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116 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2019
‘Does their conduct show a wish for symmetry or polarity? Do they therefore form a tandem or a case of antagonism? Share reality or compete for it? — The geography of hands is full of features. Arid promontories, complex water systems, boundary tendons. Worthy of note are the ungular eclipses: a rising sun and beneath it a sliver of moon. What better summation of their dualities? All too capable of caressing or attacking, applause today and slap tomorrow, they are too akin to their person.’
‘Besides constituting a single ever-present organ, skin possesses absolute memory, like hearing damaged by every frequency. It recalls every day with vengeful rancor. As such, it represents a kind of anatomical divinity. That’s why we worship it.’
‘Our emotions are prefigured in the hips. Bony hips for example are easily wounded: they attract both the corners of furniture and pointing fingers. More introverted, straight hips refuse to stand out. They completely shun evaluation.’
‘The vertebra act as a transition between two continents with distant, almost untranslatable languages. Pulley of the will, the spinal cord lifts everything we do not understand.’
‘Evidence abounds that the soul is multiphysical. It is similar in nature to a muscle, as it is strengthened by exercise. It also has something of the tendon about it, withstanding the tug of time, like an ox pulling a cartful of experiences. It is as subtle as cartilage, with a capacity to absorb shocks. Nor is the solidity of bone and its structuring vocation alien to it. The soul is sinew, a bundle of interlinked impulses. But in addition, it is mucus, protecting all that is most intimate and hides in corners. Also a joint, forever able to connect two planes. And of course, an artery, when its blood vessel fills. And a vital organ, ceaselessly devoted to functions essential to survival. Last but not least, the soul is cutaneous: a mystery that rises to the surface, a tremor here and now.’
‘Bleeding occurs, usually as a result of some wrong decision. Any soul risks a sprain if it says yes when meaning no. To regain its elasticity, firm commitments alternating with brief intervals of carelessness are advisable. Unacknowledged envy ends in intoxication. A home-made remedy—more effective than trying to avoid the feeling—is to accept it. If left untreated by radiations of friendship and balsamic travel, love fractures can become chronic.’
‘The soul is neither male nor female, or it is both—It is always on its way to somewhere else. Every voice it meets baptizes it in its own way—it does not distinguish between names or dwelling places. The only sacred thing is how desire transforms it. Periphery whose center is itself, it works like a target, with emotion as the dart.’
‘The soul is an avant-garde work with no author. It metabolizes images and secretes visions twenty-four hours a day.’
every biped sustains a chimera; the feet succeed in compensating for this with two empirical touches. they test the terrain we aspire to, measure it, confirm it. like adverbs, they tell us where and when. their melody is imprinted on sand, turning missteps into a musical score.perhaps the most unique of andrés neuman’s eight books (yet available) in english translation, sensitive anatomy (anatomía sensible) collects thirty short pieces of imaginative, reflective, and playful takes on the human body. as neuman waxes philosophical and poetical about our individual parts, he offers a perspective beyond mere functionality and aesthetics. with humor, joy, wonder, and always resplendent prose, sensitive anatomy thoughtfully considers the body and our relationships to its constituent parts.