In this book of essays, Ducornet stresses that language
is magic. Words are alive. Writing is a way of reading
the secret of the world.
Calligraphy, as the Arabs
knew, is a way of breathing
life into a text,
of inking the stripes
on the tiger,
of concealing the secret in plain sight
from profane eyes.
of concealing the secret in plain sight
from profane eyes.
It's dangerous work.
But it's what brings meaning & mystery &
beauty into the world.
As when a lover of a Berber girl licks the symbolic text that is tattooed upon her breast, and swallowing, embodies and releases the alphabet of desire. An alphabet that, like the letters of the sun's illumination, is sacred, eternal, and profoundly human.
The Deep Zoo is the menagerie of
fabulous creatures that exist in
the deepest stratum of our
consciousness accessible only
through our imagination.
Ducornet urges us to contact the deep zoo within ourselves.
Even at this late hour, it remains the one way we might still save our lives and the world.
Ducornet urges us to contact the deep zoo within ourselves.
Even at this late hour, it remains the one way we might still save our lives and the world.
Well that is one way to interpret what she's getting at in this collection.
Gaston Bachelard gets referenced a lot.
So does Jorge Luis Borges
As does The Epic of Gilgamesh & the Marquis de Sade.
Ducornet wonders whether America has become a
version of Sade's Silling castle in the 120
Days of Sodom, where
a group of rich evil bastards torture
the voiceless, the powerless, and the innocent
in what amounts to a Gnostic
version of Hell.
The Gnostics get referenced a lot.
Bush is vilified.
American Imperialism is decried
as is American stupidity in
history & politics.
Ducornet doesn't have a lot of good to say
about America. What thinking person does?
That's just the problem.
Thinking people in this country are a rare breed
of animal, very hard to find.
Kaspar Hauser is a significant
touchstone.
So is Aloys Zotl and his Beastiarium
so beloved by the surrealists.
There are a few essays on little-known
contemporary artists
that she admires,
especially those who come from the Pacific northwest
where Ducornet makes her home.
There are appreciative, almost reverent essays on William Gass's Omensetter's Luck and
David Lynch.
There is some, but not a lot, of personal reminiscence.
The main point here is art and its power
to animate,
to decipher,
& re/program our reality
Ducornet writes elliptically
in these essays.
Her "reasoning" is often non-linear;
it is not always easy to follow.
Her transitions are intuitive.
These essays do not plot,
but gallop.
They are usually unpredictable.
You don't rein them in.
You simply hang on.
You don't rein them in.
You simply hang on.
But that is precisely what makes
them so exciting to read.
They inform.
But they inspire more than they inform.
They inspire you to look closer at the world,
deeper into yourself,
to carefully open the cages of your own deep zoo.
This is one of those rare books meant to do more
than simply be read.
This is a book meant, in some way,
big or small, to change
your life.
This is one of those rare books meant to do more
than simply be read.
This is a book meant, in some way,
big or small, to change
your life.
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