A bit twee. It's really quite excessive. You simply can't be this overly sentimental and take yourself this seriously. It's almost laughable.

Even when I found myself begrudgingly appreciating some of his insights, Bachelard's voice still managed to have me slightly annoyed. There's just something about the way he presents his ideas that rubs me the wrong way.

I have to return this book to the library soon. Thank goodness for that. For God's sake, can't he just stop nattering on about tablecloths? It seems like such a trivial and uninteresting topic to dwell on for so long.

I'm looking forward to getting rid of this book and finding something a bit more engaging and thought-provoking to read. Maybe then I won't be so easily irritated by the author's voice.

The loveliest theory on imagination and creative thought that I've ever come across is truly remarkable.

What makes it even more enchanting is the fact that the author employs houses, rooms, and other homey subjects to convey these theories.

By using such familiar and relatable elements, the author manages to bring the abstract concepts of imagination and creativity to life in a way that is both accessible and engaging.

It's as if the author has invited us into their own home, where we can explore the nooks and crannies of their mind and discover the hidden treasures of their theories.

The use of homey subjects also adds a touch of warmth and intimacy to the writing, making it feel like a personal conversation between the author and the reader.

Overall, this theory is not only intellectually stimulating but also emotionally satisfying, and I can't wait to explore it further.

I can see that many people who read this book found it life-changing. However, I'm afraid I wasn't one of them. From misunderstandings about how birds use nests to playing around with whether "in" suggests figurative language in the phrase "in his mind," I found it not only difficult but also perversely whimsical.

I am perfectly prepared to believe that I haven't read enough of this genre to appreciate the talent behind it. Having said that, it is full of rich imagery and ideas. I found myself applying these to my reading of the work of Lucy Boston, whose novels are a meditation on what Bachelard describes as "the daydream... where childhood remains alive, and where an entire past comes to dwell."

But is it just a lot of verbiage for the sake of quotable quotes? Perhaps I'm being unfair. This was an unfamiliar type of text, a different approach to meditation on space, and maybe I just didn't appreciate its richness. For this reason, I don't feel competent to give it a star rating. After all, it's not as if I really appreciate them often.

In a time when the world seems to be on fire, the truth is often regarded as the new fiction, the situation is dire, and information has become an addiction. The Poetics of Space emerges as an inspiring prescription.

It is an absolutely key text in phenomenology, critical theory, and depth psychology, cited again and again by neo-Jungians like Robert L. Moore, James Hillman, and Stanton Marlin. It is also critical for the new animistic speculative realism of Gordon White, Graham Harmon, and Timothy Morton, of which I currently know little but am curious and learning.

The Poetics of Space explores space from the mythic, poetic, and phenomenological perspective. Bachelard invites us to "return to the image" of the living mythopoetic imagination, as opposed to reflexively retreating to the dead words of concrete literalism of positivistic materialism. The goal is not to privilege the mythopoetic over the positivistic but rather to unlock the world and liberate discourse from the confines of a narrow, reductionistic, dualism that has a stranglehold on western thought.

So why is this strange book so helpful and hopeful? In short, if we can extend personage beyond people to animals, plants, minerals, objects, and space, if we can see the divine/poetic value of our world again, and if we can value the lived experience of ourselves and others regardless of their perceived status in our egocentric view, perhaps we can stop murdering everything and live to see another day. It is a great eye-opening, mind-expanding text, worthy of 5/5 stars.

POST SCRIPT: The Piano Has Been Drinking (song lyrics by Tom Waits). The piano has been drinking, my necktie is asleep, and the combo went back to New York. The jukebox has to take a leak, and the carpet needs a haircut. The spotlight looks like a prison break, and the telephone's out of cigarettes. The balcony is on the make, and the piano has been drinking. The piano has been drinking, and the menus are all freezing. The light man's blind in one eye, and he can't see out of the other. The piano-tuner's got a hearing aid, and he showed up with his mother. The piano has been drinking, as the bouncer is a sumo wrestler, Cream-puff Casper milktoast, and the owner is a mental midget with the i.q. of a fence post. Cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking, and you can't find your waitress with a Geiger counter. She hates you and your friends, and you just can't get served without her. The box-office is drooling, and the bar stools are on fire. The newspapers were fooling, and the ash-trays have retired. Cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me.

