The Body: An Essay

by Jenny Boully

Cultural Writing. Poetry. Essays. Comprised of footnotes to a non-existent text, THE BODY: AN ESSAY is a meditation on absence, loss and disappearance that offers a guarded "narrative" of what may or may not be a love letter, a dream, a spiritual autobiography, a memoir, a scholarly digression, a treatise on the relation of life to book. Christian Bok describes Boully's groundbreaking text as one that "may simply annotate a fantastic biography from another reality, referring only to itself as a kind of dream within a dream...The reader can only fantasize about the original contexts that might have made such information significant to its author, and ultimately, implies that the body of any text consists of nothing but a void-filled with the exegetical projection of our own imagination." First published in 2002 and excerpted in such anthologies as The Next American Essay and The Best American Poetry 2002, THE BODY: AN ESSAY continues to challenge conventional notions of plot and narrative, genre and form, theory and practice, unremittingly questioning the presumptive boundaries between reflection, imagination, and experience.

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Nonfiction, Memoir, Asian American, Literary Fiction, Bodies

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Jenny Boully is the author of four books, most recently not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them (Tarpaulin Sky Press). Her other books include The Books of Beginnings and Endings (Sarabande Books), [one love affair]* (Tarpaulin Sky Press), and The Body: An Essay (Essay Press, first published by Slope Editions). Her chapbook of prose,Moveable Types, was released by Noemi Press. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry, The Next American Essay, Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present, and other places. Born in Thailand, she was reared in Texas by parents who farm and fish. She attended Hollins University, where she double majored in English and philosophy and then went on to earn her MA in English Criticism and Writing. At the University of Notre Dame, she earned an MFA with a poetry concentration. She earned a Ph.D. in English from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband and daughter and teaches at Columbia College Chicago.

Reviews

[Jay Sandover · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of haunting footnotes that refer to an original text that is not there. This is perfectly designed for every bookworm who ever majored in English.

[Nicole Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm completely in love with Jenny Boully. I've read some of other works before, and I have to say that the line she walks between poetry and essay is nothing short of masterful.

I'm also a sucker for any work that's dually about language and the inadequacies of language at the same time. The idea of an entire essay expressed without the essay is something close to (if not) sheer brilliance, and it's also amazing to me just how much Boully trusts the reader to then, in their own minds, replace the narrative that isn't blatantly written down. Because Boully pushes thresholds on form and function so much, it's hard for me to nail down exactly what I would have imagined the essay having been, but there's a beauty in that kind of non-conformity, too. It could have been any number of things. The possibilities are only limited by the imagination of the reader.

What I found most appealing is the idea this essay suggests in the underneath of it all--that there will always be untold facets of a story, that language is an illusion.

I loved it.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carl told me I'd love this, that it was the perfect time for me to read it. And I did, and it was, though I don't know that I fully understood or absorbed all of it.

[Phoenix Ocean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful prose in a unique style, but too abstract for me to fully love.

[Sigrun Hodne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The experience of time translates itself into language, and language translates itself into distance, which translates itself into longing, which is the realization of time. (…) how sad and strange that I, Jenny Boully, should be the sign of a signifier or the signifier of a sign, moreover, the sign of a signifier searching for the signifies.

- Jenny Boully: The Body, an essay



Sometimes texts just catch me, without me being able to explain why. But if I, in spite of my incapability, should try to find words for my enthusiasm for The Body I will choose sentences like:

I love how the narrator moves rapidly around in her own text
I love the combination of literary high & low
I like the way the narrator makes fun of herself
I love the way she lays herself bare, the rawness of it
I like the genre-breaking-quality; calling it an essay, when in fact it is poetry written down as footnotes – or isn’t it?!
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[Malia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sensational

[Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think technically this is a very interesting book. The self-referentiality of the various footnotes made for a great piece to analyze for craft, but the vagueness and airy writing made it hard for me to get hooked. I might need to give this a second read-through, but overall I am disappointed in that I don't really feel anything after reading this.

[M Casteel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A modern classic in the new form of "lyrical essay" writing. She's a dream that you don't quite understand.

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a bizarre, challenging essay, composed only of footnotes to a missing text. I'm not sure I "got" it, but I definitely admire it and was in its thrall.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am entirely confused but haunted at the same time. I appreciate the structure of it.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

My heart has been a bit achey and strange, and rereading Jenny Boully is what I do when that's the case. This book is a document of her brilliance. It's one of my favorite books, period. I don't know how many times I've read it, but it stuns me every time.

I mean:

“The great poet advised her to always keep a journal, especially in matters of love, as being in love means one will participate in irrational behavior. A journal, the great poet guaranteed, will provide something explanatory for later, while gaps of time when one failed to write would mean that one had no record of the affair—love with no proof of purchase, and therefore, no hopes of redemption or exchanges.”

I mean:

“It is because of distance, this need, this trying to show you again that I am something else or other, something that could transcribe for you completely whatever it is that your being is refusing to be let known.”

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

obligatory

[Melanie Knights · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was an interesting read..actually read it because had to review it for ultius pro service but I'm glad I did..those a couple of hours weren't spend in vain

[Keaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS BOOK KICKS MAJOR ASS

[Max Eichelberger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started this at 1:30AM. I had three cups of black coffee after dinner, finished reading Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World and it was only a little past 1. I tried starting Joy Williams' the Changeling, but because I consider everything she writes to be scripture (not "a type of" scripture; literally scripture) I had to put it down because I was the wrong mix of antsy and sleepy.

