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beepbeepbooks's review against another edition
4.0
A fascinating book, if not for the execution than for the potential of the project itself. An archive of burned texts, unfinished projects, half baked ideas, lost facts or motives that continue to build until the feeling of absence becomes overwhelming. Feels almost Oulipian in the simplicity of the motivation but the repercussions stay with us; what does it mean to trace the untraceable, how much potential lies hidden beneath our daily life, just waiting to be released by leisure, compulsion or madness? Who can decide which projects are worth saving, or which are worth mourning? Really fun and interesting to read just in general as well, although I would have liked if Deleuze's Le Grandeur de Marx, but I digress. Quite good.
mikeerrico's review against another edition
4.0
Henri Lefebvre, “The Missing Pieces:” This is not a book: it's a long, incantatory list of work that’s either been lost, destroyed, misplaced, unfinished, or unstarted: A sonata composed by Jean Paul Sartre. The only plan of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. 300 works by August Rodin, lost in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Passages of Nietzsche’s “Will to Power,” suppressed by his sister. 90% of the bronzes of Greek antiquity, melted down. 11 operas by Haydn, cut up by his wife, Maria Anna, who used his manuscript scores as hair curlers. The final seven meters of Kerouac’s “On The Road,” eaten by a dog... and on, and on..
One cringeworthy loss piles on top of another until it becomes hard to ignore the circumstances, and implications, of what has survived. Recommended for fans of negative space, dark humor, comedic futility, and the void.
One cringeworthy loss piles on top of another until it becomes hard to ignore the circumstances, and implications, of what has survived. Recommended for fans of negative space, dark humor, comedic futility, and the void.
steadybaum's review against another edition
4.0
If you're thinking that this book was written by the famed Marxist Henri Lefebvre as I - think again. This Henri is a different dude (even the goodreads app appears confused). Nevertheless, this is still a great mini book written in one line eulogies to lost art and literature.
piccoline's review against another edition
5.0
Weirdly, this is not *that* Henry Lefebvre, not the great French theorist. But the book's still absolutely great, especially if you love David Markson's late works like Reader's Block.
Semiotext(e) is such a great press.
Semiotext(e) is such a great press.
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