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1095 Short Sentences
How to be a person in the world? You could place the emphasis on how or be, on person or world, and depending on where the emphasis lands, the meaning changes. The enormity of the undertaking is evident in the variability of the phrase itself.
As Donato Loia’s 1095 Short Sentences attempts that undertaking, it does so with many more phrases whose meaning changes as they accumulate. This collection of 1095 aphoristic thoughts, observations, and notes-to-self shifts through the times of a day over the course of a year. The renewal of mornings and the melancholy of evenings, the in-between feeling of afternoons. It addresses a wealth of concerns, from the high-flown and philosophical to the ridiculous and mundane – and where they intersect. What seems simple and obvious becomes deep and complex, and vice versa.
You could consider it a motivational (or anti-motivational) guide, but this book is more searching than prescriptive. Statements that initially seem authoritative ultimately produce questions and doubt, in a tone more contemplative than instructive, with a seriousness that doesn’t take itself too seriously. (You might even laugh?) There’s a circular and, at times, contradictory nature to these sentences. They are paradoxical – like life, often enough. And as they touch on time and memory, they become quite moving, encompassing the subjects – love, friendship, work, ambition, desire – that drive and often confound us all.
Donato Loia is an Italian writer who lives and works in Chicago. Currently, he teaches art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Previously, he lived in Austin where he received a doctorate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
As Donato Loia’s 1095 Short Sentences attempts that undertaking, it does so with many more phrases whose meaning changes as they accumulate. This collection of 1095 aphoristic thoughts, observations, and notes-to-self shifts through the times of a day over the course of a year. The renewal of mornings and the melancholy of evenings, the in-between feeling of afternoons. It addresses a wealth of concerns, from the high-flown and philosophical to the ridiculous and mundane – and where they intersect. What seems simple and obvious becomes deep and complex, and vice versa.
You could consider it a motivational (or anti-motivational) guide, but this book is more searching than prescriptive. Statements that initially seem authoritative ultimately produce questions and doubt, in a tone more contemplative than instructive, with a seriousness that doesn’t take itself too seriously. (You might even laugh?) There’s a circular and, at times, contradictory nature to these sentences. They are paradoxical – like life, often enough. And as they touch on time and memory, they become quite moving, encompassing the subjects – love, friendship, work, ambition, desire – that drive and often confound us all.
Donato Loia is an Italian writer who lives and works in Chicago. Currently, he teaches art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Previously, he lived in Austin where he received a doctorate degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
172 pages, Paperback
Published August 28, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 15, 2024
Thoroughly enjoyable. I recommend reading each section during its described time: Morning during the morning, with a cup of coffee, for example. You'll find the sentences starting to sink in, and soon they'll start to work their magic on you. Finishing this book made me wish for 1000 or so more sentences.
September 29, 2024
One of my favorite books of 2024! Deb Shapiro's B-Side Editions is the bomb.
"173. It is imperative to have enough money circulating, and capital needs people until machines will be able to spend. At that point, we might really be screwed. Perhaps the true threat is not automation, but machines having access to consumption" (82).
"179. Precariousness is not only a social problem, but a state of being.
180. What is precariousness? The awareness that everything is temporary and that you are not essential. It is the opposite of flexibility.
181. If you are in a precarious position, you are thrown into a world that--metaphorically--owns you.
182. Is it possible that more professional and economic safety leads to more selfishness and absent-minded individualism, while less safety leads to an increased need of stable bonds, familial connections, and a sense of belonging? This equation might be true, but there is something rather catastrophic about it" (83).
"189. What might a collapsing empire look like? Here is a possible example: There is an unemployed man, in his early twenties, on a sofa, wearing sports clothes that might also pass as pajamas. The house is in a nice part of town. It would probably cost one million dollars. The young American is drinking beer and watching a TV program, 'Workaholic.' On the floor, the beer cap. ON a small table ahead of him, a cookie. Half chewed. Crumbs are on the floor. His mom arrives and says, 'Let me throw away this cookie, I am sure it has been here for the whole day.' No orgies, no rivers of alcohol, nothing that might remind us of the decadent Romans. Just a half-chewed cookie eaten by an unemployed person and picked up by a mother. This is probably what it looks like" (84-85).
