Reviews and Comments

Olga Tokarczuk is a masterful storyteller, and this book is a wonder. It is told in short chapters, each one following one of the occupants of the fictional village of Primeval in Poland. It takes place over the course of the 20th Century, following three generations.

Within the short chapters are touching, striking, considerate and heartfelt moments, each one revealing a depth of humanity that Tokarczuk seems to find with ease. But this ease is deceptive: there is not a word out of place here, and the characters have both allegory and humanity in them. Underpinning the linked stories is an ongoing debate about existence, god, and the lives of animals, fungi and inanimate things. It is so prescient, and so relevant today, that it is surprising that this book was first published in 1996. A brilliant piece of craft, and a beautiful story of life's struggles and moments of wonder.

Two prominent voices in contemporary philosophy put a letter, and an idea, to a collection of academics about how being a woman has affected their being in university. Inspired by Virginia Woolf's refusal to sign a statement supporting the Allied response in World War II, this contemporary letter is not a call to (or against) action, but more a searching for diversity of thought.

It is successful too. The second half of the book documents the responses, so varied and considered that they make fascinating reading. This is where the book really enthralls. The authors allow the responses their own space, and many of the academics eloquently pick apart the flaws in a male-dominated space, while some refuse to and choose critique and analysis that positions them within this system. As a fan of both Despret's and Stengers' other work, it was nice to see how both voices came through here (although Stengers' felt the stronger of the two). The epilogue clearly says that no definitive conclusion is reached, and that is true, but in this case the journey seems to be the important point, and in that journey are many varied perspectives well presented.

Lucy Lippard is a well-known voice in the area of land and site-specific art. Undermining repositions this voice to land activism situated particularly in the American west, where she has repositioned herself. Using a mixture of photography and writing, it tells a story of gravel, adobe, uranium, fracking and water, considering what happens in the subterranean realm.

Lippard presents strong (and worrying) points about land use and land law, but never really finalises her points. She makes a couple of howlers, spending a long time discussing Western land artists and then paying lip service to native art (which seems more important in this context), or suggesting "truth" in pre-Photoshop photography. The book is also very American-centric, and despite her statement that the local represents the global, her arguments do not hold from a global perspective if you are familiar with art or activism outside of the USA. Despite these issues, there are wonderful poetic moments that contrast erection of buildings with digging holes, and the writing benefits from Lippard's ironic sense of humour and well-judged framing from one section to the next, and in the end is an interesting if flawed exploration of the undermined world.

A playful and enjoyable memoir by an anthropologist who turns his observational lens on himself. This book is short but thoughtful, presenting the argument that age is a social construct, and not really existent. Opening with a critique on ageism that is well weighted, the book moves on to consider how people create a perception of what oldness is. Much of the book considers the role of story in film and novel as well as in personal reflections on age and youth. In the end, the book is a little short and would have been nice to see Augé dig a little deeper into some of his points, particularly the idea of the idealisation of youth when remembering; these points about nostalgia and personal narrative are interesting to consider, particularly in a time when Augé himself attests that perhaps it will be hard for people today to experience a similar nostalgia for their youth.