Filled with illuminating meditations on everything from mortality to Lee Miller, The Position of Spoons is a deeply personal and inspiring collection of essays from the celebrated author of Hot Milk, Swimming Home and Things I Don't Want to Know.
From twice Booker-shortlisted author Deborah Levy, a moving and revelatory collection exploring the muses that have shaped her life and work as a writer
In The Position of Spoons, Deborah Levy invites the reader into the interiors of her world, sharing her most intimate thoughts and experiences, as she traces and measures her life against the backdrop of the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her.
From Marguerite Duras to Colette and Ballard, and from Lee Miller to Francesca Woodman and Paula Rego, we can relish here the richness of their work and, in turn the richness of the author’s own.
Each page draws upon Levy’s life in exalting ways, encapsulating the wonderful precision and astonishing depth of her writing, as she seamlessly shifts between and meditates on questions of mortality, language, suburbia, gender, consumerism and the poetics of every day living. From the child born in South Africa, to her teenage years in Britain, to her travels across the world as a young woman, each page is a beautiful, tender composition of the questioning self: a portrait of Deborah Levy’s writing life and intellectual vitality in all of its dimensions.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241674505
Number of pages: 240
Weight: 348 g
Dimensions: 224 x 145 x 23 mm
A scorching, poignant collection of essays . . . Deborah Levy's new book shows why she's the patron saint of women's writing . . . This collection is the essence of Levy because it revolves around her various literary and artistic heroes – women, mainly – who provide succour for her writing soul . . . Levy touches on how each inspired her; many of Levy's readers, in turn, will be hoping for some of that same inspiration to rub off on them . . . A generous book with much to amuse, admire and often agonise over - iNews
[A] gifted and enlightening writer . . . 'Telegram to a Pylon Transmitting Electricity of Distances' is a montage of intimate and industrial images that tessellate beautifully. 'The Position of Spoons', an elegant, unnerving and perfectly paced little anecdote from the past, is strange and moving . . . Deborah Levy is invariably sharp and sprightly company - Financial Times
A dream read for writers, creative thinkers and Levy devotees . . . No one writes with such precision and intimacy, and this book truly gives a glimpse at the mechanisms behind her talents - i, 'Best Books for Christmas 2024'
Under the blowtorch of Levy’s attention, domestic space and everything in it is transformed into something radically meaningful . . . This is why people love Levy: she has an uncanny ability to honour and redeem aspects of experience routinely dismissed as trivial - Guardian
An absorbing essay collection . . . Few British writers are as adept as Deborah Levy at enacting Hilary Mantel’s advice to writers: to make the reader “feel acknowledged, and yet estranged” - Observer
Levy writes skilfully on the complex interplay of self-presentation and effacement that’s often demanded of female creativity - Guardian
“The Position of Spoons” is a collection of Levy’s writing covering things that inspired her along her career as a writer.
Chief among them are artists and writers, many of them women, who influenced her most.Levy...
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Although many of the pieces included have been published previously, as a collection of essays this really works. Levy is never afraid of stating an opinion and that honesty is part of what makes her writing... More
Another of Levy's brilliant personal and reflective works, this one focusing on how she perceives and learns from other writers. Breathtaking in its clarity of thought, honesty and humour and that typical Levy... More
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