So I was left with The Body, which I had picked up at Eliot Bay Book Company, a small book by Bolano, another by the Jewish guy who killed himself escaping from France and, again, this one.

I tried reading the Body. I read a fitful 30 odd pages and somewhat angrily turned off my light wishing I wasn't so coffee addled. In the morning I took it up again but again couldn't appreciate the essay though I was (and still am) desperate to appreciate it and love it and sympathize with Jenny and her sister and Robert Kelly and the cooed fuck you's.

Ok, so what's wrong with these words between the bindings?

1.) It's poetry and autobiography and essay and confessional and reference material. A friend of everyone is a friend of no one.

2.) There's a fine but charismatic line / difference between being something new tearing down reader's expectations and something that's trying too hard to get your attention. I'd go as far as to say multiple footnotes are tired old "genre" motifs no more or less interesting / insular than YA High Fantasy. The imprint's catalogue, Essay Press, implies as much.

3.) In other words, some footnotes literally write themselves; a problem in its own right. Let's go through a list of nouns and you'll have read the essay: Derrida, menstruation, Jacques, pubes, sign and signifier, holes, Levinas, masturbation, and Nabokov.

In a phrase: it all seems a bit too precocious / neat / requisite; it spends too much answering some writing prompt that I don't actually care to know because who I want to know (and the books wants me to know, dying for me to ask, crying at me for attention etc.) is Jenny. I want to know her because she wants me to know her so badly but then she plays hard to get and while I love games the game has to be either well played or fresh to get my attention.

[Jean-Michel Berthiaume · Rating 5 out of 5]

Came to this book because of my study on footnotes in fiction but since then The Body has continued to haunt me as being a exceptional work of complexity and subversion. The Body somehow exists as much as it doesn't, the words not on the page being as important as the one's that appear, the reader is also as important as the reader which is a given in any book but The Body channels a different type of rapport with fiction. Present or absent this book is an entire way of understanding fiction in itself.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The terrible reading experience that this book provides is more than made up for by what it argues. Unfortunately I did love it. It’s one of those things where you hate reading it and then when you discuss and unpack it you realize that it is in fact a work of genius and has even wriggled its way into touch your soul. Maybe everything artists experience has to be hidden and escaped from and concealed under layers for us to be able to interact with it. Maybe writing about the unwritable thing means writing around it.
The best books always involve the author pointing at you and laughing.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

boully is MASTERFUL and INSPIRING... this essay is so beautiful and made me want to write until i could write something a tenth as intriguing.... her writing is sparse but her ideas are unbound, the way she utilized footnotes pushes the reader to fill in the gaps w their imagination which makes it a more challenging , and in turn, satisfying read... i’ve gone back to the beginning of this essay a million times when trying to write. in a word - genius !

[Cassie]

I've read this book three times now, but I still don't think I get it. Can't really rate it since the form and general idea of this book is something that truly intrigues and delights me. But I feel like I'm missing context wading through the footnotes. Which is part of the point. However I don't see enough of a coherent theme to even guess how these things fit together. The impression I'm left with is that I'm not a well read enough or deep enough in the sphere of academia

[Orca · Rating 5 out of 5]

“102. If the window is open, then true. If the door was abruptly shut, then false. If the villanelle was blonde, then add five points to your answer. If she was drinking a dirty martini, subtract 60 points for fear. If you forgot her name, wait out a turn. If love, then the ace of spades: for everything else, reshuffle and deal again.”

Il testo è composto da note a piè di pagina facenti capo ad un libro che non ci è dato conoscere. Un saggio non saggio che sfocia nella poesia per guarire dalla mania del controllo e capire che, anche senza fonte, non siamo pers*.

[Darcy Jay Gagnon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boully really stretches this gimmick to the limit, but as innovative as it is, I find myself grasping for anything else really. The premise is already evasive enough, so to layer on even more evasiveness on top of that feels a little more lazy than it does impressive. Overall, the adjective that continued to come to mind while reading this-- and it's not one I would use lightly-- was "pretentious." For every stellar sentence that was at least one more that made me roll my eyes.

[Bryan Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of creative-format fiction (vignettes, non-linear texts, etc.), but honestly, I couldn't get into this. The fragments are so random as to make finding a thread difficult/impossible, and what the author seems to want to come off as profound and emotional just feels detached and empty.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book, but couldn’t. Had to restart 3 times before finishing. An essay in footnotes is a fascinating concept. In this case, though, the footnotes felt overly metaphorical, & the overwhelming use of metaphor without context ultimately felt a bit shallow/too much withheld.

[John LaPine · Rating 4 out of 5]

unique meditation on deletion, told exclusively through footnotes to a main body text which does not actually exist (and never did). wild exploration of love, relationships, mythology, and omission

[Rachael Marks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful book, I love the idea that it is all written in footnotes, but it is a bit hard to get through because of this. There is a great sense of disconnect.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible!!

[Anna Karian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got lost in the sauce at times but it is composed of beautiful sentences. A fun journey unique to this book.

[C.L.N. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed every moment of this work, albeit, some moments were guiltier than others.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

obsessed, still

[Izzy deGrasse · Rating 5 out of 5]

invites so much exploration, thought and assumption from boully as she processes what it means to be footnoted in life, to only have some power and part of the "story"