استفاده هم نیست ولی بازم تو کشوم بوده. اینجوری شاید بیشتر زنده بمونم. بفهمن زمانی در میون این وسایل به زیستنم ادامه میدادم.

کتاب فقط به چندتا نقاشی و اینکه زیبایی در سادگی و از دست ندادن شادمانی‌های کوچکه اشاره نمی‌کنه‌. این فقط ظاهر قضیه‌ست تا بتونه حرفای مهمش رو انتقال بده. وابستگی، تعلق خاطر، میل به آزادی و رهایی، سوگواری، زیستن و تأمل لابه‌لای بازی رنگ و نور، عجین شدن نقاشی و ادبیات، خاطرات و تجربه‌ی زیستی خالق که در کنار هم یه کلاژ خاطره‌انگیز رو به ارمغان آورده. حقیقتا تجربه‌ی دلنشینی برام بود و اونجا که جملات پروست هم آورد، قلبم لرزید. چون برام محال ممکن بود دیدگاهت اینقدر ژرف و عمیق باشه و محبوبم رو نخونده باشی.

از ترجمه راضی بودم و لینک بعضی از نقاشی‌های کتاب هم در انتها قرار داده بود.

در نهایت از نیلوفر ممنونم که پایه بود و باهام همراهی کرد. لذت خوندن نظراتت توصیف ناپذیره. در ضمن، من هم داری عاشق نشر گمان میکنی.

[Mohammad · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب توصیف تابلوهای رنگ شده با مواد مرده است که سوژه شون اجسام ثابت ولی پرزرق و برقه. نویسنده هنرمندانه قاب تابلوها رو میشکافه و بهشون زندگی می بخشه و مفهوم اشیا رو بسط و شرح میده.
نکته جالب اینکه گذری بر خاطرات کودکی و بزرگسالیش داره و هنر نقاشان طبیعت بیجان رو با زندگی جاندار انسان ارتباط میده و خواننده رو شگفت زده میکنه. کار کتاب اینه که تابلوها را تبدیل به کلمه میکنه و از کلمات تولید شده تصاویر جدید و بدیع میسازه. این تصاویر در مرز باریک بین مرگ و زندگی حر��ت و خاطرات حضور و فقدان آدمها رو تداعی میکنند.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I have fallen in love with a painting. Though that phrase doesn't seem to suffice, not really--rather it's that I have been drawn into the orbit of a painting, have allowed myself to be pulled into its sphere by casual attraction deepening to something more compelling. I have felt the energy and life of the painting's will; I have been held there, instructed. And the overall effect, the result of looking and looking into its brimming surface as long as I could look, is love, by which I mean a sense of tenderness toward experience, of being held within an intimacy with the things of the world."

I have felt this way about a few special paintings. Knowing I was heading to NYC, I determined to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to search for this one. View it here, now called "Still Life with a Glass and Oysters:"

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...

I spend some time with this painting, really looking at the use of light and how the artist creates it. I look closely at the objects and how they relate to each other. I seek to find a new lens through which to see this work. And to pay close attention, not only to the details of this painting, but also to all the details of my world. I appreciate this reminder, this call to attention.

By the end of the first page of his essay/memoir Still Life with Oysters and Lemon Michael Doty has completely drawn me into his world. He looks at the intersction of art, poetry, and its role in our lives. I hear the stories of several cherished objects, how they connect to loved ones, and their signifcance in his life. These musings get me connecting to my own memories. Do we reflect on or treasure these small intimate moments?

After an afternoon at the Met, I can say I have a newfound appreciation for the still lifes of this time period and Doty has introduced me to the poetry of Constantine Cavafy. What more can one ask for on a beautiful fall day?

Publication 2001

[Barbara K · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Still". That word from the title of this book is now embedded within me in a distinctive way. I'm not particularly good at stillness these days. As I understand it, some people enjoy a release of pressure as they enter old age. They spend more time savoring the moment, cherishing time.

That has not been the case for me. When I run out of steam from the tasks (many of which are self-imposed) that make up my days I'm more likely to fall asleep than to sit in quiet contemplation.

Yesterday was different. Circumstances arranged themselves so that I was able to be calm for a few hours. As it happened, I selected the perfect book from my shelves to celebrate this moment, and settled into the perfect location, a chair with a view of the lush display of azaleas left to us by the prior owner of this property. It was as if that floral connection was ordered up by some divine hand.

Just as those 17th century Dutch artists seemed to apply each stroke of the brush with cautious precision, so has Mark Doty written this book of reflections with tender care. His gifts as a poet inhabit each page - each sentence, actually. He moves seamlessly from intimate descriptions of the qualities of those still lifes to recollections of objects in his own life that seem to possess similar values.

Quotable passages abound, but I'm selecting only this one:

Deep paradox: things placed right next to us, in absolute intimacy, yet unknowable. Full of history, but their history is mute; full of associations with particular people, moments, gestures, emotions, and all those associations unavailable now, nothing left of them but a residue, as if accumulated feeling could dissipate into the air, into a haze or vapor of human presence.

And perhaps that's another of the paintings' secrets: they satisfy so deeply because they offer us intimacy and distance at once, allow us to be both here and gone."

It could be that I was particularly susceptible to Doty's messages because I have always felt the pull of those Dutch still lifes. But I don't think so. His observations are freely available to anyone who takes the time to read slowly and contemplate. I am so grateful that I did.

Upon reflection I see that in this review I've written more about how I responded to the book than about the book. I think Doty would be OK with that.

[Hossein · Rating 5 out of 5]

یکی از لطیف‌ترین و شاعرانه‌ترین کتاب‌هایی بود که این اواخر خواندم. تجربه‌ی خواندنش برایم به شکلی عجیب و دوگانه پیش رفت؛ بیشتر صفحاتش در روزهایی خوانده شد که پس‌زمینه‌ی زندگی‌ام اخبار جنگ بود و همین موضوع، لذتی را که می‌بردم تبدیل می‌کرد به احساسی از شرم و گناه؛ که انگار در آن لحظات باید کتابی می‌خواندم از جنس «خنده‌ی سرخ» یا یکی از روایت‌های الکسیویچ -و نه چنین متن آرام و شفاف و نرمی که از هنر و حضور زندگی در جزئیات روزمره می‌گوید.
اما درست در همین تناقض بود که کتاب برایم معنای عمیق‌تری یافت. نگاه نویسنده به نقاشی‌ها، به خاطرات، به گذر زمان و به فقدان، مثل نوازش بود.
از طرفی نمی‌شد بیش از چند صفحه را یک‌نفس خواند. هر خط کتاب مجالی می‌خواست برای تأمل و نشستن در ذهن. دلم می‌خواست پشت سر هم همه‌اش را بخوانم، اما زبان کتاب خودش آدم را وادار می‌کرد به کندی، دقیقاً مثلِ مکث‌هایی در هنگام تماشای یک تابلو یا گوش دادن به یک قطعه‌ی موسیقی که نمی‌خواهی تمام شود.
در نهایت، این کتاب کوچک دعوتی‌ست به تماشای دوباره‌ی اشیا، به تأمل در این‌که چطور زیبایی و سوگ و خاطره‌ی ساکن در یک نقاشی می‌تواند با تمامیتِ زندگی ما پیوند بخورد.

[Fostergrants · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started reading this book I got a few pages into it and stopped caring what it was about. It did not matter as long as I could keep a steady stream of his words pouring into my brain. I can imagine even his grocery lists are beautifully written and make your mouth water, satisfying your appetite without the need to go to the store. This is a small book and he does not waste space with unecessary speech. Each sentence has an impact and the result was that I read slowly and did not really think while I was reading. There was no room for my own thoughts to jump around adding my own views or experiences, or think ahead of him. He gently demanded my complete attention to his every word. I particularly enjoyed the loving way he remembered his Grandmother, the items in her purse and the way her purse smelled. I remember now, my own Grandmother's purse always smelled like JuicyFruit gum and I think she had a coin purse like he describes, and other common items found in other Gramma's purses...and I will never visit the still life section of a museum quite the same way again.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read this book, it gradually evolved from an interesting to arresting work, from writing to poetry, to art. I've never really loved still life as much as I enjoy other types of visual arts. Through this piece I've learned a new respect for still life and now can look at them through new eyes. Through this, there are also new ways to look at life.

