The Vast Extent: On Seeing and Not Seeing Further

by Lavinia Greenlaw

An expansive, wonder-filled collection exploring art, science and travel

From the celebrated poet, novelist and memoirist, The Vast Extent is a constellation of "exploded essays" about light and image, seeing and the unseen. Each is a record of how thought builds and ideas emerge, aligning art, myth, strange voyages, scientific scrutiny and a poet's response so that they cast light upon each other. Ranging across caves, seasickness, early photography, boredom, wonder, mountains, mice, the body and its shadow, from the Arctic at midwinter to a shingle spit in Norfolk at midsummer, Lavinia Greenlaw invites us to travel such questions as how we might describe what we have never seen before or what helps us to see more clearly or persuades us to see what's not there. Art, science, technology, vision and memory inform one another in this original and illuminating work.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Poetry, Photography, Art, Philosophy, Science

325 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 4, 2024

Reviews

[Matthew Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. Akin to looking into a prism and every angle that reflects back at you is about art, philosophy, literature, cinema, landscape, mythology, history, science and Greenlaw's life. It gets progressively more memoirist as it goes and the essays that touch on her brother and father's death were the beating heart of the book (and really, I think, what the book is about; in the way that The Rings of Saturn circles the whole history and concept of death - never mentioning it and yet at the same time incessantly mentioning it - Greenlaw uses the seen and the unseen to indirectly explore, I think, dying and surviving). And within, countless artists and historical figures flow in and out of the narrative, Vija Celmins, Joris Hoefnagel, Artemisia Gentileschi, Francesca Woodman, Eva Hesse, Rachel Whiteread, Virginia Woolf, Cesare Pavese, Elizabeth Biship, and literally countless others. Nearly 400 pages of essays (all relatively small, considering) about the same subject, naturally, wore me down at times. Greenlaw does address the same ideas continually and often makes the same points but in slightly different ways or within different contexts. One of my lecturers once said that a novel is opening lots and lots of doors and finding they all lead you into the same room. If right, Greenlaw has written an exceptional piece of work, novel or not. If we ignore all the death (and I'd like to point out that most of her ruminations on it are life-affirming as opposed to depressing), then this novel asks, How do we see? What don't we see? How do we process what we see and more so, how do we process what we can't see? Who has endeavoured in the past to see what we can't see, and why? What is our fascination with the unseen? Even the seeing further? How do we continue to live when there is so much unseen, unknown? And how could we live if only we saw further or spent our lives in the fruitless endeavour of seeing more, further, beyond?

[soph · Rating 4 out of 5]

a super fascinating collection of essays, best enjoyed slowly with focus! this book spans a large amount of subjects, highlighting the intersection between science and art in the skill of perception.

[Mark Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been bored of books for so long now, they all essentially felt so predictable and formulaic or trying way to hard to be cool or interesting, I've been seeking something different, something unique.

This book blew my mind - it's part memoir, part science lecture, part art history, part poem. Deeply moving and thoroughly interesting - a meditation on truely seeing. Hard to categorise and I feel I've shifted as a person from experiencing it.

[Marc Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video review https://youtu.be/thSX4UwxSew

[Sam Hicks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave up on this halfway through, when the sensation of reading the same but slightly reworded page became overwhelming. Made me wish I'd picked a popular science/psychology book dealing with perception instead; one that might have given me the new insights or sense of wonder I was looking for, rather than portentous statements about not much and wistful vignettes of Dutch anatomists.

[Eva-Stina · Rating 3 out of 5]

We fail to take in much of what we see. We peer at what we cannot quite see, and what we notice is often not what we choose to or expect. There is nothing more vivid than a sudden coalescence that confounds understanding and detonates memory so that you feel both recognition and bewilderment for the moment before it falls into place. The boredom and repetition of life – journeys, making and remaking works of art, pouring tea – can be what fixes something for us but sometimes, there is a moment in which the shape that is made is so perfect that you never forget it.

[...] I finished my tea, and Duchamp got up from his chair and took my teacup from me with the most extraordinary grace – with a gesture so elegant that I’ve never forgotten it.

Georgia O’Keeffe

[Muharrem Enes Erdem · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vast Expanse by Lavinia Greenlaw is a collection of essays that beautifully intertwines the themes of looking and seeing, light and shadow, and the artist’s use of color with the poet’s vivid description of the senses. Greenlaw’s prose is reflective and deeply personal, exploring how we perceive the world and how those perceptions are shaped by experience, memory, and loss. Through this lens, the book becomes a poignant eulogy, paying tribute to the power of art and memory in the face of grief.

The essays are thoroughly enjoyable, each one offering new insights into the way we engage with the world around us. Greenlaw’s ability to articulate complex ideas about vision and the senses is remarkable, turning seemingly abstract concepts into a heartfelt exploration of the human experience. The way she writes about the interplay of light and shadow, and the delicate nuances of color, is not only a tribute to the artists and poets who work with these elements but also a profound meditation on how we experience life itself.

