The Poetics of Space
by Gaston Bachelard
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Book Summary Information
Author: Gaston BachelardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-04-01
ISBN: 0807064734
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Beacon Press
Book Reviews of The Poetics of Space
Book Review: it's"more enriching to imagine than experience"this book
Summary: 3 Stars
I came across mention of this book in Alexander Cockburn's otherwise excellent list of the century's greatest works of non-fiction in translation. Alex, you gave me a bum steer! The jacket of this book and the reviews already posted here at Amazon led me to believe that it would contain some insight into the how people experience places. The introduction promises an exploration of "the impact of human habitation on geometrical form and the impact of form upon human inhabitants." It further offers "methods of assaying existing form [and] imaging finer textures and concatenations." If this is what you are looking for (and aren't we all?) I strongly suggest you take a look at Christopher Alexander's seminal "A Pattern Language". APL is everything TPOS is not: a systematic, well researched, clearly and succinctly written, common-sense attempt to synthesize and analyze the best (and worst) practices in planning and architecture from around the globe. A Pattern Language is a deeply affecting analysis of the impact of the physical form on the quality of our families and communities. The Poetics of Space is a vague, discursive, and frustrating piece of literary criticism that strays far afield from questions of space. Bachelard uses bits of trite ecstatic poetry ("My love enveloped the universe") as springboards for a series of swan dives into a frustrating critical sludge of dreary pseudo-revelation("we only have to imagine it for our souls to be at peace"), paradox("a phenomenology without phemomena"), and contrarian inanity("why should the actions of the imagination not be as real as those of perception?" "the problem is not to examine men, but images."; "beware of the privileges of evidence"). To be fair, the book does contain few isolated bits of evocative imprecision, and his real-world examples can be genuinely resonant. (I particularly liked the bit about bird's nests.) On balance, though, Bachelard gives turbid french criticism a bad name.
Summary of The Poetics of Space
A magical book. . . . A prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced-and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard. -from the foreword by John R. StilgoeThis is a deep, magical, densely captivating book about space, our homes, how we live in them, and how dwellings and space affect us; it is as much a book of philosophy as a work of serious literature. It requires careful, preferably leisurely reading, with the possibility of moments to pause and digest and re-read the words. It will change the way you look at your home and your life, providing a deeper, more insightful relationship with the spaces you occupy.
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