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kitnotmarlowe's review
challenging
slow-paced
2.75
perhaps fanny howe's style is a little bit too experimental for me. sometimes when i do not connect with poetry, it's more of a matter of my personal taste and i can still admire the form and literary merit. other times, it's just. not very good. normally in the case of the first i leave the collection unrated, but i think the case of the needle's eye: passing through youth is a mixture of both. the repeated images and subjects present throughout these essays and poems--sts. francis & clare, the boston bombers, cinema--don't feel like running threads that are renewed with each interrogation, so much as familiar subjects to lean back onto. there is the occasional masterful turn of phrase, but for the most part, there isn't much fun or challenge to be had with the forms she employs.
this was my introduction to howe's oeuvre and i chose it on a whim because i saw a snippet from the piece kristeva & me that i found quite powerful. i'm not sure if i will read more of her work, but maybe i will dip into an earlier poem from time to time.
this was my introduction to howe's oeuvre and i chose it on a whim because i saw a snippet from the piece kristeva & me that i found quite powerful. i'm not sure if i will read more of her work, but maybe i will dip into an earlier poem from time to time.
michelempls's review
1.0
I didn’t like this book – [b:The Needle's Eye: Passing through Youth|28015098|The Needle's Eye Passing through Youth|Fanny Howe|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1453061014s/28015098.jpg|48025515]. [a:Fanny Howe|128742|Fanny Howe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1203806465p2/128742.jpg]seemed, to me, to be hinting at a greater depth in her writing than she ultimately reveals. Perhaps this is a poetic form she’s using? I was left with the impression that this is more blog, than book.
The writing, apparently previously published essays and poems for the most part, comes off stylistically choppy. The innocence of childhood, perverted by the world; the visions of St. Francis and St. Clare; the author’s relationship with a celibate Russian translator; the cinema in general and Bergman films, especially – all her expositions on these left me ultimately cold, and not really caring about the subject of her writing.
There were some interesting moments, when Howe reveals some surprising tidbit, only to abandon it in the very next sentence. Others may appreciate this stylistic choice, but I found it distracting in the extreme. In my opinion, non-sequiturs do not make a memoir experimental, they confuse and ultimately irritate the reader.
The writing, apparently previously published essays and poems for the most part, comes off stylistically choppy. The innocence of childhood, perverted by the world; the visions of St. Francis and St. Clare; the author’s relationship with a celibate Russian translator; the cinema in general and Bergman films, especially – all her expositions on these left me ultimately cold, and not really caring about the subject of her writing.
There were some interesting moments, when Howe reveals some surprising tidbit, only to abandon it in the very next sentence. Others may appreciate this stylistic choice, but I found it distracting in the extreme. In my opinion, non-sequiturs do not make a memoir experimental, they confuse and ultimately irritate the reader.
anfweldon's review
2.0
I received this book through Goodreads Giveaway. This was nothing what I thought it was going to be. I found the writing sporadic, disconnected, and moved from subject to subject without seeming to finish a thought before moving onto the next. That being said I may have missed the passing through youth part of the novel. There were a few paragraphs about youth but like I have stated it didn't seem to have anything to do with passing through youth. While this was not the book for me, I would recommend that readers find out for themselves.
jacob_wren's review
5.0
A few passages from The Needle’s Eye by Fanny Howe:
The almond tree with its white blossoms teaches him that fruition is a sign of completion, the moment of failure to which everything aspires. The trees have fulfilled their cycle, turn white, click off, and die.
*
The binder for liquid bole is animal-skin glue. Almost honey. Without glue binder, bole won’t stick to the icon board. And then there is the gold leaf, or flake, like a dry fleck of pollen, to gild the wood. Everything is stuck together when the gold has come.
The flowers buzz when the vibration of the bees stimulates their pistons and their molecules swell and their petals hum like cellos. Rocks are alive too, the firstborn of the natural world, somber without will.
There is no freedom from this universe we were born into, because it is our vague source of sensation, our soul, the container of our guilt.
Skins liquefy in heat. And when a bald baby swallow dies on your palm, you feel warmth pouring over your skin, a kind of burning fountain that scalds you like pepper spray.
Do you think this is a sign of the spirit ripping its energy into you to carry to the other side? I do. There are no actual objects over there, no materials but unformed steaming clouds, colors that harmonize musically, no gravity exists but elasticity composed of invisible mesh images.
Who will meet me on the other side, I ask you, to prove the error of what I say? Will it be someone who never loved me?
*
Did you know that Puritans believed a baby was only conceived during an orgasm? The Puritans had to spend a lot of time on making this happen, on sex, because without more children, there would be no settlement, no city.
*
Still, hope was like a throng of singers that circled the world both here and there having died and echoed over and over. What is a song but a call from the other side?
.
The almond tree with its white blossoms teaches him that fruition is a sign of completion, the moment of failure to which everything aspires. The trees have fulfilled their cycle, turn white, click off, and die.
*
The binder for liquid bole is animal-skin glue. Almost honey. Without glue binder, bole won’t stick to the icon board. And then there is the gold leaf, or flake, like a dry fleck of pollen, to gild the wood. Everything is stuck together when the gold has come.
The flowers buzz when the vibration of the bees stimulates their pistons and their molecules swell and their petals hum like cellos. Rocks are alive too, the firstborn of the natural world, somber without will.
There is no freedom from this universe we were born into, because it is our vague source of sensation, our soul, the container of our guilt.
Skins liquefy in heat. And when a bald baby swallow dies on your palm, you feel warmth pouring over your skin, a kind of burning fountain that scalds you like pepper spray.
Do you think this is a sign of the spirit ripping its energy into you to carry to the other side? I do. There are no actual objects over there, no materials but unformed steaming clouds, colors that harmonize musically, no gravity exists but elasticity composed of invisible mesh images.
Who will meet me on the other side, I ask you, to prove the error of what I say? Will it be someone who never loved me?
*
Did you know that Puritans believed a baby was only conceived during an orgasm? The Puritans had to spend a lot of time on making this happen, on sex, because without more children, there would be no settlement, no city.
*
Still, hope was like a throng of singers that circled the world both here and there having died and echoed over and over. What is a song but a call from the other side?
.
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