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A review by brice_mo
The Position of Spoons by Deborah Levy
1.25
Thanks to NetGalley and FSG For the ARC!
The Position of Spoons is an apt title for Deborah Levy’s collection of table scraps, a book that reads like unchecked self-indulgence or a contractual obligation to a publisher— haphazard, incomplete, and disengaged.
This is a remarkably odd collection of essayettes. It feels like someone shook out a desk drawer full of notes and said, “That’s it. That’s the book.” These are B-sides to an unreleased album, lacking the context readers would need to appreciate them even as fragments. They are not even half-formed thoughts—they feel like afterthoughts, the echo of ideas without their incitement. They are writerly and aphoristic in all the wrong ways, seemingly desperate to impress readers but completely disinterested in engaging with them. If you’ve ever had someone interrupt a conversation for no other reason than to convince you that they are the most interesting person in the room, you’ve already experienced what The Position of Spoons has on offer.
To state it more bluntly, the prose feels student-like—cocksure, with all of the masculine insecurities implicit in the word. The imagery Levy relies on feels undeveloped, and emphatically so. An effective image should feel unexpected but inevitable, but that isn’t the case here. As an example, early in the book, Levy compares socklessness to godlessness. It feels like the whisper of a clever idea, but it ends there—a shorthand gesture towards nothing in particular.
The book isn’t without its merits. I enjoyed “Migrations to Elswhere and Other Pains,” an off-kilter inversion of Alice in Wonderland. It’s feverish, impenetrable, and off-putting, but it’s one of the lone pieces in this collection that feels like a complete draft rather than the notebook scrawlings that comprise most of the book. Similarly, by the second half of the collection, the individual pieces feel slightly more coherent—if disorganized—but by that point, Levy has soured any possible goodwill. More than anything, the whole book just feels inessential, which is strange considering how beloved its author is. I fully believe Deborah Levy is a great writer, but she just doesn’t feel very present in this book.
Perhaps my appreciation would be different if I were familiar with Deborah Levy’s acclaimed other work, but that’s just it—I think a book should be able to stand alone as an object.
If it can’t, it’s not a book; it’s a vanity project.
The Position of Spoons is an apt title for Deborah Levy’s collection of table scraps, a book that reads like unchecked self-indulgence or a contractual obligation to a publisher— haphazard, incomplete, and disengaged.
This is a remarkably odd collection of essayettes. It feels like someone shook out a desk drawer full of notes and said, “That’s it. That’s the book.” These are B-sides to an unreleased album, lacking the context readers would need to appreciate them even as fragments. They are not even half-formed thoughts—they feel like afterthoughts, the echo of ideas without their incitement. They are writerly and aphoristic in all the wrong ways, seemingly desperate to impress readers but completely disinterested in engaging with them. If you’ve ever had someone interrupt a conversation for no other reason than to convince you that they are the most interesting person in the room, you’ve already experienced what The Position of Spoons has on offer.
To state it more bluntly, the prose feels student-like—cocksure, with all of the masculine insecurities implicit in the word. The imagery Levy relies on feels undeveloped, and emphatically so. An effective image should feel unexpected but inevitable, but that isn’t the case here. As an example, early in the book, Levy compares socklessness to godlessness. It feels like the whisper of a clever idea, but it ends there—a shorthand gesture towards nothing in particular.
The book isn’t without its merits. I enjoyed “Migrations to Elswhere and Other Pains,” an off-kilter inversion of Alice in Wonderland. It’s feverish, impenetrable, and off-putting, but it’s one of the lone pieces in this collection that feels like a complete draft rather than the notebook scrawlings that comprise most of the book. Similarly, by the second half of the collection, the individual pieces feel slightly more coherent—if disorganized—but by that point, Levy has soured any possible goodwill. More than anything, the whole book just feels inessential, which is strange considering how beloved its author is. I fully believe Deborah Levy is a great writer, but she just doesn’t feel very present in this book.
Perhaps my appreciation would be different if I were familiar with Deborah Levy’s acclaimed other work, but that’s just it—I think a book should be able to stand alone as an object.
If it can’t, it’s not a book; it’s a vanity project.