Eric Basso

I normally shy away from essays and criticisms where literature is concerned, mainly because they tend to be dry and long-winded at best, and unnecessarily critical at worst, spoiling what you loved about something, or turning you off of something new.

This book could not be more different. Eric Basso seems to the reader like a child with a new toy, his excitement over what he's playing with is genuine. It's clear the author loves his subject matter, and his enthusiasm is contagious.

Instead show more of dissecting every piece of a novel, character, or author, Eric Basso focuses his energy on ideas and esthetics. Instead of questioning the how or why, the author directs your attention to the what: what is so interesting or beautiful about a certain work.

This books concerns itself mainly with the Decadents, Symbolists, and Romantics. Many people and their works are discussed in this book, such as Valery, Nerval, Goya, and Daumal, among others. However, the highlight for me was the discussion of Alfred Jarry's alter ego, Pere Ubu.

All in all, Decompositions is a fantastic collection. show less

Eric Basso is a poet who brings his skills of vision and word into the realms of visual art and literature in his powerful book: "Decompositions: Essays on Art and Literature 1973-1989." For Basso great works of art aren't locked up in a dusty display case in an attic of a museum. Instead the works of art Basso presents are spread out upon an operating table ready for a transfusion of new blood or at times ready for a critical vivisection. This is powerful stuff, not for the faint of heart, show more but for those who want to dig deep into the marrow of art. show less

Like a Surrealist magician pulling tragically beautiful dead rabbits out of a hat one after another, Eric Basso presents us with twelve essays on works from the fantastic worlds of art and literature in the late 18th through the early 20th century. The thread - or more appropriately, sinew - that unites these pieces is the subject of death. And horror, gore and filth, sadism, wild invention and lecherous ecstasy. And back, as always, to death.

Andre Breton said in Nadja, “The world of show more language is a world of death.” And seemingly for Basso, that language could also be a brushstroke, a movement, a thought or a glance. This book is not for everyone. Not everyone will want to know how Théodore Géricault acquired the severed body parts he painted in obvious preparation for his masterpiece The Raft of Medusa. But for those of us who do, this collection is a fascinating dissection of the brain, bowels, psyche and works of the most wild and creative artists of the time... James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Paul Valéry, Francisco Goya, Victor Hugo, of the more well known.

As Eugene Delacroix said of Jean-Louis Andre Theodore Gericault’s work: “...no subject is so forbidding it cannot be made beautiful...” And presented in Basso’s slyly knowing and playful tone, one cannot help but feel they are participating in something akin to peeking under Frida Kahlo’s skirts. show less

A serious collection of essays in literary criticism that has the enormous advantage of being written not by an academic but a practitioner (Basso is a poet). The ligatures were a curious typographical touch, but not distracting after the first thirty pages or so. While there is much original and interesting discussion of the Decadents and Symbolists, there's also a good essay in Finnegan's Wake, which doesn't quite fit in either category but was illuminating nonetheless.