Reviews

The TV Sutras by Dodie Bellamy

chillcox15's review

4.0

The first part of this book, a quasi-satirical rendition of messianic aphorisms, is (pointedly) banal, and frankly you can miss me with it. The second half, a more conventionally "new narrative" interrogation into cult persuasions.

arilaurel's review

4.0

Reading this felt so fresh and interesting. It was my introduction to Dodie Bellamy through a recommendation from a friend. I have to say that the "sutras" section of the book was less interesting to me than the conceit of the project, but the narrative section sucked me in. What I liked most of all was Bellamy's telling of cult life and norms simply as they are. She doesn't have to rationalize why everyone does what they do, how the cult takes over one's faculties and makes everyone believe crazy ideas. She just opens the door and, with a friendly greeting, lets us in to voyeur until little by little we become part of this story by virtue of being so invested. Really excited to use The TV Sutras as future inspiration.

mollygorelick's review

adventurous emotional funny reflective medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

kaylagoggin's review

4.0

part conceptual art and part novella about cults, women from Jupiter, and how we decide what to believe in.

“Beliefs should not be judged as true or false or ludicrous or reasonable. Beliefs should be judged…by their beauty, by the x-factor that makes us fall in love with them. Belief should spasm our hearts with desire.”

meganmilks's review

5.0

Dodie Bellamy is just reinventing the book again and again. What can a book be? It can be a conceptual series of sutras inspired by the TV, followed by a sprawling essay/memoir/novel that chronicles (and partially fictionalizes...I think?) Bellamy's experiences with a 70s new age cult and various spiritual teachers. Inspired, inspiring, and FUNNY, all the way through.

"In my commentaries to the TV Sutras I am generating the logic of absorbed systems. Not observation, absorption" (190).