The Self Unstable

by Elisa Gabbert

Elisa Gabbert’s The Self Unstable combines elements of memoir, philosophy, and aphorism to explore and trouble our ideas of the self, memory, happiness, aesthetics, love, and sex. With a sense of humor and an ability to find glimmers of the absurd in the profound, she uses the lyric essay like a koan to provoke the reader’s reflection—unsettling the role of truth and interrogating the “I” in both literary and daily life: “The future isn’t anywhere, so we can never get there. We can only disappear.” (from the publisher's website)

Genres: Poetry, Essays, Nonfiction, Memoir, Philosophy, 21st Century, Psychology

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2013

About the author

Elisa Gabbert writes the On Poetry column for the New York Times and is the author of six collections of poetry, essays, and criticism, including Normal Distance; The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays; The Word Pretty; L'Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems; The Self Unstable; and The French Exit.

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly sleek book of poetry or words assembled poetically. Not sure what you would call this but the book is excellent. Lots of fierce lines throughout. The strongest section is Enjoyment of Adversity: Love & Sex and especially p. 71 with the line, "The only natural responses to vulnerability are love and violence." The prose is always like that, offering a sharp bit of wisdom that also does the work of leaving you a bit unsettled. Highly recommended.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a few pages to get into this for some reason, but when I did it was like ZOOOOM--and my head was buzzing with each page! I like how these paragraphs dare to call themselves essays, when really they're just really smart prose poems. But wait--maybe smart prose poems truly are essays! It definitely feels philosophical in the best sense, without getting too stuffy.
"Poetry fails at art in that it is not a Veblen good. The more you charge for it, the more worthless it seems."
This book's cover price is $14.95 but it approaches pricelessness.

[Kassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

'People think of themselves as something behind their eyes. First person shooter. It's fun to be the player, but boring to watch. Writing is narcissistic, but without narcissism we'd have nothing to read. We do most things only in order to say we have done them, an ethical alternative to lying. Your "desert island movie" is not the same as your favourite movie' p.62

I loved this book, although I would often fall in love with the aphorism somewhere in the middle of the paragraph and then despise the last sentence. Very interesting to be able to have such a complex relationship with such small but clearly fine tuned pieces of writing.

[Amorak Huey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of prose poems? Segmented lyric essay?

Whichever, this hard-to-classify book is a keeper. So much wisdom and lyricism packed in here. Some of my favorite sentences:

"Be careful what you wish for, in that it tells you what you want."

"Be careful what you say, in that it tells you what you think."

"Writers hope for good actors, but when the acting is good you don't notice the writing."

"The word sexy is sexy. That's how culture works."

There's more where these came from, this book drawing its power from intelligence and voice and humor and above all the sense that we learn something important about the world on every single page.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this so much that I'm teaching it in an Advanced Poetry workshop.

[James Tierney · Rating 5 out of 5]

As some of the best poetry outpaces explicitness, The Unstable Self defies definition. A paper chain of loosely grouped paragraphs, Gabbert reflexively admonishes the aphorism with a baseball bat. It gets up but she knocks it down again.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me think of the author as a person more than most books do. Even memoirs.
I usually agreed with the statements, and when I didn't, the disagreement was compelling.
This book felt very interior, but not "deepest self" interior. Instead it's like a greatest hits of daily musings.

[Anna B · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5 stars* Like walking through a modern art museum and reading the captions along the walls. Makes you go “hm” and think for a bit until you move on to the next one.

[Jessica Plante · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda found this to be a lesser version of Maggie Nelson's Bluets. While I like the philosophical ramblings, and love the brevity of the collection itself, I found myself disagreeing with some her ideas and having far fewer "right on" moments than I thought I would. I really love this emerging style of poetics though--the cross between poetry and philosophical feminist thought is a really wide open arena.

[Rennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting, pretty unclassifiable and I’m not even sure what exactly I just read, but she is undeniably brilliant.

[Mike Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surrounded by the self, the self pushes its hand confidently against the squishy walls of itself, leaves a mark in the fabric, quickly runs all the analysis it can on the mark before the mark disappears, knows enough to wear a blaze orange glove the whole time.

[Emma Alden · Rating 4 out of 5]

some real heavy hitters in these pages—

“If you find anything other than food or sex interesting, it’s signaling”

“we do most things only in order to say we’ve done them, an ethical alternative to lying.”

“happiness as intensity of experience”

“pride as the successful avoidance of shame”

“if you tell me you love me accidentally or automatically, I will always forgive you. How quickly the i examined becomes the over explained.”

For some reason I put off reading this for so long, but I know I will be thinking about it for months. So thoroughly affirming and equally unsettling. It’s a real challenge to use the aphorism to your advantage. I’m often put off by the form as it tends to turn twittery, but Gabbert’s language is so full of disciplined distilled wisdom, so immediate, spare but nothing spared.

[robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

true and unsettling even as it sometimes evades full comprehension in favour of fleeting, piercing moments of recognition

[Nicole]

It’s not for me and that’s okay 🙂‍↕️

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book in one day, during two rides on the el and one twenty minute dinner at nom nom ramen because it was so interesting and beautifully written that I couldn't stop reading. The girl who brought me my soup at nom nom ramen asked me what i was reading and i told her, "poetry", hesitantly, because i wasn't quite sure if it was in fact poetry but that was okay, she just wanted to say it had a pretty cover. anyway. read this. try not to dog-ear more than half the pages. i dare you.

[Edward Rathke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked this well enough, and while there were several great aphorisms, it didn't do a lot for me. It was sort of a book that simply made me nod my head in agreement, which is nice, but it never really pushed me beyond that level.

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The hangover is one known form of regret that transcends culture."

[Chase Sabadash · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I saw a figure from a distance and thought it was me. I drank from the opposite side of a glass. If you can’t describe how you feel to yourself, you can’t be sure what you’re feeling – or that you feel it all. Consciousness as unreliable narrator. The self is a play that you watch from the audience – you affect it, but you can’t control it.”

Quick, concise, and maddeningly clever collection of poems(?). Really captures the frustration of living just beyond the wonder and awe of childhood, unable to feel truly in things. If uncertainty that you are capable of feeling happy feels more true than the fact that you were happy at some point, is the uncertainty a stronger emotion? I read it 3 times before bed. My dreams are gonna be crazy.

[Timothy Sikes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gabbert's poetry is short and pithy -- her style is to combine sets of observations together with some loose association, making the reader work at the link that binds them together.

She explores a lot of the themes here as she does in her other works. I love those themes, so I'll be exploring more of her work!

"I saw a figure from a distance and thought it was me. I drank from the opposite side of a glass. If you can't describe how you feel to yourself, you can't be sure what you're feeling -- or that you feel at all. Consciousness as unreliable narrator. The self is a play that you watch from the audience -- you affect it, but you can't control it."

[Richard Subber · Rating 1 out of 5]

This collection of literate tidbits is, well, mostly disorganized gabble.
Gabbert has some serious contemplative thoughts to share, but she hides them in shovelfulls of words in short paragraphs on otherwise empty pages.
The Self Unstable does have some nuggets that are worth pasting on your frig.
Like:
“Most of the time, if you ‘don’t want to know,’ you already do.”
“I used to say I never had regrets. I didn’t realize I just didn’t have any yet.”

Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

He said it was "an elegant scar." My sex dreams are too realistic. We watch the sunset from a plane, and later, the city lights approaching in the dark, copper and green. Why are they all orange or green? My enemy. My enemy. If you tell me you love me, accidentally or automatically, I will always forgive you. How quickly the unexamined becomes the overexplained.

read on plane in one gulp. fun if ur craving clever

[André Habet · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this in a single sitting on the hill in Thornden Park. dog eared so many pages that the foldings lost all meaning. One of the first works in a while I want to be embedded in my memory word by word. oy. my bod-mind ache.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - I liked this, but not as much as her more recent release, The Unreality of Memory. These essays are fluid and fragmentary, possibly too much "flash" for some. Did enjoy learning about neo-benshi.

[Danika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. Elisa Gabbert's poetic logic is exceptional. On page 38 I wrote "She is Lyn Hejinian's inheritor."

[Abigail Munson · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty good

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

yummy

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of these glanced off me. Many lovely sentences, but the logic kept eluding me.

[Lumen Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big fan of quirky little thought bits like this.

[J.C. Reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a different kind of book....sort of prose poems, sort of memoir or essay. I liked it.

[Alyse Knorr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart, funny, witty philosophy rendered in elegant lyric essays. Gabbert’s compact, concise snippets of thought operate individually and together to great effect.