Juice

Incredibly abstract and difficult to grasp at first, but slowly the narrative begins to take shape. I feel I would benefit from a second reading as many other reviewers have stated, or perhaps should have taken more time on my first one. The ending felt incredibly abrupt.

Three short passages from Juice:

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About the body I know very little, though I am steadily trying to improve myself, in the way animals improve themselves by licking. I have always wanted to be sharp and clean. But this is not a story about me.

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Long before the fresh apple crisis, my life had some form to it. I would wake in the mornings – I would perform something. For example, the day I tried, as one with acute passion might, to win one woman over but accidentally won another – that whole time I had been living like someone. Though I can’t remember his name. His model of optimism provided me with a certain geography that I inhabit in time of need. This time the need was surprising.

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The poems I had written were failures, but dense show more ones. It seemed appropriate to think the person’s attempt at wholeness was a series of missteps, which if drawn across an afternoon might prove interesting to other people. I had a way of reminding my friends that we were all in pain, but a fruit tart kind of pain strangers can’t help but enjoy. That day I had, in a sense, gathered all my possessions and gone out onto the street with them.

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