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A review by hberg95
The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard
5.0
It seems completely irrelevant to rate my experience of this book on a five star scale (more than usual, that is). My experience of this book has not been singular. I read this book over the course of the last 5 months, a chapter at a time, alongside a group of other folks who met weekly to discuss it.
At times, I was frustrated. Bachelard's language is so difficult to track at times, often I would be wondering about the implicit meanings lying behind his claims when I really ought to have been taking his claims at face value. There were moments where I didn't agree and couldn't follow and I stand by those problems.
That being said, The Poetics of Space has challenged me to open my eyes to the world in new ways. I read this book shortly after re-modeling and selling my childhood home and it helped me understand that experience in a new way. I now have new and accurate language to understand the experiences of vastness, felicity, immensity, and the coziness of corners.
One of the most profound bits of Bachelard's analysis that has stuck with me from the start actually helps explain my feelings about this book and my experience with it, specifically his remark that poems and texts function by "expressing us by making us what [they express]". I'm not walking away from this work in phenomenology with a deep understanding of the truths of the universe or a profound understanding of my place in the world, but I do feel like this book has become personally meaningful to me. Between the pages are scribbled moments and images that connect me to the images Bachelard expresses. When he talks about the familiar feel of doorknobs and latches in our childhood abodes, I have my own images; when he speaks of moments of vastness or corners of comfort, I've written and thought of my own.
It is not a typical experience in reading philosophy, but I would certainly recommend it to anyone open to this type of phenomenological exploration.
At times, I was frustrated. Bachelard's language is so difficult to track at times, often I would be wondering about the implicit meanings lying behind his claims when I really ought to have been taking his claims at face value. There were moments where I didn't agree and couldn't follow and I stand by those problems.
That being said, The Poetics of Space has challenged me to open my eyes to the world in new ways. I read this book shortly after re-modeling and selling my childhood home and it helped me understand that experience in a new way. I now have new and accurate language to understand the experiences of vastness, felicity, immensity, and the coziness of corners.
One of the most profound bits of Bachelard's analysis that has stuck with me from the start actually helps explain my feelings about this book and my experience with it, specifically his remark that poems and texts function by "expressing us by making us what [they express]". I'm not walking away from this work in phenomenology with a deep understanding of the truths of the universe or a profound understanding of my place in the world, but I do feel like this book has become personally meaningful to me. Between the pages are scribbled moments and images that connect me to the images Bachelard expresses. When he talks about the familiar feel of doorknobs and latches in our childhood abodes, I have my own images; when he speaks of moments of vastness or corners of comfort, I've written and thought of my own.
It is not a typical experience in reading philosophy, but I would certainly recommend it to anyone open to this type of phenomenological exploration.