Theory of Flesh

by John Binias

Francine Witte’s The Theory of Flesh is just that, an accumulation of poetic evidence for the absurdity and heartbreak that accompanies our mortal costumes. She moves from pre-history and history into the present and personal with the same sharp and incisive sense of description, the same savvy toward the fickle cosmos. Anxiety, crop failure, sibling rivalry, and small-town affairs—each is another hand-drawn entry on the larger human scroll. Witte, as they say, knows the score, and she’s willing to share it with us, to describe in no uncertain terms exactly what it means to be us—damned from the very get go and further doomed by folly and fate. Yet important enough in our trials to command the fine poet’s attention. -Justin Hamm, author of The Inheritanc e and American Ephemeral Francine Witte’s poems are full of a compassion for our frail, vulnerable selves, our frail, vulnerable earth, and they are implicit with a forgiveness for that frailty and stupidity, like a teacher who refuses to hold her students’ foolhardiness or idiocy against them. As she writes in “Bravado”: “Take away our medicines and guns, / and where are we, really? Not at the top / of the food chain, that’s for sure. Our / teeth can barely tear a baguette, and forget / about breathing in the wrong stranger’s / sneeze.” In these poems, Witte goes straight for the elements that make up our lives, the love, the betrayal, the heartbreak; our weakness and our helplessness. Witte embraces our fallibilities. After all, “Maybe this is all a game. Maybe we are the players, / or the pieces, or the lookers-on who shake their / heads and bring us snacks.” -Charles Rammelkamp, author of Me and Sal Paradise Francine Witte’s literary voice is one of the strongest to emerge in the last few years. She combines sharp observations with a smart, biting sense of humor—her take on men and women in relationships is honest, and because of her intelligence, accurate. In The Theory of Flesh, she takes no prisoners! -Ron Kolm, author of Night Shift and Welcome to the Barbecue

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Debra · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I started the book I thought it had potential - initially, I liked the tone and enjoy philosophizing... somehow I was taken back to Steppenwolf - perhaps in the structure somewhere - but towards the end I found the characters were just caricatures with no substance and there was nothing really to deeply satisfy me in the end ;0(

[Bodhi]

Ambitious and wonderful in a perverse way that I didn't exactly enjoy but which I appreciated. Fascinating and mysterious, ultimately pessimistic but somehow inspiring. Absurd and not very well plotted, but a thought-provoking parable nonetheless: there is no meaning other than what we make of our experience, and we will continue to suffer until we accept this with grace and quiet dignity; morality is relative and there are no easy answers to what constitutes a Good life. There is a profound and relevant philosophical statement within these pages, and I will steep myself in it again sometime. Also keen to check out Loco, because I'm fascinated by this "disappearing" author as much as I am by this unusual novel. Sometimes great books fall through the cracks of the slow-moving zeitgeist, and I suspect this is one of them.

[Andrew Grenfell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has some interesting parts but ultimately is a "Quite" puzzling parable, only partially saved by the quality of the writing itself.