Mark Doty has a skill for clarifying meaning so well and for using language skillfully and beautifully. The poet shows even in the prose. I have to thank Ruth again for leading me back to poetry.

[صاری‌آ · Rating 4 out of 5]

کلّ تاریخ همین است: پیکرهایی که قرن‌های آزگار در این کانال‌ها این‌سو آن‌سو می‌روند، مثل غنچه‌ای پیچان در این خانه‌ها و خیابان‌ها شکوفه می‌کنند، تمام تن‌هایی که گرسنه می‌شوند، به هم می‌پیوندند، از هم می‌گلسند، پیش می‌روند، می‌اندوزند، رها می‌کنند، پیر می‌شوند و از پا می‌افتند. بدن‌ها لاله‌هایی‌اند که به فرمان نور خم شده‌اند، غنچه غنچه رنگ گرفته‌اند، پژمرده‌اند.
انگار جهان معبری‌ست که تن از آن عبور می‌کند.
به هنرمندان و افرادی که نقاشن واقعا پیشنهاد می‌کنم..

[Mana Ravanbod · Rating 5 out of 5]

نخستین بار است که دوتی به فارسی ترجمه می‌شود. فکر می‌کنم اولین ترجمه‌ی این کتاب دوتی هم باشد، تا جایی که دیدم به کتاب به زبانی دیگر ترجمه نشده بود. دوتی شاعر است و کتاب اسکندریه‌اش مشهور است. این اولین جستارنویسیِ اوست که همه از تأمل در تابلویی طبیعت بیجان آغاز می‌شود به آن باز می‌گردد اما در این بین به خاطراتی از مادربزرگ تا فقدان همدمش و خیلی چیزهای دیگر سر می‌کشد و باز می‌گردد. کتاب به درد اهل هنر و علاقه‌مندان به جستارنویسی و آنهایی که پیگیر شعرند می‌خورد.

آغاز کتاب و چند پاره‌ی دیگرش شعر منثور است به نظرم.

[Sajede · Rating 3 out of 5]

آرامش در آسمان کشور
و حالا حواس‌پرتی دیگر: نقاشی از یک طبیعت بیجان.

[Narjes Dorzade · Rating 4 out of 5]

صمیمیت نقب می‌زند به همه‌چیز_
در این کتاب اصل همین است فراخوانی سرخوشی‌های از دست رفته و شاید هنوز چشیده نشده با چاشنی صمیمیت

[Niloofar · Rating 5 out of 5]

بی‌نهایت شیرین.

[yenna]

the way he writes is so rich and luminous, this was lovely

[Zen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is notable for me for a couple of reasons, firstly, due to it being the first e-book I’ve read - such is my favoring of print, and secondly, because Mark Doty, so unexpectedly, swept me off my feet with his exquisite poetic prose. I don’t think I’ve read a book quite like this, remarkable in its ability to compress so much profundity into so small a place, and to have it flow with such elegance and grace. Every sentence seemed to demand of me a pause for reflection. This man positively waltzes with words.

Walking the galleries of the Upper East side one random day, he comes across a three-hundred and fifty year old still life painting by Jan Davidsz de Heem (so explaining the title of the book) which completely captivates him.

... I have fallen in love with a painting. Though that phrase doesn’t seem to suffice, not really – rather it’s that I have been drawn into the orbit of a painting, have allowed myself to be pulled into its sphere by casual attraction deepening to something more compelling. I have felt the energy and life of the painting’s will; I have been held there, instructed. And the overall effect, the result of looking and looking into its brimming surface as long as I could look, is love, by which I mean a sense of tenderness toward experience, of being held within an intimacy with the things of the world

It is this that springboards him into a melancholic review of the intimacies of his life, as he extrapolates from the effect that the painting has on him to a deeper consideration of the items which are precious to him, and the people that are intertwined with them. Entranced with the still life objects of the painting – the oysters, the slivers of lemon - he muses, ‘these things had a history, a set of personal meanings; they were someone’s'.

