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Daughter
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“Daughter is quantum. There is a girl, there is an octopus, there is language -- in minimal bursts of physical intensities, their magnitude measured in intimate discretes. Janice Lee's prose is energy transfer of the elementary particles of the matter of language. There is a girl, there is an octopus, there is language, understood at the infinitesimal level. No other book
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Paperback, 142 pages
Published
2011
by Jaded Ibis Press
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It's so rare for a book that not only experiments with ideas, but the form and craft of writing itself. Janice Lee's, "Daughter," is probably one of the most unique and thought-provoking books I've read in recent memory. There are some pages where the paragraphs burst with fascinating ideas that make you question the whole of existence. There are some beautiful photos (by Rochelle Ritchie Spencer) within its pages, a compelling menage ...more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh8TOm...
It's so rare for a book that not only experiments with ideas, but the form and craft of writing itself. Janice Lee's, "Daughter," is probably one of the most unique and thought-provoking books I've read in recent memory. There are some pages where the paragraphs burst with fascinating ideas that make you question the whole of existence. There are some beautiful photos (by Rochelle Ritchie Spencer) within its pages, a compelling menage ...more

Very fragmented and very whole at the same time, with a dynamic use of the surface of the page. I was particularly interested in the the forceful use of Nietzsche's dead god as a motif and some terminology that leaked in from neuroscience. This book seems to be published as fiction, which maybe isnt entirely accurate, but it occupies a beautifully smart hybrid territory with really fantastic writing.
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I picked up a version without color at AWP so I may have a different perspective than some in my reading but it was wonderfully written. The narrative was chaotic and full of substance, and I really found the mystery of it intriguing. Janice plays with a lot of forms in the telling of this novel that at times reads like a screen play, an epic poem and a cut of focused vignettes but was at all times engaging.

Very cerebral prose poetry. In theory the style in which this is written should underscore the complexity of themes such as alienation, otherness, colonialism, matriarchy, migration, etc. But the delivery falls a bit flat for me when there’s too much of the octopus involved. It feels a bit heavy-handed to interweave the octopus and the self together so often. In addition, the Cain/Abel allegory seems disjointed throughout.

The flow in this pulls the reader in and churns them about in a way that is both ecstatic and menacing. It functions on so many levels, both highly cerebral and sub-lingual thought, poetic and powerful prose, narrative and de/reconstructionist, ornamental and intelligent. The prose is both entertaining and challenging. In short, excellent.

“Who is to say I’m not God and I just don’t remember it?”
*
Janice Lee’s slim novel is a very poetic work — full of disruptions, non sequiturs, and fractured dialogue. There’s a vague semblance of a plot involving the daughter, her mother, and an octopus found in the desert. With shoutouts to everyone from Nietzsche to Sesame Street, Janice Lee’s experimental novel is an energetic and enigmatic read.
*
Janice Lee’s slim novel is a very poetic work — full of disruptions, non sequiturs, and fractured dialogue. There’s a vague semblance of a plot involving the daughter, her mother, and an octopus found in the desert. With shoutouts to everyone from Nietzsche to Sesame Street, Janice Lee’s experimental novel is an energetic and enigmatic read.
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Janice Lee is a Korean-American writer, editor, publisher, and shamanic healer. She is the author of 7 books of fiction, creative nonfiction & poetry: KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, 2010), Daughter (Jaded Ibis, 2011), Damnation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Reconsolidation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2015), The Sky Isn’t Blue (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016), Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press, 2021), and Se
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