{"product_id":"these-possible-lives-9780811226875","title":"These Possible Lives","description":"New Directions is proud to present Fleur Jaeggy's strange and mesmerizing essays about the writers Thomas De Quincey, John Keats, and Marcel Schwob. A renowned stylist of hyper-brevity in fiction, Fleur Jaeggy proves herself an even more concise master of the essay form, albeit in a most peculiar and lapidary poetic vein. Of De Quincey's early nineteenth-century world we hear of the habits of writers: Charles Lamb \"spoke of 'Lilliputian rabbits' when eating frog fricassse\"; Henry Fuseli \"ate a diet of raw meat in order to obtain splendid dreams\"; \"Hazlitt was perceptive about musculature and boxers\"; and \"Wordsworth used a buttery knife to cut the pages of a first-edition Burke.\" In a book of \"blue devils\" and night visions, the Keats essay opens: \"In 1803, the guillotine was a common child's toy.\" And poor Schwob's end comes as he feels \"like a 'dog cut open alive'\" \"His face colored slightly, turning into a mask of gold. His eyes stayed open imperiously. No one could shut his eyelids. The room smoked of grief.\" Fleur Jaeggy's essays--or are they prose poems?--smoke of necessity: the pages are on fire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New Directions Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/25\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780811226875\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 64\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.10lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 6.90h x 5.00w x 0.30d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/06\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/01\/2017\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Fleur Jaeggy","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43084118229173,"sku":"9780811226875","price":11.01,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_fd4a77a0-2cfc-4d07-ae96-dd76157125fa.jpg?v=1692110801","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/these-possible-lives-9780811226875","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}