The Activist

by Renee Gladman

Fiction. African American Studies. Straddling fiction and poetry, Renee Gladman's writing operates on the level of the sentence, constructing suprise and oblique meanings at every turn, and somehow managing the supremely difficult trick of both engaging and pushing the reader. "THE ACTIVIST begins in the middle of a revolution....There is a bridge that may or may not have been bombed. People speak in nonsense and cannot stop themselves. In the midst of all this, the language of news reports mixes with the language of confession. The art of this beautifully written book is in how it touchingly illustrates that relations between humans and cities are linked in a more complex interface than most realize"--Juliana Spahr.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Queer, Literature

145 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2003

About the author

Renee Gladman is an artist preoccupied with crossings, thresholds, and geographies as they play out at the intersections of writing, drawing and architecture. She is the author of numerous published works, including a cycle of novels about the city-state Ravicka and its inhabitants, the Ravickians—Event Factory (2010), The Ravickians (2011), Ana Patova Crosses a Bridge (2013), and Houses of Ravicka (2017)—all published by Dorothy. Her most recent books are My Lesbian Novel (2024) and a reprint of her 2008 book TOAF (both also from Dorothy). Recent essays and visual work have appeared in The Architectural Review, POETRY, The Paris Review, The Yale Review, and e-flux, in addition to several artist monographs and exhibition catalogs. Gladman’s first solo exhibition of drawings, The Dreams of Sentences, opened in fall 2022 at Wesleyan University, followed by Narratives of Magnitude at Artists Space in New York City in spring 2023. She has been awarded fellowships and artist residencies from the Menil Drawing Institute, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, among others, and received a Windham-Campbell prize in fiction in 2021. She makes her home in New England.

Reviews

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

More notes:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

" "This is truly embarrassing for the administration" a specialist on perception theory and war, who asked to remain anonymous, confided. “What we have is an extreme form of civil disobedience. Something our public has never seen before. This is the situation we’re facing: a shockingly high number of witnesses claim that the bridge is in perfect form, the President of our nation is convinced that the bridge has been exploded, another group asserts that the bridge has collapsed, not exploded, and a handful of researchers contests that there ever was a bridge. Now imagine how this sounds to people in other countries, or just on the other coast."

Gladman does a remarkable job of capturing the disorienting nature of truth/reality living in a world with a 24-hour news cycle, political/propaganda spin machines, and the frustrated will of the individual to respond/act against an almost invisible/amorphous threat/oppression.

Using news clips, reporting, interviews/interrogrations, and narrative, the book cobbles together snippets of a situation in flux where one can't even be sure who is pulling what strings. Reality is so distorted that even physical paper maps begin to blur and lose touch with the urban grid/streets. Incompetent officials/experts rub shoulders with the stories of ineffectual activists, all seemingly playing their part in a machine set in perpetual motion.

"At the time of the protest, the President had not actually revealed his news—there was an “internal delay”---but it seemed both sides understood what his stance would be. The right was already celebrating and the left was up-in-arms. Their not-knowing seemed to energize them more than knowing ever could."

This could be about Trump legal news, the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Russian-Ukraine war... Basically, just insert current event here.

Frightening and profound but engagingly palatable thanks to elements of absurdity and humor.

[Luca Suede · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gladman’s work required me to be comfortable with a bit of difficulty following along, flipping back to previous pages to double check character names and events. However, the prose is beautiful enough that I was willing to not always be able to discern between metaphor and plot events at first. The brevity of this zippy little read also made the back and forth and rereading worth it.

I read a lot of social movement texts and poetry and essay work. Maybe there are a lot of pieces out there like this one I‘ve never read— but The Activist felt singular as a fictional poetic work that advocated against the state and its violence while also having a little fun with hyperbolic depictions of direct action organizers. To be clear, this book is pro-movement, anti-state. Dreamy, delusional, paranoid, and at times delving into psychosis. Made me laugh at myself and thinking of my own beloved comrades.

[Mattilda]

A mutating map with disappearing streets, an Existential satire, and an oblique investigation -- is it the terror of action, the terror in action, or the terror of inaction? I loved this mystery madness until the end when it became more bounded by references to 9/11 and then suddenly I wasn’t sure -- I wanted to stay with:

“Detritus in the streets, my legs so heavy; I see by instinct. I’m lying in the park, hidden in the uncut grass, imagining a city grid. A map of summer colors and geometry. A circumference that’s doing something, the inner life of a line. All day I pretend I understand.”

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one we’ve read for class. This one was really interesting. It followed a group of activists, a very strange incident with a bridge that did or did not exist, and the media coverage of it all. It’s a very dreamlike book of poetry that’s maybe also prose? The narration can be confusing at times because you might not know who is speaking but I don’t think you should worry about that as much as you want to. It’s a super queer and fascinating book. I love the map that changes and I love the form. The ending really had me thinking and I loved the class discussion around it all.

