Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
David R. Godine, Publisher (1991), Edition: Reissue, 96 pages
Description
On Being Blueis a book about everything blue-sex and sleaze and sadness, among other things-and about everything else. It brings us the world in a word as only William H. Gass, among contemporary American writers, can do. Gass writes- Of the colors, blue and green have the greatest emotional range. Sad reds and melancholy yellows are difficult to turn up. Among the ancient elements, blue occurs everywhere- in ice and water, in the flame as purely as in the flower, overhead and inside caves, covering fruit and oozing out of clay. Although green enlivens the earth and mixes in the ocean, and we find it, copperish, in fire; green air, green skies, are rare. Gray and brown are widely distributed, but there are no joyful swatches of either, or any of the exuberant black, sullen pink, or acquiescent orange. Blue is therefore most suitable as the color of interior life. Whether slick light sharp high bright think quick sour new and cool or low deep sweet dark soft slow smooth heavy old and warm- blue moves easily among them all, and all profoundly qualify our states of feeling.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member absurdeist
Blue's more than a color, mood, or groove of a jukebox tune. The symbology of blue, along with its definitions, are as infinite as its nuanced hues. Aqua, azure, turquoise, cerulean, indigo, cobalt, ad infinitum ... There's endless shades of adjectives on the adjective, blue.
Or so says William H.
Besides blue ontologically and blue philosophically, Gass covers blue cross-culturally, literarily, erotically, psychologically, phenomenologically, aesthetically, metaphorically, and practically every other word ending, "-ically," that one might encounter in a dictionary too.
At the book's core, I believe Gass is asking: How do blue's meanings become blue's meanings and what do blue's meanings then mean to our very being? Even an intrepid reader might be wondering "huh?" or "WTF?" at such an inquiry, as I was, after having just written it. If so, know you're in good company, as William H. Gass is a certifiable linguistic mystic, and loves creating language -- what he's coined, "a world of words," like it's magic -- much more than making his language, particularly in On Being Blue, completely comprehensible to an understandably perplexed readership.
On Being Blue, while beholden to all of the momentarily forthcoming labels, is not necessarily in a monogamous relationship with only one, be it prose poetry, strict philosophy per se, literary criticism, erotica, autobiography, or fiction. Rather, On Being Blue, borrowing something from all styles of discourse, is a metaphysical manifesto built not out of the blue, but literally out of blue. The Epicurean blue of knowledge. The blue of gnosis or the gnosis of blue. It's a highly stylized interdisciplinary hybrid of a master-wordsmiths exposition that doesn't offer any easily navigated routes (or clues) how to interpret every facet of blue. And makes no apologies for failing to do so, too.
No real surprise there, as Gass has never cared about being contemporary or orthodox or popular for everyone, so in love with the crafting and fashioning of language he is; and, in reading On Being Blue, it certainly seems his language loves him back. Self-indulgently so? Perhaps. And that's probably the harshest criticism I could level against it (and perhaps against Gass in general) that the point of it all (in his essays) or the plot of it all (in his postmodern stories and experimental novels) gets lost in his lush, elaborate language. Like searching for a specific leaf in the Amazon rainforest, seeking the plot (if it even exists) in, say, Gass' dark magnum opus, The Tunnel, for instance.
If there is a point to On Being Blue, the point is obvious. The point is blue.
Or so says William H.
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Gass (and I tend to believe him), in his idiosyncratic synthesis, On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry, of all that's ever been -- or could be -- blue.Besides blue ontologically and blue philosophically, Gass covers blue cross-culturally, literarily, erotically, psychologically, phenomenologically, aesthetically, metaphorically, and practically every other word ending, "-ically," that one might encounter in a dictionary too.
At the book's core, I believe Gass is asking: How do blue's meanings become blue's meanings and what do blue's meanings then mean to our very being? Even an intrepid reader might be wondering "huh?" or "WTF?" at such an inquiry, as I was, after having just written it. If so, know you're in good company, as William H. Gass is a certifiable linguistic mystic, and loves creating language -- what he's coined, "a world of words," like it's magic -- much more than making his language, particularly in On Being Blue, completely comprehensible to an understandably perplexed readership.
On Being Blue, while beholden to all of the momentarily forthcoming labels, is not necessarily in a monogamous relationship with only one, be it prose poetry, strict philosophy per se, literary criticism, erotica, autobiography, or fiction. Rather, On Being Blue, borrowing something from all styles of discourse, is a metaphysical manifesto built not out of the blue, but literally out of blue. The Epicurean blue of knowledge. The blue of gnosis or the gnosis of blue. It's a highly stylized interdisciplinary hybrid of a master-wordsmiths exposition that doesn't offer any easily navigated routes (or clues) how to interpret every facet of blue. And makes no apologies for failing to do so, too.
No real surprise there, as Gass has never cared about being contemporary or orthodox or popular for everyone, so in love with the crafting and fashioning of language he is; and, in reading On Being Blue, it certainly seems his language loves him back. Self-indulgently so? Perhaps. And that's probably the harshest criticism I could level against it (and perhaps against Gass in general) that the point of it all (in his essays) or the plot of it all (in his postmodern stories and experimental novels) gets lost in his lush, elaborate language. Like searching for a specific leaf in the Amazon rainforest, seeking the plot (if it even exists) in, say, Gass' dark magnum opus, The Tunnel, for instance.
If there is a point to On Being Blue, the point is obvious. The point is blue.
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LibraryThing member abirdman
An incredibly beautiful book that demonstrates how powerful words-- just words-- can be. Unclassifiable, it's part philosophy, part poetry, part meditation, part roman a clef, and the David R. Godine edition-- even in paperback-- is sumptuous.
LibraryThing member jpporter
A seminal exegesis on the significance of words, in and of themselves, On Being Blue is a pair of bookends supporting an extended meandering through the manner in which words in the hands of a master can manipulate not just what you think, but how you think it, how you hear it, how you feel about
I haven't decided if I prefer the bookends to the pages they support.
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it.I haven't decided if I prefer the bookends to the pages they support.
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LibraryThing member b.masonjudy
I wasn't sure what to expect from this inquiry and it surprised, and delighted me, that Gass spends so much time ruminating on the constraints of the author and limits of language around sex and bawdy behavior. Indeed, the majority of the blurbs talk about sound writing, but the main sound he's
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writing about is fucking. It's elegant, proactive, and challenging nonetheless. Show Less
LibraryThing member _janson_
His sentences are near perfect, the meditations deep sea. But my own sensibilities post #MeToo reacts against leavened word choice at times...
LibraryThing member zadkine
"ON BEING BLUE has been composed by Michael & Winifred Bixler. The typeface is Monotype Dante, designed by the archtypographer Giovanni Mardersteig, cut in its original version by the skilled punchcutter Charles Malin and first used in 1954. The mechanical recutting by the Monotype Corporation of
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this strong and elegant Renaissance design preserves the liveliness, personality, and dignity of the original. The third printing has been printed offset by Mercantile Printing Company on Warren's Olde Style and has been bound by New Hampshire Bindery." Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1976
Physical description
96 p.; 8.23 inches
ISBN
0879232374 / 9780879232375