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bookscatsandjazz's review
5.0
Three very short essays / mini-biographies about De Quincey, Keats, and Marcel Schwob respectively. They feel like short stories at times, and it's fascinating to watch how Fleur Jaeggy builds an emotionally resonant narrative while often using details that wouldn't seem relevant at first.
necrogaia's review
4.0
While the book itself is short, with three short biographies of literary creatives, it should not be rushed through. Every sentences and paragraphs lingers with a sort of heavy melancholy that was written in a way we get to step into these fragments of turning points in their lives.
Really well written overall and not a bore to read.
Really well written overall and not a bore to read.
jeffhall's review against another edition
4.0
Fleur Jaeggy is an author who has been on the edge of my consciousness for a while now, and I'm glad to have finally read one of her books. These Possible Lives is short but intense, featuring three wildly imaginative biographic portraits that (even in translation) sing with the beautiful invention of an ecstatic bibliophile, the same sort of energy that powered Jorge Luis Borge's magical writings.
cuntlander's review against another edition
4.0
writers haunted by death: their own or otherwise. amazing insights into history and writers also plagued by depression. short and terse but powerful. stark prose heightens unsettling images. the final one was the best one.
ianridewood's review
5.0
I've read no biography (or non-fiction at all) as economic with its words and ideas and so rich in story, sound, and voice.
_cristina's review
4.0
Walking on the heath, Keats came across a being with a strange light in its eyes, a rumpled archangel—he recognized Coleridge. They walked together and spoke of nightingales and dreams.
bonylegged's review against another edition
4.0
An excellent and poetic book. Great for fans of Anne Carson. My only tiff is that the translator made some strange choices (not translating Cahun to Cohen and keeping A Thousand and One Nights in its French translation)
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