Conversing with Cage draws on over 150 interviews with John Cage conducted over four decades to draw a full picture of his life and art. Filled with the witty aphorisms that have made Cage as famous as an esthetic philosopher as a composer, the book offers both an introduction to Cage's way of thinking and a rich gathering of his many thoughts on art, life, and music.
I love Cage's diction, its got a biscuits and gravy dripping from the ceiling pondering eternity and its rearrangement-vibe, with manners. I listened to some of his music at one point while standing on a sidewalk reading something else, and forgot I was listening to anything.
The way this book is structured left me very unsatisfied. Cutting and pasting portions of interviews with other portions of the same topic made for very disjointed reading experience. There were many interesting bits but I did not like that they were removed from the context of their full interviews. I love reading about John Cage, but this is not the book for me.