A review by melanie_page
Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia by Blake Butler

Did not finish book.

1.0

I'd give it a solid 2.5--I really liked some parts (when he describes moments from his life in beautiful wording: the balloon, going to the clinic, his father, his dreams about the boulder and the man in the white car), but a lot of the book moves away from memoir and delves into fantasy (page after page of using words like air, self, meat, holes, and lick in uncommon form, leaving me a bit lost as to what he means and falling down the rabbit hole without a flashlight). They may be Butler's fantasies that he experiences while awake, but aren't all fantasies fiction? Based on the descriptions of his other books, his memoir sounds fairly close in content. If there were more Blake Butler and less theory/philosophy/dream-like writing that doesn't seem to be dreams, I'm sure my opinion would be much higher. How would this book have been different if there were more descriptions of actual dreams (such as when he is awake 129 hours) and less stream-of-conscious writing?