This moment of significance takes him completely off-guard - as epiphanies are prone to do - and launches him into a lengthy meditation on the personal items which become part of the histories of our lives, imbued as they are with such personal meaning for each and every one of us. Thus, the blue and white platter, purchased at a second-hand sale and brought home prior to his partner's death, becomes inseparably bound up with reminders of their lives together; this, he slowly and poignantly unravels.

This book is the result of that lyrical wonderment, a deep reverie about how our most special possessions intersect with who we are, who we love, and who we ultimately lose.

[Ygraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

i feel utterly changed by this book. i want to press it into the whole world's hands. the devotion & clarity & care that doty shows each piece of art, each memory, each person & thought, each moment of wonder and curiosity and grief -- it's moving in that sublime, immense way & in the devastating, personal, vital & small way. please read it.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up after enjoying Doty's memoir Firebird, so I knew he could write well, and Still Life is one of my favorite art forms, always leaving me with a feeling of "How did they do that!" In this piece, he successfully integrates discussion of the technique with examples of items from his own life that have had sentimental value. Tough to explain, but that doesn't matter as you really need to just read Doty's words for yourself! Don't be fooled by the short length of the book, however; think of a small-ish piece of cake, where as you put the first bite in your mouth with your cake fork, you realize "This is one of the 'richest' desserts I've ever had!"

[Rosana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last night I sat down with a glass of wine and Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, by the poet Mark Doty. I read it in one go and a second glass of wine. I really don’t have words to describe the experience of reading it. Any attempt to express it seems shallow after Doty’s beautifully crafted prose. I will only say that it has been a long time since I read a book that spoke so deeply to me, but this phrase also seems shallow and clichéd. Yet, speak to me it did.

This book defies genre, and my appreciation of it maybe comes from the fact that I had no expectations about it. Reading other reviewers it seems to me that those mostly disappointed by it were the readers that tried to peg it to a genre, be it art review, memoir or poetry. And if they were looking for a specific theme they had the right to feel disappointed, because it is all of these - art review, memoir and poetry – and none of it.

Oh, I envy Mark Doty though. How can he name so effortless – as it seems - the experiences of my heart. I too have...

...fallen in love with a painting. (...) have allowed myself to be pulled into its sphere by casual attraction deepening to something more compelling. I have felt the energy and life of the painting’s will; I have been held there, instructed.

Often I shy away from describing my experience of art, as I don’t have the academic knowledge or vocabulary to do it, and speaking of art as it tugs my heart, I tend to be melodramatic and incoherent. Then Mark Doty comes along and says it for me, so beautifully, so tenderly.

But he also speaks of life, death and grieving. Maybe this is a book about grieving more than anything else. And on grief he again puts words to feelings I have not been able to vocalize:

Not the grief vanishes – far from it – but that it begins in time to coexist with pleasure; sorrow sits right beside the discovery of what is to be cherished in experience. Just when you think you are done.

It felt surprising too that in a book so small – 70 pages – I relate so close to two of Doty’s experiences. I too love to browse through state sales and auctions. In my part of the world the state auctions are mainly of farm machinery and mechanical tools, but I have found small treasures here and there. White porcelain napkin holders in the shape of chubby chickens, tucked away in a sad box of Tupperware. Medalta pottery, cracked and beautiful in its utility. A wooden horse, its original tail replaced by a rough cord, a survivor of many children’s play. A pocket size New Testament encased in metal covers to protect the heart of a loved one from a bullet on WWI.

These excursions into people’s past, their day-to-day, now relegated to the junk pile. I always felt there was a lesson here, and again I never was able to vocalize it, to name it.

