Saudade: The Possibilities of Place

The Portuguese word saudade has no direct English translation. In Saudade: The Possibilities of Place, traveller Anik See traces her attempts to reclaim this.
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Coach House Books, , it was impossible to put down. In Saudade , See manages not only to write out the possibilities of place, but writes out a shape of being.


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Reading this collection has echoes of Sarah de Leeuw's Unmarked: NeWest Press, , or even a Peter Carey book I read years ago about his home city, writing himself back into his previous geography, moving into some of the best of what creative non-fiction is supposed to be about. Whatever else this book is, See writes her way through her own thinking about what geography means, and the differences between how people exist through circumstance, geography and other arbitrary enough markers, and seeing just how small some of those differences actually are.

How does she achieve such remarkable clarity in such a small space?

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Posted by rob mclennan at Newer Post Older Post Home. APRIL 21, house: New Star Books, Vancouver If suppose we are a fragment poetry: BuschekBooks Notes and Dispatches: Chaudiere Books Songs for little sleep, poetry: Which is surprising considering her essays claim to be about the possibilities of place. In one essay, about how she came to work in "ld-fashioned letterpress printing," instead of exploring and animating a sense of the trade for the reader, she turns the piece into a regurgitation of that old flabby falsehood that only in America do people have the drive, the ambition, to make the most of opportunity; only in Canada do people not make the most of opportunity because they're just too polite.

Give me a friggin' break. See writes of the centre in Minneapolis where she first trained: I cast everything aside.


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I did not sleep for days. This was not Canada.

Saudade: The Possibilities of Place by Anik See

She designed this book too, which will strike many for its similarity with editions from Gaspereau Press. She manages to lure the reader into her mental state while setting up a resonance that summons that same feeling with each turn of the page.

Jan 29, Rj rated it it was amazing. Normally I order most of my books online after reading a review about them usually in The New York Review of Books or if I encounter the author somewhere in cyberspace or even more rarely if recommended by a friend.

I only resort to the new acquisition shelf when I have little else to read and it is lovely to be pleasantly surprised by a discovery like Anik See. The book is a lovely collection of short travel pieces inspired by her own travels and I found myself absorbed in her beautiful, but Normally I order most of my books online after reading a review about them usually in The New York Review of Books or if I encounter the author somewhere in cyberspace or even more rarely if recommended by a friend.

Recommended Reading: Saudade: The Possibilities of Place by Anik See

The book is a lovely collection of short travel pieces inspired by her own travels and I found myself absorbed in her beautiful, but clipped writing style. I had to stop myself from finishing the book in one evening as I was enchanted by her word paintings. She has a style that is best described as thick description with text that reaches out and sticks to the reader drawing them into the places she evokes.

Not only was her writing a revelation but the book itself is lovingly set, designed and bound as a pocket-travel journal that shows an attention.

(Coach House Books)

Feb 17, amy rated it really liked it. The strength of Saudade--as I see it--is how invited, how welcome it's possible to feel in these borrowed memories. It's an ambitious though uneven book almost jarringly so in places , but the good parts are really good. Yes, really, truly good. It's a portal--does that make sense? Oct 09, Koula rated it really liked it. Beautiful to look at Made me think and then think some more. Leif rated it liked it May 12, Joanna Croston rated it it was amazing Feb 26, Lori rated it really liked it May 05, Jennifer Stewart rated it liked it Apr 16, Brian rated it liked it Feb 03, Mel rated it really liked it Apr 04, Rob Mclennan rated it it was amazing Jul 09, Feminine Harbor rated it it was amazing Jan 09,