The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art

by Eileen Myles

Book Overview

A poet and post-punk heroine writes on subjects ranging from Bj rk to Robert Smithson, from traveling in Iceland to walking in Thoreau's footsteps on Cape Cod

Poet and post-punk heroine Eileen Myles has always operated in the art, writing, and queer performance scenes as a kind of observant flaneur. Like Baudelaire's gentleman stroller, Myles travels the city--wandering on garbage-strewn New York streets in the heat of summer, drifting...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1584350660
• ISBN13: 9781584350668
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Semiotext(e)
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A TREASURE

This book is a triumph. Don't let the seemingly scattered table of contents fool you. All of the subject matter relates in that it is alive, in the world, available to be considered, argued, enjoyed. The Importance Of Being Iceland is a treatise, a line in the sand, a breaking-open, a heartbreak and a glittering heart. The essays build a matrix of critique and personal anecdote, creating a portrait of the artist yet also functioning as art, itself. The writing is full of profound observation that cuts through rote academic critique to truly examine and investigate art, artists, and nature of life itself (god that sounds so corny but its true!). I have owned this book only two weeks and I've read it cover to cover twice. It is a work that I will quote, share, re-read, and question for some time. Bravo, Eileen!