Animal Joy
Author: Nuar Alsadir
Published by: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Pages: 340
Format: Paperback
My Rating: ★★★★
Published by: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Pages: 340
Format: Paperback
My Rating: ★★★★
Laughter shakes us out of our deadness. An outburst of spontaneous laughter is an eruption from the unconscious that, like political resistance, poetry, or self-revelation, expresses a provocative, impish drive to burst free from external constraints.
Taking laughter’s revelatory capacity as a starting point and rooted in Nuar Alsadir’s experience as a poet and psychoanalyst, Animal Joy seeks to recover the sensation of feeling alive and embodied.
Taking laughter’s revelatory capacity as a starting point and rooted in Nuar Alsadir’s experience as a poet and psychoanalyst, Animal Joy seeks to recover the sensation of feeling alive and embodied.
My thoughts:
Animal Joy takes the form of an extended essay. It moves with fluidity, presenting a meditation on the relationship between laughter and almost everything else. The book explores laughter in the context of psychoanalytic theory, literary criticism and critical race theory; draws deftly on popular culture; and unpicks how laughter features in contemporary politics.
Whilst surveying a dizzying range of sources in an illuminating examination of laughter’s workings, uses and constraints, Alsadir reads the human psyche with brilliant accuracy. It feels as though she is patiently prodding underneath the surface of human behaviour, language, politics and race to get to the root of what’s real.
The writing is poetic, fluid and connects well as Alsadir seamlessly moves from reminiscing on moments shared with her daughters to delving more in to her research, sharing with readers a learned history of psychoanalysis, lyrical poetics and ontological investigations.
Interwoven are vignettes from her own life, including her encounters at a New York clown school and her experience of parenting two daughters. These were probably my favourite moments in the book.
Through a personal and artful weave of stories and meditations, Alsadir draws insightful parallels between spontaneous laughter and creativity.
This title was the first selection for a new poetry reading group I attended in Bath. Animal Joy is an ode to spontaneity and feeling alive. I loved this book. Part psychotherapy textbook, part clowning manual, part memoir; all of it blended into a fascinating, illuminating whole.
Overall reaction:
Animal Joy takes the form of an extended essay. It moves with fluidity, presenting a meditation on the relationship between laughter and almost everything else. The book explores laughter in the context of psychoanalytic theory, literary criticism and critical race theory; draws deftly on popular culture; and unpicks how laughter features in contemporary politics.
Whilst surveying a dizzying range of sources in an illuminating examination of laughter’s workings, uses and constraints, Alsadir reads the human psyche with brilliant accuracy. It feels as though she is patiently prodding underneath the surface of human behaviour, language, politics and race to get to the root of what’s real.
The writing is poetic, fluid and connects well as Alsadir seamlessly moves from reminiscing on moments shared with her daughters to delving more in to her research, sharing with readers a learned history of psychoanalysis, lyrical poetics and ontological investigations.
Interwoven are vignettes from her own life, including her encounters at a New York clown school and her experience of parenting two daughters. These were probably my favourite moments in the book.
Through a personal and artful weave of stories and meditations, Alsadir draws insightful parallels between spontaneous laughter and creativity.
This title was the first selection for a new poetry reading group I attended in Bath. Animal Joy is an ode to spontaneity and feeling alive. I loved this book. Part psychotherapy textbook, part clowning manual, part memoir; all of it blended into a fascinating, illuminating whole.
Overall reaction: