Exponential

by Joseph McElroy, Mario Marchetti (Translator)

Il libro è una raccolta di saggi elaborati tra il 1973 e il 2002 all'insegna di quello che è stato definito il "realismo planetario" di McElroy. Vi si toccano argomenti scientifico-letterari interconnessi ad ampio raggio. Si va dall'Apollo 17, l'ultima missione sulla Luna con equipaggio umano, all'inedita riflessione ecologica scaturita da una visita al Mount St. Helens, luogo di una delle più devastanti eruzioni degli ultimi decenni; da recensioni delle opere di scrittori come Calvino, Uwe Johnson, Beckett, Coetzee, a "Emersioni", una visione molto newyorkese dell'attentato dell'11 settembre.(as yet only in the Italian edition forthcoming 2003)[Many of these essays available in English here.]Contents1. Attractions Around Mt. St. Helens (1997)2. Still Holding with Apollo 17 (1973) (newly incorporating also review of Henry S.F.Cooper Jr., 13: The Flight that Failed [New York Times Book Review, 1973], & essay on Skylab 1, 1973)3. Neural Neighborhoods and Other Concrete Abstracts (1975)4. Fiction a Field of Science at Action at a Distance (1994)5. 9/11 Emerging (2002)6. Seven Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time, and Architecture (For the Love of Books, 1999)Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (New York Times Book Review, 1974)Uwe Johnson, The Third Book About Achim (The New Leader, 1967)Samuel Beckett, The Lost Ones (The New York Times Book Review, 1972)J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (The Nation, 2000),Alistair Graham, Eyelids of The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles and Men (The New York Times Book Review, 1974)Joy Williams, Ill Nature (The Nation, 2001)7. Socrates on the Thought and Thing (2002)8. Singular Plural Imagination (1990)(Speech at International Writers Congress, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Oct. 20, 1990)From the author’s ForewordThis book began with an all but unwritten essay in response to the September 11th attack, its continuing impact in my neighborhood and in my effort to rethink a kind of life which would seem to make something of the experience. The book began also with the encouragement of Alfredo Salsano, at Bollati Boringhieri, and of my friend Daniela Daniele. Without her the book might not have happened. The essay "9/11 Emerging" became a prospect that at once gathered to itself several of my essays published over the years that clearly go with it."9/11 Emerging" remembers in me our blessed and blasted environments, technology’s mixed futures, the sciences that enrich our contemplation, to say nothing of the heterogeneous American language that is the ground of my thinking and my fictions. In the title Exponential, I mean to suggest powers unchecked and at the same time their comprehension. ...

177 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Joseph McElroy is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.

McElroy grew up in Brooklyn Heights, NY, a neighborhood that features prominently in much of his fiction. He received his B.A. from Williams College in 1951 and his M.A. from Columbia University in 1952. He served in the Coast Guard from 1952–4, and then returned to Columbia to complete his Ph.D. in 1961. As an English instructor at the University of New Hampshire, his short fiction was first published in anthologies. He retired from teaching in 1995 after thirty-one years in the English department at Queens College, City University of New York.

McElroy's writing is often grouped with that of William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon because of the encyclopedic quality of his novels, particularly the 1191 pages of Women and Men (1987). Echoes of McElroy's work can be found in that of Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace. McElroy's work often reflects a preoccupation with how science functions in American society; Exponential, a collection of essays published in Italy in 2003, collects science and technology journalism written primarily in the 1970s and 1980s for the New York Review of Books.

He has received the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Ingram Merrill Foundations, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Published only in Italian translation, 2003.

From McElroy's webpage, the table of contents:

1. Attractions Around Mt. St. Helens (1997) pdf here

2. Still Holding with Apollo 17 (1973) (newly incorporating also review of Henry S.F.Cooper Jr., 13: The Flight that Failed [New York Times Book Review, 1973], & essay on Skylab 1, 1973)

3. Neural Neighborhoods and Other Concrete Abstracts (1975) pdf here

4. Fiction a Field of Growth: Science at Heart: Action at a Distance (1994)

5. 9/11 Emerging (2002) pdf here

6. Seven books:

--Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time, and Architecture (For the Love of Books, 1999)

--Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (New York Times Book Review, 1974)

--Uwe Johnson, The Third Book About Achim (The New Leader, 1967)

--Samuel Beckett, The Lost Ones (The New York Times Book Review, 1972)

--J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (The Nation, 2000),

--Alistair Graham, Eyelids of Morning: The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles and Men (The New York Times Book Review, 1974)

--Joy Williams, Ill Nature (The Nation, 2001)

7. Socrates on the Beach: Thought and Thing (2002)

8. Singular Planet: Plural Imagination (1990) (Speech at International Writers Congress, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Oct. 20, 1990)