**The Magic of Gaston Bachelard's Book**

Even dreamier the second time around! I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the strange and enchanting beauty of this book. Bachelard has truly revolutionized the way I perceive my home, how I cherish it, and how I envision transforming it.

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I have been patiently waiting for years to get my hands on this little gem of a book. Finally, after realizing that my local public library was unlikely to ever have it in stock, I decided to purchase a slightly battered old copy online. In this charming and surprisingly accessible text, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard delves into the fascinating intersection between poetry, imagination, and buildings. His writing style is such that it constantly compels you to look around your surroundings, seeking hidden meanings. He draws inspiration from a plethora of sources, including nature, dreams, Rilke, Baudelaire, a great deal of less well-known French literature, snippets of Thoreau, and his own personal experiences. (As an aside, I can't help but wonder if Wes Anderson has read this book. Given his evident love for portraying space, color, and form, as well as the dollhouse-like glimpses into buildings in his films, I think he would find it deeply meaningful. Bachelard's chapter on miniatures, in particular, made me think of Anderson and his cinematic works.)

I am often intimidated by philosophy, but here Bachelard has crafted it into a warm and inviting arena. Nothing is too insignificant or ordinary for him. As he so eloquently states, “I am moreover convinced that the human psyche contains nothing that is insignificant.” After all, images are simple; we encounter them every second, and no amount of profound scholarship can enhance our perception of them. Bachelard is deeply concerned with the topic of how the imagination processes space and transfers it to memory, art, and awareness.

It is truly a beautiful book, and upon finishing it, I find myself wishing that I had savored it more slowly. As Bachelard himself says, “All memory has to be reimagined. For we have in our memories micro-films that can only be read if they are lighted by the bright light of the imagination.”

Review, Second Read (September 2022)



Review, First Read (September 2014)

I can understand why an abundance of people regard The Poetics of Space as such a significant book. However, I found it to be rather inconsistent.

By far, the most captivating section is the introduction. Bachelard commences the book by presenting his theory of the poetic image. Different from metaphor, which is merely an intellectual comparison, the genuine poetic image elicits a profound resonance within the reader. For instance, upon glimpsing a poetic image related to the home, all the homes from the reader's past surge up in his imagination. The poetic image makes reading an active process - experiencing poetry is like mapping your own memories onto the poet's text. Consequently, Bachelard's favorite word in the book is "daydreaming" - the direction that your mind takes after reading a particularly resonant image.

His analysis of the poetic image is unique and, in my opinion, quite beautiful. The remainder of the book applies this theory to various poetic images - mostly in some way related to the home. While some of his analyses are persuasive, his philosophy is firmly rooted in psychoanalysis. As a result, he implicitly contends for the universality of image responses - that these poetic images have certain universal resonances. Given the diversity of human experience, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, I simply don't believe it. His evidence consists of various extracts from poetry where his images seem to function in the same way - but it occurs to me that thorough research could likely uncover numerous counter-examples. I'll concede that what he explores is what the images could be, but I'm not willing to go any further than that.

The vast majority of the book is dedicated to this image analysis and is rather hit or miss. The introduction is more than worthwhile to read, but only those who obsessively contemplate the space of the home should read any further.

Denso como el solo,

I have read what I had underlined and I really liked it, very beautiful.

It was as if those words were a dense fog that surrounded me, pulling me into a world of their own. The way the author had crafted those sentences, the choice of words, it all had a certain charm that was hard to resist.

As I read, I could feel my heart beating faster, as if it was in sync with the rhythm of the text. Each word seemed to have a special meaning, a hidden message that only I could understand.

I found myself lost in the beauty of the language, completely forgetting about everything else around me. It was a moment of pure bliss, a moment when I felt truly connected to the words on the page.

If I were to talk about this book, first of all, I must mention the times when it was published. Briefly, this was my first book with Bashlar. I didn't know about it before except for a few quotations that I liked in their place and never bothered to get to know it, even once, until a friend mentioned it, saying, "I say this with great anticipation."