Then, there is Mark Doty’s trip to Amsterdam on his 45th birthday. I was in Amsterdam this last September, celebrating not mine but one of my sister’s 45th birthday. We are three sisters spread very evenly around the globe. I live in the middle of Canada, the birthday girl lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the baby of the family lives in Hong Kong, China. Amsterdam of all places on Earth seemed to be the epicentre of our geographical distances.

I wish that I could say that, like Mark Doty, that a visit to the Rijksmuseum was the highlight of our trip, but actually we never made it there. As it is often the case with sisters, we have very different approaches to life, art and travel, and this trip, as special as it was, was really a great exercise on compromises. I forgo the Rijksmuseum for the Van Gogh Museum and an Antiquity Art Show on Alexander the Great at the Amsterdam’s Hermitage Museum.

My experiences at both Museums felt short of Doty’s experience at the Rijksmuseum, and short of my own visits to other art museums in previous years. I found the Van Gogh collection and museum to be too small for the amount of visitors. It was crowed and hot in there. Too many people elbowing each other for a view of the masterpieces made it impossible for me to achieve an emotional connection to the paintings. Yes, rationally I admired then, but I never experience, as Mark Doty would say, being pulled into it, held there and instructed by it. How sorry I feel to say it even, as Van Gogh’s works, above most, generally provoke and emotional connection and response from me.

As for the show at the Hermitage, it was an historical show. Not that the pieces were not artistic, but their value was in the historical exposition of Alexander’s life and influence at his time. An experience that was much more rational than emotional for me.

Yet, I relate to what Doty says on having his senses sharpened by this trip to Amsterdam, and by the viewing of a painting, or art object. And I related to what I think is his bigger message on this book, of how the essence of life impregnates the objects around us. How a chipped china plate carries the memories of other times, other people, and how its intrinsic beauty can affect us and our own lives.

If the museums I visited in Amsterdam did not provoke this, the house of Anne Frank certainly did. Had I been travelling by myself, the line up of people waiting outside would have driven me away. I also suffer from mild claustrophobia, and felt anxious in anticipation of the small spaces that the Franks had to live in. But again, this was a trip of compromises, and one of my sisters felt strongly about visiting it, so we went.

The Frank’s hiding place was actually bigger than I had imagined, and what really disturbed me was its emptiness. As per requested by Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, all furniture has been removed. The walls still have the collages the girls did from pictures in magazines that they cut and pasted on a few walls. An open widow in the attic, which they would open from time to time, framed the autumn colours of the trees on the street.

But it was in the absence of personal objects that their suffering was more poignant. The nothingness of life exposed almost brutally. Who were those people? Where are the chairs were they sat to eat and talk? The plates and cutlery? Where are the echoes of their voices, laughter and cries if nothing of their surroundings, the objects of their daily lives, were also taken from us.

Could a painting of the trees outside replace for the Franks that open window?
No, I don’t think so. As I see it, art does not replace life. But a painting of the view of that widow could let us glimpse into their existence. And sometimes I painting, an installation, and sculpture do just that. It allows us to share an awareness beyond past and future, and we are faced with an essence of feelings and life.

Would I be betraying their pain if I said I felt as if I was viewing an artistic installation while visiting the actual rooms where the Franks hided? I felt detached from the particular individuals that lived and suffered in there, but was embraced by all the suffering represented in the void of this space; the vacuum of their deaths and the deaths of many others in the same time period.

But, here I am again trying to say something of my experience of art and becoming melodramatic... So I better stop right now. Go read the book. Mark Doty says it with so much more poetry and coherence than I could ever do it.

