Great Expectations (Reissue)

by Kathy Acker

Book Overview

Kathy Acker's practice of literary appropriation and pastiche made her notorious--as a rebel and a groundbreaker--when Great Expectations was first published in 1982. Here, she begins rewriting Charles Dickens's classic--splicing it with passages from Pierre Guyotat's sexually violent Eden, Eden, Eden , among other texts--alongside Acker's trademark pithy dialogue, as well as prank missives to the likes of Susan Sontag, Sylv re Lotringer, and God...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802128548
• ISBN13: 9780802128546
• Release Date: March 2019
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

the urge to destroy is a creative urge

In this novel Acker aims her critique at the gnarly intersection of capitalism, violence, sexual dysfunction, and male dominance. In order to live out this critique, Acker jettisons most of the (male-dominated) traditions of narrative as she writes, systematically disrupting the stability of characters and setting, and rejecting the claim to authorial originality (as you might guess from the title). Some might say that this rejection is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I'm more inclined to say it's form following function. Exemplary.

a wonderful but difficult book

kathy acker doesn't cut any corners - ever. great expectations might shock you, might offend you, might even hurt and disturb you. but acker can deconstruct sexuality and eroticism and living like no one else can, and you might learn a lot about yourself and this rough, confusing existence.