What makes The Vast Expanse so compelling is how Greenlaw weaves these reflections into a deeply personal narrative of loss and remembrance. There is a gentle yet powerful quality to her writing as she opens up about her own emotional journey, blending her intellectual musings with raw, human vulnerability. The result is a book that resonates on both a cognitive and emotional level, evoking a sense of shared humanity and the eternal presence of memory.

This book is a wonderful eulogy—not just to a person, but to the process of remembering, of perceiving, and of finding meaning in the transient moments of life. Greenlaw’s essays are not only an intellectual pleasure but also a tender reminder of the power of observation, art, and memory to shape our understanding of the world.

The Vast Expanse is a beautiful and evocative read, and while it may not speak to everyone in the same way, it offers a deeply personal and insightful journey that is certainly worth taking.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Blue is spacious. A blue image has a horizontal pull that lays ground for us to walk on. A red image is vertical — height and depth and danger. If you ask people to name the first blue thing that comes to mind, they will probably say sea or sky.” Lavinia Greenlaw’s The Vast Extent: On Seeing and Not Seeing Further is an essay collection like few others, a culmination of thirty years of thinking on various subjects including Netherlandish art, literature, science, sociology, and psychology. As her foreword explains, she is exploring such questions as “How do we make sense of what we see? How do we describe what we have never seen before?” To bring her concerns into light, the nature of her practice is “to travel the question rather than try to answer it […] to draw things to the surface, place them in arrangement while keeping the parts apart, and to leave the reader free to cast their own light and to turn these things over in their own mind as I have in mine.” Peter Pan, driving in the dark as “an act of trust”, the work of Elizabeth Bishop, the genius of Ada Lovelace — these are some of the richly varied subjects that people Greenlaw’s astounding work, as well as so many shimmering reflections on light, vision, meaning, creativity. “I like to be taken to the edge of my understanding and language and ideas, and to have my mind slowed so that I can experience what I would describe as wonder. Something has such an impact that I detect a moment of emptiness before the brain rushes in to build an explanation.” Much of her writing falls into that moment of emptiness, the generous shaping of clearings for her readers’ minds to rest in.

[Vero · Rating 4 out of 5]

4✨

This book just took the top spot on my (non-existent but now very necessary) “how do I even describe this book” list. Still, I really enjoyed this collection of essays, loosely connected by what’s described in the blurb as “light and image, seeing and the unseen.”

I read this for a book club, more or less in one go, but I think the ideal way to approach it would be to just pick a random essay here and there. Each is quite dense with information, weaving together everything from art history and scientific facts to the author’s memoir and reflective meditations.

What (and if) you take something from it, really depends on who you are and your own life experiences. (Basically, you're either vibing with Lavinia or not at all hahah - so you just have to try and see).

Personally, some essays felt more like a delivery of facts - still interesting, but nothing particularly profound. Others offered something deeper to reflect on or even shifted my perspective on things, which I really appreciated. There were moments where I didn’t connect with the author at all, but I wouldn’t be surprised if revisiting this book in a few years gave me a completely different experience.
(So to sum it up - I mostly vibed with Lavinia 😂).

[emilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Initially I was blown away by the style and form, but once I got used to it there were a few science-ish sections that were too densely explained. But still this is an incredible creative non-fiction read, and I love the 'exploded essay' concept.

This book is about how we see things and how we experience perception when we cannot see, when things are dark or blank or absent or blindingly bright. Really interesting and connected to lots of things I want to explore creatively.

[Sarah Foulc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this. Some passages were great to read. However I did find it very dense. The fact that many of these ideas I’d been brooding over for years and have read about through other favourite authors (Rebecca Solnit) whose style I prefer/resonate more with, it hasn’t been the most thrilling of reads. The structure left me struggling a bit through some passages. But overall good work. I prefer Greenlaw’s poems/poetry….

[Paul Besley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enjoyable essays about looking and seeing, light and shadow, the artists use of colour, the poets description of senses, all woven into a personal story of loss and remembrance. A wonderful eulogy.

[alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

“we cannot become completely ourselves even though, as whitehead put it, ‘no one ever says, here am i, and i have brought my body with me.’ if whitehead has been a teenage girl he might have reconsidered. i felt as if i were hauling myself around for years.” 4/5

[Dianne Tanner · Rating 4 out of 5]

the format of this book, short essays, made it perfect read with coffee instead of stare at phone material in the mornings before work. it also meant I started the day thinking about weird shit which I enjoyed very much.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Anna B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading these essays felt like being caught in a time loop, each one slightly different from the last, yet echoing the same familiar patterns.

[beef · Rating 3 out of 5]

some lovely writing, nice to dip in and out of. some essays moved me more than others but I guess that is the way. defo want to read some more greenlaw

[ree]

beautiful cover alert!!!