[Sara⋆ฺ࿐ · Rating 5 out of 5]

در حالی کتاب رو میخوندم که شب بود و بوی شربت لیموی مامان فضای اتاق رو پر کرده بود. کنار هیتر نشسته بودم و نقاشی رو از ته کتاب اسکن کردم و همونطور که میخوندم به توصیفاتی از لیمو رسیدم. سردرگم، به ناگاه لیمو برای من مقدس شد...
قسمت هایی از کتاب به گونه ای شاعرانه است که تو دنیای شعر و ادبیات و نقاشی طبیعت بیجان با صدف‌ها و لیمو گم میشی و چند ساعتی هیچکس تو دنیای واقعی پیدات نمیکنه. انگار غرق شدی و راه برگشتی نیست
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این کتاب نگاه شما رو به حوادث روزمره و زندگی و اشیا تغییر میده و مطمئن باشید بعد خواندنش تا مدت ها قراره به همه چیز نگاه توصیفی و شاعرانه داشته باشید 3/>
مارک دوتی شاعر و نویسنده‌ای که عمیق به موضوعات، زندگی و اشیا نگاه می‌کند. این ۹۳ صفحه جزو زیباترین و بهترین تجربه های کتابخوانی من بود و واقعا ازش لذت بردم
این کتاب یک جمله ای داره که میگه
﴿ قلب نهان خانه ی چیز های از دست رفته است ﴾
و این جمله عمیقا قلب من رو لمس کرد و روحم و نوازش داد
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این کتاب مناسب آدم هایی که از توصیفات حیرت انگیز در مورد لیمو تو چند صفحه کیف میکنن و دوست دارن تو نقاشی ها عمیق بشن و عاشق اشیا هستن. نویسنده اینقدر زیبا و گیرا نوشته و توصیفات اینقدر ظریف و با هویت که برای چند صفحه در مورد زیبایی لیمو میگه و شما باز هم میخواید بخونید و بنظرتون این توصیفات کم هم میاد و قول میدم عاشق نقاشی های طبیعت بیجان یا still life میشید
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بخوام خلاصه بگم:
کتابی شاعرانه و فلسفی که با الهام از نقاشی‌های طبیعت بی‌جان، به بررسی زیبایی و معنای زندگی می‌پردازه و از طریق جزئیات ساده‌ی اشیا، به حقیقتی عمیق‌تر در پورد زندگی دست پیدا میکنه.

[AC · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps this type of writing is an acquired taste. It is not, at any rate, a taste I have ever acquired. It has very little to do with art or with painting or with the Dutch - it is subjective (and hence, quite arbitrary) and self-indulgent, and much of it taken up with rather uninteresting memories of his old aunts in Tennessee. It is about mood, and not insight. Just my opinion, of course.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous and crazy. I'm a rabid minimalist who resonates far more with Doty's secondary desire "to be free, open to the winds, awash in light and air, unbordered" than his modus operandi of hoarding curios from the Vermont estate sale circuit, so to meditate for so seventy pages on belongings (gosh, would Doty have a word or two to say about that word) was fascinating.

I hate having things. Except for a couple boxes of books at my parents' apartment, I can fit everything I own under my university-issued extra-long twin XL and this is still far too much stuff for me. If I was bolder maybe I'd say burn it all and go about my life with one pen to write everything with and one dress to wear every day and idk, maybe a toothbrush. But I persist in a physical world and it's good to acknowledge its power.

"Looking is loving," someone once said to me. Despite its brevity, I think this book must be the most exhaustive example possible of such a worldview. I was skeptical at first of Doty's sentimentality but was left wanting more when I emerged on the other side of his mystical memories of life (still).

[Mahshad Sabri · Rating 3 out of 5]

در ستایش طبیعت بیجان. در ستایش توجه. در ستایش چیزهای ظاهرا پیش‌پا افتاده. در ستایش روزمره.
کاری که هلندی‌ها در آن استادند.
"اشیا ظرف معنایند و هر یک از اجزای نقاشی طبیعت بیجان قبلا مال کسی بوده‌اند. با خود خاطره‌ای دارند و داستانی را روایت می‌کنند. اما از آن گذشته توجه نیز مهم است. ایمان به اینکه اگر به چیزی به قدر کافی بنگریم غافلگیرمان میکند و پاداشمان میدهد. در جهانی پر هیاهو و شلوغ که نمیدانی در آن باید به کجا نگاه کنی، یک نقاشی طبیعت بیجان که نگاهت را متمرکز کند و متقابلا به تو نگاه کند، نعمت است."

