Reviews for Inside out, outside in

The average rating for Inside out, outside in based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-15 00:00:00 Mary Drummond A short note for those who may have an interest :: William Carlos Williams' 1925 essay collection ought to be read as supplementary by those reading William T Vollmann's Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes. It is a compact attempt to survey an american spirit by way of its history. And more than the mere sweep collected in this slim volume, and Williams' concern with the what and wherefore of what being american is all about, are his stylistic choices, mimicking the subject in its own voice, using the subject's own voice, writing from and out of the source documents themselves. Williams' choices of style, form, and voice should be familiar to Vollmann readers. Which choices also create a dense reading experience, always somewhere between essay and story, where it belongs. Prior familiarity with the subject of each piece is required in order to see exactly where Williams wants to place himself, as essayist, within the questions of the time; when a writer ventriloquizes, there is no easy route to discover merely that "which he wants to say." But, too, there is the innocent hearing of what is said, as it is said, in the manner in which it is said. Red Eric -- Chris Columbus -- Cortez and what happened at Tenochtitlan -- Ponce de Leon -- De Soto -- Sir Walter Raleigh -- the mayflower -- de Champlain -- Thomas Morton -- Cotton Mathers and some wonderful witches -- Daniel Boone -- Washington -- Poor Richard -- John Paul Jones -- Aaron Burr -- Poe and even a final page on Lincoln. more. The names will be familiar to readers of Vollmann; yes, that is where my head is right now. More importantly, those names should be much more familiar to the average american citizen than they are to me; I mean of course that I know the names but I'll be damned if I could tell a decent story about most of them. It occurs to me as well, dear readers of fiction, that the territory which Williams covers, in addition to all which makes me think of Seven Dreams, also overlaps with another great series of historical novels by another Great American, Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-02-15 00:00:00 Colleen Chase "We are, too, the others. Think of them! The main islands were thickly populated with a peaceful folk when Christ-over found them. But the orgy of blood which followed, no man had written. We are the slaughterers. It is the tortured soul of our world. Indians have no souls; that was it. That was what they said. But they knew they lied'the blood-smell proof." Those who struggle with the separation of "author" from "text", or, more specifically, the distance between the "ideas" and "views" of an author, and those in his texts, may have problems with this book (and a brief online search demonstrates this). This is written in the book, can we criticise WCW for being a misogynist? "Women'givers (but they have been, as reservoirs, empty) perhaps they are being filled now. Hard to deal with in business, more conservative, closer to earth'the only earth. They are our cattle, cattle of the spirit'not yet come in. None yet has raised benevolence to distinction. Not one to "wield her beauty as a scepter." It is a brilliant opportunity." Can we claim anything about WCW's "beliefs" from this book? Do we care anyway? Even if there is a "thesis" being put forward by WCW, does it matter? The fact that one cannot clearly differentiate between when "WCW is speaking" (whatever that means) and when it is the voice of his characters, should do nothing but make clear such a differentiation is meaningless. Simple point being - nuance people, nuance... Anyway. No idea why I bothered to write that, nor what I am rambling about. Much to like here. An ancestor of Paul Metcalf and Vollmann certainly. Helpful too for those of us interested in trying to understand more of that very strange thing that is the USA. Some great writing, some that gets a little muddled and muddied.