The beginning was a bit confusing because it requires a little effort to understand what he is trying to say, but this is only at the beginning. With the chapters, this feeling fades away! And the enjoyment begins when his philosophy is interspersed throughout every story, poem, letter, and diary entry. I once said that my reading would not be the same as it was before after reading "The Beauties of the Place," and this actually happened. Alongside all the philosophy that Bashlar throws at you, he gives you another perspective on things, and as Rilke says, our friends in being, and he gives life life!

This is a re-read for me and I remember loving it the first time round.

I think the strongest bits or the most memorable bits are in the first third. It's truly fascinating how basement stairs always seem to go down in our imagination and dreams, while attic stairs always go up. This concept really grabs the reader's attention and makes them think about the symbolism and the different connotations associated with these two types of stairs.

However, after that initial third, the story seems to go a little woolly. The plot becomes less clear and the narrative starts to lose its focus. Additionally, there are hints of misogyny which can be quite off-putting.

On the other hand, there are a lot of quotes from Baudelaire, which add an interesting literary touch to the story. Baudelaire's words bring a certain depth and elegance to the text, and they help to create a unique atmosphere.

Overall, while there are some strong points in this book, there are also some areas that could be improved.

It is impossible to say that the book has ended. Encountering Bachelard and having read this book is so deep, intense, and profound that it does not fit into a shallow acquaintance at all. Under ten different chapter headings, we are reading a phenomenological approach, the poet's poetics, and the relationships established through this and space. It is a reading that requires a longer evaluation or an article.

This work by Bachelard offers a unique perspective on various aspects. The phenomenological analysis takes us on a journey through the poet's mind and the connection between his poetics and the concept of space. Each chapter unfolds new layers of understanding, inviting us to explore and reflect.

The depth and complexity of the ideas presented make it a challenging yet rewarding read. It forces us to think beyond the surface and consider the hidden meanings and relationships within the text. Overall, this book is a significant contribution to the field of literature and philosophy, and it demands our full attention and engagement.

I've never annotated a text so much in my life.

It's truly an eye-opening experience. As I delved into the text, I found myself constantly jotting down my thoughts, questions, and connections.

Annotating allows me to engage with the material on a deeper level, to analyze and understand the author's intentions.

I notice details that I might have otherwise overlooked, and I'm able to make connections between different parts of the text.

It's like uncovering a hidden treasure chest of knowledge.

Each annotation is a little piece of my own intellectual journey, and together they form a rich tapestry of understanding.

I'm amazed at how much more I get out of the text when I take the time to annotate it.

It's a skill that I will definitely continue to develop and use in the future.

It just goes to show that the transitive property of literary taste isn't very reliable. Michael Pollan liked this book; I like Michael Pollan's books; ergo, I'd like this book. Nope.

It wasn't Bachelard's preoccupation with psychoanalysis, although that aspect hasn't aged very well. The constant nattering on about psychoanalytical approaches to phenomenology not only sounded silly but also seemed rather moldy. It was about as engaging as reading about phrenological approaches. In fact, the latter might have been more interesting. Every book reflects the intellectual fashions of the time, so I was willing to give him a pass on that.

It wasn't even the jumbled word salads he threw together on every page. Amid all the lettuce and parsley, there were enough bits of carrot and chunks of tomato to keep me going, albeit in fits and starts. I liked his discussion of the experience of being drawn into a book or poem and making it one's own. It gave me hope for more.

No, what finally turned me off was the way he blithely extrapolated from his experience growing up in early twentieth-century provincial France to discover profound truths about universal, essential human nature. Almost none of his arguments or conclusions had any weight with me, as they were all based on assumptions about how we experience space as children that had nothing to do with my own experience or that of anyone else I knew. After about four chapters, I could no longer see any point in continuing. I had winnowed out everything there was for me to get from the book, and it wasn't much.

He does have a style that I supposed could be appreciated on purely aesthetic grounds, but serious engagement with psychoanalytical theory takes the joy out of that kind of reading. Mark Leyner did that sort of thing better.