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this gorgeous little book very slowly, because I wanted to savor all of it. It amazed me how seamlessly Mark Doty's writing moves from considering still lifes (not a type of art I was especially interested in until I read this book) to remembering fragments of his own history to pondering--deeply, surprisingly--enormous topics like art and death and the relationship between the two. He also considers the life of objects--what and how they mean, why we cherish them and what they can teach us and how they can help us to live. He describes much-loved paintings, objects from his home, a trip to Amsterdam, the peppermints in his grandmother's purse, a visit to see some bears in the Smoky Mountains (one of the most moving sections in the book, to me). He's wise and celebratory and elegiac and passionate and thoughtful, and almost every page contains sentences or passages I wanted to copy down in my journal to reread. I have always loved Mark Doty's poems, and also two of his memoirs, Dog Years and Heaven's Coast. This, to me, perfect book made me fall in love with his work again.

[federico garcía LOCA · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reminder, on a day when it was very much needed, that seeing, the eye and the I, is human enough, ego enough, and that the sweet little objects I ferry into my apartment for the worthy task of collecting dust and reflecting light are me, too

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got off to s slow start with this essay but warmed to Doty’s childhood remembrances of his grandmother and then found his writing easier to follow. Purchasing an old house, shopping flea markets and collecting… more interesting to most of my friends than having everything brand new. One friend has a cultural mind set to not have anything used by another human being. Not even a chair. I find this very odd. I enjoy layers of meaning and history. Ownership brings joy but also holds a double-edged sword of oppression. This book is intense, painful and beautiful. Ultimately possessions are not the true spice of life, but if you’re alone they can be your friends, give you happy memories and add beauty to an often unpleasant world.

note to art lovers

I finished SLWOAL and admit it was painful and beautiful at the same time. Feeling oppression and guilt over possessions, what my brutally honest mom pinpointed as acquisitiveness, and the unfulfilled happiness it represents.

Has anyone watched HOARDERS, in horror? I tell my self, "Wow I'm glad I'm not THAT bad!" At age 11 or 12 I bought my own portable b/w tv so I could watch Brando and Newman in the wee hours in my bedroom. Mom would not let me watch the one in the playroom. I started collecting antiques when I was 14: a singer sewing stand, followed by a deco dresser circa age 16. It went on from there.

A woman I used to know was former alcoholic who transformed into a serious shopaholic, sometimes kleptomaniac. She was pretty, fun, gregarious, loved art. A bit too much. She wanted it all!! She had impeccable taste, knew every single beautiful shop (in every city all over the world!); the date and location of every antique show, art event. I was intrigued how she was familiar with so many sales people. Our friendship was fun at first, but during a drive to Chicago to visit her kids, (an excuse for shopping all along the way), I overheard a sales person at an Hermes store tell another salesperson to keep an eye on her for shoplifting! I was mortified!

Anyhow, I got off on a tangent there. I love beautiful things, too. When I die the people going through my things will have a field day. My sister calls my place "Museo di Monica". I purge, but never in a really HUGE way. When I got transferred to California I remember getting rid of two HUGE contractor bags full of clothes. When mom died we gave lots to charity but inherited many of her personal belongs. I love them because they contain her aura but it's more stuff! Purple Heart can always count on a few boxes and bags from me every month. I've had a long and wonderful career in advertising and still have not had the courage to throw out my portfolio.

Over the last several years I've started gifting my cousin's kids (the females) with jewelry (not all 14 karate), Christian Dior bags, makeup, skin care, high end lingere from Europe (wasted on my me these days) cause I know none of them will be going to Au Printemps soon or feeling tempted by gold satin and lace bra and panties on sale for $85 at Nieman Marcus.

I waited to read your remarks after I'd finished reading this book. I want to say how much I appreciate them and wish you all a happy new year.

addendum Dec. 29, '10

I found this wonderful passage in Lectures on the "Expedient Means and "Life Span" Chapters of the Lotus Sutra, by Daisaku Ikeda:

The Wisdom to Discern the True Nature of Attachments

"...the fundamental cause of people's unhappiness lies in their tendency to develop attachments of various kinds...and attachment... is a fetter on one's heart; it indicates earthly desires, cravings and the like.