Here is a quote I liked from a news portion about the character’s refusing to make sense: “Instead of a hunger strike . .. it's as though they are issuing a logic one.” I love the idea of a “logic strike,” and the chaos that suggests creatively. Maybe I refuse to make sense, too. Girl, am I on a logic strike? Mayhaps.

[federico garcía LOCA · Rating 5 out of 5]

2003. 2003? 2003!
Renee Gladman is an oracle and we are lucky to have this work. A dizzying and rewarding text, poetic in its contradictions and haunting in its context.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"But...I don't know. Reality is not static--its properties are in constant flux, so perhaps we are as much in the world as we can ever be, and that's the problem."

This book almost broke my heart over and over again, but then did something jarring that shifted my focus elsewhere, thereby demonstrating why my emotions were all culled forth in the first place. This book is written in gray and white mental fuzz and suddenly there will be bread loaves hanging from the ceiling, and then there are no colors again.

Reality is questioned in a sort of The Matrix-y dream-vs.-awake (or drugs-vs.-nodrugs) way as well as in a everyone-has-different-perceptions way AND in a purposeful-creation-of-reality way. But there are never overt questions and everything is stark and spare and exact. By the end, the only thing that seems fully real is a profound inability to connect--to share the same reality with anyone.

Formally amazing. Not because it's trying to experiment with form, but because the form is completely necessary to creating this landscape and telling this story.

I am kind of bowled over that someone could do so much with perception, reality, media, war, dreams, desire, and interpersonal relationships in so few words.

I will read this more times.

[Zoe]

renee has done it again - leaving me completely baffled, groping along the undercarriage of an immense intellectual questioning, and further interlinked into a strange ghostly community. i just looked at the back of the book to see if it could help me make further sense of the book; it could not ("disrupted positionality," "flea-bitten news," "ambiguous borders of talk.") i think i am realizing a renee gladman will make no sense on the first read, but it will give you that immense undercarriage feeling. that something is being INVESTIGATED, and not in a conclusive manner. something is being WORKED THRU. this is why i like renee gladman and anna moschovakis so much, because their books are theorizing thru fiction. in the wake of new narrative. what more is there to ask of a book! then you have the reread it.

also - cool to see hints of ravicka emerging. the moving city, the strange languages (o how i loved the secret activist language! even if maybe the point wasn't to love it..) (see that's the thing, you can't make any conclusive statements about her books for the ground you tread on is shaking & uncertain a la anna moschovakis), the confusion, the looming/incomprehensible Events/Apocalypse.

let's start with how this book found me --a hot shabbos day in great falls. streets were abandoned. hot & sticky. my phone dying, and i was scared i was going to be marooned there, there in great falls. but i happened across this bookstore, unnameable books, although it was frankly almost completely hidden behind construction work. i walked inside and immediately asked the man behind the counter --white hair, blue collared shirt with teal fish on it-- if i could charge my phone. it was getting to that point, the point where i had to rely on the kindness of strangers. in order to make it out of great falls, desolate and enticing all at once. he let me charge my phone. i commenced my wandering. almost immediately it became clear that this was a bookstore out of my san francisco wet dreams. curated almost just as beautifully as medicine for nightmares, replete with kevin killian's amazon reviews on display in a niche, the new irene sola i didn't even know was out already, TWO dodie bellamy books (sadly not the ever-elusive the buddhist), clarice lispector galore, etc. etc. all my markers of good taste presented themselves; i felt validated. more than validated, i felt excited - that, due to the good taste displayed through the books i knew, i would be able to trust the selection of books i didn't know to recommend to me books that i could order from the library. the only problem was, i didn't have my phone to write down book recommendations on, as my phone was behind the counter, so i took out a small slip of paper from my wallet. i scribbled titles on it. my excitement grew. i found three books i needed to buy --the activist among them. as i checked out, i was faced with yet another miracle. one of the books i bought was lote, which i had been wanting to get my hands on for quite some time but which was, sadly, just too niche to be anywhere. but the man behind the desk (now i know him as adam) told me that i didn't need to buy the book new, as there was a used copy. i was floored. not one --but TWO copies of lote. in great falls, desolate thought she was. i was sweating.

we began to talk about renee gladman, her genre-less-ness. i said "i haven't been able to find this book anywhere either. that's why i must buy it." he said "her partner was here giving a talk and she handed a box of her books to me. i asked to pay her, but she waved me off."

i was floored --yet again. renee gladman's hands. a gift economy of her books. she lives in connecticut, he said. she does readings here sometimes. in great falls.

the strangest part was - this just wasn't a surprise. renee gladman's ghostly footprints are everywhere, for those who are willing to look. sniff for san francisco, for the well-curated bookshop, for a slip of paper -- she'll be there. it's as if she's leading me --towards what? or perhaps less leading, more tricking, tracing. anyway, i liked the book. i need to read it again to know what it's saying. perhaps this can become the sequel to my in-progress toaf piece. the renee gladman chronicles might even be a good title for a memoir.

as an addendum, if anyone ever wants to read renee and talk about her with me, i would love that. i want to talk about the bridge, and whether she is writing from within or outside of the activists. as well as pronouns. and narcs, and initials.

"personally, i'm tired of pretending that i don't see the bridge."

"instead of a hunger strike...it's as though they are issuing a logic one."

"what good is evidence, though, when it is gathered in a non-existent place?"

"i am always looking for analogies, thinking that eventually i'll stumble upon a relation that will give a face to this world, that will stand in for these vague impressions that i'm living."

"she held it out to me and spoke in words that were just barely foreign."

"wait! i lost the relation again. every time i feel certain that i have devised a way of procuring fro my captors, or conversely from my imagination, which world i'm in, the path that i took to get there fails to maintain its shape."

"yes, we are the new militant beasts!"

"there is a language that distinguishes this group from the other activists in the city, a language they fall into when they are together, that they do not know on their own."

"she is reading me, undressing me, something."

[Matty B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember this book as an experiment and a critique of political reality as distorted by newspaper prose or something like that. There are lots of cool imitations of news stories describing a confusing dispute of the factual record regarding a terrorist attack that may or may not have ever happened. Administrative awkwardness is epically conveyed at the expense of those that want to use tragedy for there own political gain. And there are cool fictional clandestine revolutionary types lurking in these pages...hiding out from the cops! I checked this book out on account of old writing teacher Rob Halpern used to teach Renee Gladman writings that were always experimental but down to earth and that is exactly how I would describe everything I've read on Krupskaya Press besides Taylor Brady...

[Jared Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

"This is truly embarrassing for the administration," a specialist on perception theory and war, who asked to remain anonymous, confided. "What we have is an extreme form of civil disobedience. Something our public has never seen before. This is the situation we're facing: a shockingly high number of witnesses claim that the bridge is in perform form, the President of our nation is convinced that the bridge has been exploded, another group asserts that the bridge has collapsed, not exploded, and a handful of others contests that there ever was a bridge. Now imagine how this sounds to people in other countries, or just on the other coast."

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetic. Did I read it too quickly?

[Mackenna Sager · Rating 2 out of 5]

This books was like reading some bodies bad drug trip. It was honestly hard to keep up with despite the easy writing and it was confusing the entire time. But then again maybe I'm missing the point.

[Ivana · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always nice and refreshing to read a poetry that reads as a prose. Gladman breaks it down into 10 different sections, each one having its own perspective, characters, setting that all centrals around one theme. Sometimes, within certain sections, it can be a bit confusing as to which character is speaking, but even in thos instances what becomes important is more so what the speaker is saying. It isn't for everyone, because of the themes of war, being active, inactive, etc. But I think if poetry or prose about war, politics, or how those abstract ideas take effect in one's mind then The Activist is a book to read, because the insight of the characters is relatable, funny, serious, and profound. Not profound in the sense that wow you've said something that I didn't know, but more so in the sense that you have something that we, as a people or as a human being, think but do not say, or rather would not like to talk about or acknowledge it even to ourselves.

Perhaps I'm romatanicing this, as I tend to do to most things, but it is merely my interpretation of the thing.

[J.I. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like other Gladman I've read, I just don't get it. There are times in which she pushes against boundaries, about the ideas of writing and language (here, the language of the newspapers, of the press, of PR and activists, etc.), but mostly it feels mealymouthed and underdeveloped. At its heart this is a story about a bridge that was bombed, or which never existed, or which is perfectly fine (and no one can figure out which) and activists and then it's also about 9/11 and the impossibility of being an activist in the face of such a travesty. Except it's just barely not a joke. It presents a kind of post-modern reality where nothing is known, but it fails to explore the concept. It plays against activism, but accidentally makes them completely ridiculous. It uses language to mess with reality, but ends up simply not really dealing with it. It's a book that wants to be things, but also wants to be only 15,000 words, and so can't really be bothered to be things. It is fine, I suppose, but after this, and Toaf, I am happy to be done with Gladman forever.

[Zack]

i really loved this book. it went down easy but i keep thinking about it. like a delicious meal and then you burp after the delicious meal and you keep tasting your burps. i usually don't like narrative poetry but this is totally an exception to my rule (there are a few). sometimes i think narrative poetry tends to be weird for weirdness sake. in The Activist, all the weirdness seems symbolic and meaningful. a very good weird.

[k · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got all excited, because it was prose poetry and a professor I used to had seemed to like the author. But, blah. BORINGTOWN: POPULATION-THIS BOOK.

[Bryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I've read it at least 4 or 5 times and never have the same experience of it.

[Gary McDowell]

Prose poems!?

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

As good as it gets.

[Xander · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Activist is damn near perfect: it's disorienting, compelling, harrowing, and frequently hilarious. I think Kafka would have loved this book.