The Poetics of Space
| Author | Bachelard, Gaston |
| Published | 1958 |
| Status | read |
| Recommender | Julian P. |
| Rating | 5/5 |
I heard about this book first in September 2024, read it in October 2024, and I don’t know how it took me that long to do either. It’s a poetic ramble, a refutation of hard philosophy. It’s still very insightful despite its poetic bent.
This is the kind of book you take with you on a road trip, particularly if you will stay in lodgings unfamiliar to you, such as a tent or an Airbnb. It’s the kind of book that’ll have you revisiting poets you’ve read and taking notes on ones you’ve not heard of.
It features synthesis and intertextual reference and metaphor and it’s just fun in concept and execution.
Man, what a cool book. An instant promotion to my desert-island collection.
“Sometimes a house grows and spreads so that, in order to live in it, greater elasticity of daydreaming, a daydream that is less clearly outlined, are needed. ‘My house,’ writes Georges Spyridaki, ‘is diaphanous, but not of glass. It is more of the nature of vapor. Its walls contract and expand as I desire. At times, I draw them close about me like protective armor … but at others, I let the walls of my house blossom out in their own space, which is infinitely extensible.’ “
(p. 71-72)