... the spirit of the Lotus Sutra is not to eradicate earthly desires...we can transform desires-just as they are- into enlightenment.

...It's not a matter of eradicating attachments but of seeing them clearly. In other words, rather than causing us to abandon our earthly desires and attachments, our Buddhist practice enables us to discern their true nature and utilize them as the driving force to become happy.

The truth is that we could not in fact eradicate out attachments even if we so wished. And if, for the sake of argument, it were feasible, doing so would make it impossible to live in the real world.

What is important is that we make full use of our attachments rather than allow them to control us. Toward that end, it is necessary that we recognize them for what they are.

...we develop from a state of life in which we are caught up with our own small worries, to one in which we can challenge progressively greater worries-for the sake of a friend, for many others, for all mankind.

...when we clearly establish our fundamental objective in life, we can utilize our attachments most fully and profitably. We can turn them into tailwinds to propel us toward happiness.

This principle offers an extremely valuable gauge for living in modern society, where people are constantly swept along by various wants and cravings."

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite, absolutely exquisite.

[Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read yet.

"Now I think there is a space inside me that is like the dark inside that hollow sphere, and things float up into view, images that are vessels of meaning, the flotsam and detail of any particular moment. Vanished things. Or vanished from my life, at least. Who knows where they might be now, to what use they may have been put, what other meanings have been assigned to them?" p. 26

"The still life's movement toward simplicity comes to its oddest--perhaps inevitable--conclusion in the development of paintings of single things, rendered with an absolute attention, a perfection of eye and hand brought to what is no longer in dialogue with anything else, but a simple one-on-one exchange, object to viewer." p. 43

"More world, just when you think you've seen what there is to see. That is how I felt, coming back to life after a period of grief, reentering the world. Well, that phrase is somewhat misleading. Of course I'd never left; it was simply that I was going through the motions of a life in which I no longer had faith, because I had come too close to death." p. 46

"Not that grief vanishes--far from it--but that it begins in time to coexist with pleasure; sorrow sits right beside the rediscovery of what is to be cherished in experience. Just when you think you're done." p. 47"

"Here you are, the painters say, a body in the city of bodies, in concert, in the astonishing republic of things, the world of light, which is the same gray world sliding past the boat, lapping and chilly, alive with detail as the boat pushes further forward, slipping away." p. 55

"As if the world were a corridor through which the body moved." p. 57

"That, I think, is the deepest secret of these paintings, finally, although it seems just barely in the realm of the sayable, this feeling that beneath the attachments and appurtenances, the furnishings of selfhood, what we are is attention, a quick physical presence in the world, a bright point of consciousness in a wide field from which we are not really separate. That, in a field of light, we are intensifications of that light." p. 68

[Janna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Doty has the rare quality of turning the ordinary into a revelation. He muses on many viewpoints I’m fond of: that the self is necessarily bound up with the world; that love is attention; the materiality of embodiment; an examination of light; how memory resides in houses and compresses time into space (and yes, he quotes Gaston Bachelard); the way in which description is so much more than just addressing the thing in front of you. Doty examines Dutch still lifes alongside episodes in his own life, going back and forth, using one to illuminate the other. It's less an argumentative essay and more a meditative reflection, so it wanders at points. I wished for a more fleshed-out narrative as well as greater depth of criticism, especially during his brief insights on Cavafy's poetry and how it linked to the paintings. And yet, even in its wide reach, nothing ever feels forced or out of place. Everything still feels purposeful because it’s all anchored in Doty’s fundamental wonder at being alive. Doty marvels at a still life painting, which is itself the marvel of the artist at the subject of the painting. This book is special for the fact that it encourages us to look closer at our daily lives and revel in the “realm of the ordinary sublime” — for at the heart of love and life and love of life is the care of paying attention, of really seeing.