Fotografía de autor
3+ Obras 59 Miembros 1 Reseña

Obras de Peter Dimock

Obras relacionadas

Visions of History (1983) — Contribuidor — 59 copias

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento
1950
Género
male

Miembros

Reseñas

As a review below remarks, this is truly a sui generis text: I have never read anything like it, nor do I even know where to begin discussing it, especially in the mindset I’ve been in of late. As such, I would direct interested readers to Scott Esposito’s very thoughtful rel="nofollow" target="_top">review of the book in the Washington Post. For those who want to read my paltry attempt, carry on:



Dimock uses his narrator, Theo Fales, to question history, what it means to be an American when terror is the norm, how complicit all citizens are in this government-sanctioned reign of terror, and also how we can begin to fathom new and alternative histories through practicing logic based on compassion. These aren’t new questions, of course; these are the questions we all face in the world in which we now live—whether post-9/11 or post-George W. Bush, take your pick.

But Fales is writing to David Kallen, whom, as Esposito notes, is modeled on Daniel Levin whose memorandum in 2004 declared torture and punishment as enacted by the Bush regime to be lawful, despite having allowed himself to undergo torture on his own person in order to come to an experiential conclusion. Fales wonders if Kallen’s decision was coerced, and if so, why and by whom? Why would a person who could say “stop”—and who did say “stop”—when undergoing torture then declare the same methods as humane?

Interestingly, Fales doesn’t blame Kallen; instead, he sees Kallen’s memo as rooted in a kind of imperial rule that does not comprehend either complicity or reciprocity. Urging Kallen to read his letter before a meeting he sets in the future, Fales somehow manages to build not only a convincing portrait of what it means to be an American today—in logistic terms, and in the questions posed to those in positions of power—but also what forces bind us to others despite difference in cultures, ranks, power differentials, and so on.

Fales’s letter, then, becomes a kind of self-help book, with four weeks’ worth of exercises he claims to have perfected after rigorous practice himself, exercises he believes will lay the groundwork for Kallen to consider in more human terms the repercussions of his actions before they meet to discuss this in the future—especially over an imagined or fantasized discussion between the two of the state of Fallujah.

Fales latches on to the historical figure George Anderson, an African-American who was a slave, saw the end of slavery, and who lived to the ripe age of one-hundred-and-six. The discourse of slavery underlies Fales’s logic in terms of compassion and complicity, and it is also one that he joins to the musical realm: there are notes that are related to the philosophical and logic problems each week’s exercise has Kallen undertaking, notes that are related to love, a heteronormative model that Fales believes can overcome all obstacles and help build a foundation between people. (This is where Dimock lost me, if only because the book appears to privilege a heterosexual paradigm for the politics of forgiveness and change, while preventing others from accessing these necessary tasks who do not fall into, buy into, or adhere to the heteronormative model’s own hypocrisies.)

Logic problems, philosophical equations, and a lament for the “New World dead,” George Anderson manages to maneuver between and across all sorts of textual and political borderlines. This is much to its credit. However, there are also places where the repetitions and recurrences of certain exercises can make for plodding reading indeed: as a closed text, one would imagine Dimock would be better aware of engaging his reader, but at times it seems he is only aware of Kallen/Levin.… (más)
 
Denunciada
proustitute | Apr 2, 2023 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
3
También por
2
Miembros
59
Popularidad
#280,813
Valoración
½ 3.7
Reseñas
1
ISBNs
6

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