"346. What is the art world today? A giant bubble of solipsism, loneliness, noise, buzz, flashy colors, aged youth, aspiring sameness, authoritarian inclusivity, a mass of documents, vanishing images, and a smiley paralysis. Of course, there are still fine, good, and even great artists within this mess. But if one tries to look at the art world as a whole, the sight can be quite depressing" (106).
"209. The so-called crisis of masculinity is both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, it attempts to dismantle some of the most arrogant and violent assumptions associated with classic masculinity--the notion of the alpha male who must dominate. On the other hand, it is bad because it hasn't led to a more thoughtful form of masculinity. It creates this amorphous nothing: individuals with no direction, who know nothing about themselves and people who must see themselves as 'problematic' or 'toxic'--a chaotic mess of conflicting thoughts" (141).
"173. It is imperative to have enough money circulating, and capital needs people until machines will be able to spend. At that point, we might really be screwed. Perhaps the true threat is not automation, but machines having access to consumption" (82).
"179. Precariousness is not only a social problem, but a state of being.
180. What is precariousness? The awareness that everything is temporary and that you are not essential. It is the opposite of flexibility.
181. If you are in a precarious position, you are thrown into a world that--metaphorically--owns you.
182. Is it possible that more professional and economic safety leads to more selfishness and absent-minded individualism, while less safety leads to an increased need of stable bonds, familial connections, and a sense of belonging? This equation might be true, but there is something rather catastrophic about it" (83).
"189. What might a collapsing empire look like? Here is a possible example: There is an unemployed man, in his early twenties, on a sofa, wearing sports clothes that might also pass as pajamas. The house is in a nice part of town. It would probably cost one million dollars. The young American is drinking beer and watching a TV program, 'Workaholic.' On the floor, the beer cap. ON a small table ahead of him, a cookie. Half chewed. Crumbs are on the floor. His mom arrives and says, 'Let me throw away this cookie, I am sure it has been here for the whole day.' No orgies, no rivers of alcohol, nothing that might remind us of the decadent Romans. Just a half-chewed cookie eaten by an unemployed person and picked up by a mother. This is probably what it looks like" (84-85).
"346. What is the art world today? A giant bubble of solipsism, loneliness, noise, buzz, flashy colors, aged youth, aspiring sameness, authoritarian inclusivity, a mass of documents, vanishing images, and a smiley paralysis. Of course, there are still fine, good, and even great artists within this mess. But if one tries to look at the art world as a whole, the sight can be quite depressing" (106).
"209. The so-called crisis of masculinity is both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, it attempts to dismantle some of the most arrogant and violent assumptions associated with classic masculinity--the notion of the alpha male who must dominate. On the other hand, it is bad because it hasn't led to a more thoughtful form of masculinity. It creates this amorphous nothing: individuals with no direction, who know nothing about themselves and people who must see themselves as 'problematic' or 'toxic'--a chaotic mess of conflicting thoughts" (141).
October 24, 2024
Donato Loia, an Italian expatriate living in the United States, has written 1095 sentences about, as his publisher Deborah Shapiro says, how to be a person in the world. He fills his notebooks morning, noon and night for a year -- thus 1095 apercu. Thoughtful, irritable, philosophical, sometimes banal, occasionally naughty, he is searching for something. Aren't we all. Signor Loia would like to be the character played by Marcello Mastroianni in Fellini's 8 1/2. An intellectual and an artist, but so anxious. He has much to say about the arts and artists and is not always complimentary. He wants to understand his contemporaries -- why do they do what do they do, what do they want. In the odd moment, he slips into Schopenhauer mode, deep and pessimistic. But not for long. This is a morning, noon and night story after all and nightmares are soon followed by something amusing, something playful, something gentle in the morning. 1095 Short Sentences is a good book to slip in and out of; it will make you think, smile and maybe scoff. But I suspect you will enjoy spending time with this fellow, Donato Loia. And I bet you will want to read his next book.
May 20, 2025
A beautiful and unusual book. In terms of tone, form and the clarity of its writing, I can really only compare it to The Waste Books by Lichtenberg or maybe Markson’s ‘notecard’ novels. Funny, philosophical, and practical in equal measures. An especially good book for in-between periods of the day, like when you’ve just finished eating lunch.
October 3, 2024
Contemplative, perceptive, and funny. An unusual book. I loved it and I think I'll keep going back to it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews