"'Blue' is poetically reconfigured as a shifting state to which the beholder perpetually attunes." —New Statesman
"[On Being Blue] is a talismanic, self-contained kind of book that seems more giving, more delicious each time one returns." —Brian Dillon, The Guardian
"The mark of a good essay is its ability to span worlds — illuminate complex ideas with a careful, personal touch. In On Being Blue there is life and death, pleasure, sadness, sex, personhood, theology — worlds of words." —Jaun Vidal, NPR
“A book no person who loves writing and the sound writing makes should be without.” —The New Republic
“Gass is a philosopher-voluptuary, someone who romances language with a roué’s cunning, and isn’t afraid to play with words and ideas for sheer sport." —Diane Ackerman
“On Being Blue is a luminous work, a tour de force on blue, that word (and color) reverberant with what is called experience. On Being Blue celebrates both language and that which it represents and carefully draws our attention to that difficult middle ground on which the writer finds himself in lifelong struggle to join the two without sullying or smearing the clarities of either.” —Gilbert Sorrentino
“This is a tour de force...a virtuoso performance of great imaginative force.” —Los Angeles Times
“An enchanting book.” —John Bayley, The New York Times Book Review
“A blue-black, slightly brackish beauty of a book, a philosophical essay written, for the most part, with the lilt of a Renaissance epithalamium.” —Larry McMurtry, The Washington Post Book World
On Being Blue is 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 exuberant black, sullen pink, or acquiescent orange. Blue is therefore most suitable as the color of interior life. Whether slick light sharp high bright thin 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.
Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.
Vendeur : Dunaway Books, St. Louis, MO, Etats-Unis
Soft cover. Etat : Near Fine. Etat de la jaquette : Near Fine. Blue paper wraps are sun-faded, glue coming unstuck along inside front cover. Bruise on page edges, otherwise pages clean and bright, binding square and tight. N° de réf. du vendeur 333051
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : Christina Merwin Books, Seattle, WA, Etats-Unis
Soft cover. Etat : Good. No Jacket. 5th or later Edition. Very Good condition. Shows only minor signs of wear on the cover. Sticker on back from bookstore. N° de réf. du vendeur 003
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : medimops, Berlin, Allemagne
Etat : very good. Gut/Very good: Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit wenigen Gebrauchsspuren an Einband, Schutzumschlag oder Seiten. / Describes a book or dust jacket that does show some signs of wear on either the binding, dust jacket or pages. N° de réf. du vendeur M00879232374-V
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : Hampstead Books, Haverfordwest, Royaume-Uni
Soft cover. Etat : Very Good Minus. Light wear only to book, some smudges on cover and fore page edge, monogram and apparent date on title page (possibly the author's?) pages are otherwise clean & bright, binding is tight. Dispatched from the UK same or next working day. N° de réf. du vendeur 011613
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : DIAMOND HOLLOW BOOKS / MILES BELLAMY, ANDES, NY, Etats-Unis
Softcover. Etat : Very Good. Etat de la jaquette : None. Trade paperback, later printing, 91 pages. this copy SIGNED in black ink by the author under his name on the title page. Condition is Very Good with light crease to cover decreasingly evident for the first 20 pages & sign of a damp-stain near crown which carries on to a few pages but does not affect text. N° de réf. du vendeur 3044
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, Royaume-Uni
Paperback. Etat : Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. N° de réf. du vendeur GOR004276101
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : Sutton Books, Norwich, VT, Etats-Unis
Soft cover. Etat : Near Fine. pbk 91pp prev owner's name on fep and inside rear cover some external shelwear otherwise the text is excellent clean tight unmarked as new. N° de réf. du vendeur Ph1463
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : Revaluation Books, Exeter, Royaume-Uni
Paperback. Etat : Brand New. reissue edition. 96 pages. 8.50x5.50x0.25 inches. In Stock. N° de réf. du vendeur 0879232374
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : SHIMEDIA, Brooklyn, NY, Etats-Unis
Etat : New. Satisfaction Guaranteed or your money back. N° de réf. du vendeur 0879232374
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)
Vendeur : BennettBooksLtd, Los Angeles, CA, Etats-Unis
paperback. Etat : New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! N° de réf. du vendeur Q-0879232374
Quantité disponible : 1 disponible(s)