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redhickory's review against another edition
1.0
I was under the impression these pieces where all fiction when I started reading – the one by Modjeska is, the others are not.
The one by Lohrey is a very dry piece which explores why people sing. It comes from a personal place which I couldn’t relate to. The bits and pieces of theory from articles and interviews weren’t smoothly sewn together, it was disjointed and at times rather dull.
The 3 linked pieces by Dessaix were also dull (he explores the nature of arcane mystical secret knowledge), although I do like the way in which he expresses himself (so I kept reading anyway!).
The piece by Modjeska was fiction, and had the most juicy secrets, but the telling was dry and uninvolving. I found myself not caring about the characters or their secrets, which was a shame, as the story really is multi-faceted. It has a surface simplicity, but the secrets revealed raise a number of questions about the nature of identity, history, art and culture, and the way in which secrets influence the formation of some of these identities.
Not a book I'd recommend to any of the readers I know.
The one by Lohrey is a very dry piece which explores why people sing. It comes from a personal place which I couldn’t relate to. The bits and pieces of theory from articles and interviews weren’t smoothly sewn together, it was disjointed and at times rather dull.
The 3 linked pieces by Dessaix were also dull (he explores the nature of arcane mystical secret knowledge), although I do like the way in which he expresses himself (so I kept reading anyway!).
The piece by Modjeska was fiction, and had the most juicy secrets, but the telling was dry and uninvolving. I found myself not caring about the characters or their secrets, which was a shame, as the story really is multi-faceted. It has a surface simplicity, but the secrets revealed raise a number of questions about the nature of identity, history, art and culture, and the way in which secrets influence the formation of some of these identities.
Not a book I'd recommend to any of the readers I know.
jocelyn_sp's review against another edition
This is a collection of 3 stories, a novella and 2 long essays. It opens with a poem by Auden, 'Secrets', which I really enjoyed. Then each story is titled with a phrase from the poem. The novella by Modjeska, Ripe to Tell, I really enjoyed. It was subtle and confusing, thought-provoking and well-written. Lohrey's essay, The Clear Voice Suddenly Singing, was about joining a singing group and wondering why people sing. It didn't link well to the concept of secrets, and I found it dull. Dessaix's essay, At Last the Secret, started with a lovely discussion of the connections between gossip (the subject of the poem) and philosophy. The book has small pages, less than A5, and was fat and tightly bound. This made it tiring to hold and a bit annoying to read. After not enjoying Lohrey's essay I decided I was not sufficiently interested in Dessaix's idle speculating on ancient religions, and returned the book to the library.
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