How I Became One of the Invisible (Semiotext

by David Rattray

The only collection of Rattray's prose: essays that offer a kind of secret history and guidebook to a poetic and mystical tradition.

In order to become one of the invisible, it is necessary to throw oneself into the arms of God... Some of us stayed for weeks, some for months, some forever.
—from How I Became One of the Invisible

Since its first publication in 1992, David Rattray's How I Became One of the Invisible has functioned as a kind of secret history and guidebook to a poetic and mystical tradition running through Western civilization from Pythagoras to In Nomine music to Hölderlin and Antonin Artaud. Rattray not only excavated this tradition, he embodied and lived it. He studied at Harvard and the Sorbonne but remained a poet, outside the academy. His stories “Van” and “The Angel” chronicle his travels in southern Mexico with his friend, the poet Van Buskirk, and his adventures after graduating from Dartmouth in the mid-1950s. Eclipsed by the more mediagenic Beat writers during his lifetime, Rattray has become a powerful influence on contemporary artists and writers.

Living in Paris, Rattray became the first English translator of Antonin Artaud, and he understood Artaud's incisive scholarship and technological prophecies as few others would. As he writes of his translations in How I Became One of the Invisible, “You have to identify with the man or the woman. If you don't, then you shouldn't be translating it. Why would you translate something that you didn't think had an important message for other people? I translated Artaud because I wanted to turn my friends on and pass a message that had relevance to our lives. Not to get a grant, or be hired by an English department.”

Compiled in the months before his untimely death at age 57, How I Became One of the Invisible is the only volume of Rattray's prose. This new edition, edited by Robert Dewhurst, includes five additional pieces, two of them previously unpublished.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Essays

424 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

David Rattray (1946-1993) was a poet and translator who trained at Harvard and the Sorbonne. Fluent in Greek, Latin, French, German, and other languages, he is best known for his translations of 20th-century French writers Antonin Artaud, René Crevel, and Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. He also worked as an editor for Reader’s Digest.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

David^^^Rattray

Reviews

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Visionary autobiography as Beat-era drug hijinks and vision quest retellings, alongside essays on Artaud, Rene Crevel, and ancient British music forms, all equally revealing. Beautiful Semiotext(e) edition.

[Erica Harmon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I realized I couldn't finish this collection of essays about a third of the way into it. Male centric memoirs of the beat generation; turns out I might not like them.

Dispersed between beautiful, poetic descriptions of Mexico and Saint Lewis, and heartbreaking recollections of friends who died young, were the women of Dave's world, all of whom seemed to be whores, sluts, or just completely unexamined. I found myself in a particularly bad mood one night and realized it was induced by the self-indulgent and careless misogyny of the book at hand.

When I wasn't reading a raunchy and improbable description of some black Jackie O, or two dimensional, sex obsessed white grad student, or philandering friend, I quite enjoyed David Rattray's memories of a fascinating, heady time full of police chases, political radicalism and self examination.

[Robert Podgurski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having long owned a copy of the 1st edition I am compelled to state that this new version with Additional Prose is worth its weight in gold. "In the Hand of the Wind" by itself is an amazing experimental visionary prose/poem. If nothing else new had been added to the book this piece alone would be reason enough to acquire it. The interview with Pound is brutally revealing. "Yoga of Hate" provides a harsh and penetrating window into Rattray's soul. And "Letter to a Young Poet" is must reading for any aspiring poet, young and old alike. A brilliant life cut far too short. One can only imagine what else David Rattray may have accomplished had time been on his side.

[Griffin Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Essay "Artaud's Cane" and the story/memoir "The Angel" warrant the highest accolades in and of themselves. It is a pleasure to watch Rattray's mind work, and his research is breathtaking, especially given that all of these pieces were written before the advent of digital databases.

[Manuela · Rating 4 out of 5]

collection of stories by antonin artaud translator and general intellectual david rattray. some brilliant, some too esoteric for my taste, but all worth reading

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rattray's are the most persuasive essays in English on Rene Daumal and his associates...

[G Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t like this book very much. But the ideas and the writer between its covers are original and I’ll never forget the book.

If you’ve not heard of David Rattray before reading it, I suggest reading his piece on Ezra Pound toward the end (I also found a free PDF online) and googling a piece written by someone else after his death. There are a few. Though the introduction to “How I Became One of the Invisible” is good, but I didn’t find it sufficient to understand just who this Rattray person is. And how he..fits in with everything else I know.

I mean. In the end he doesn’t. He is his own in every way. But I found the attempt at placing him in space and time helpful.

Start with the piece called Family Business. Then Van. Those were to me the most autobiographical and telling, no matter how doctored to be narratives. His work on Antonin Artaud is heady in a way I’ve not encountered. More visceral than academic.

David Rattray was singular.

[Dylan Kiewel · Rating 4 out of 5]

like food for myyy brain, felt for a brief time smarter after each new essay, my mind wanting to stretch outside its usual confines. probably the third great book i've read in the last 6 months featuring characters making eye opening visits to Mexico, feeels like a sign. this man had a mind that just took in everything and kept it there, insights and reflections upon which he could use to enrich his encounters with even more ways of thinking, being, and most importantly for Rattray, a sort of non-being, being invisible. a seeker in the purest sense and one that went to the edge with it like all the greats. fascinating travel logs, incisive descriptions of the people he met and knew, essays that probe difficult obscure topics or people in such a way that i couldn't really even stop for pauses.

[Eric Phetteplace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild beats-era stories from an itinerant poet/scholar mixed in with some mystical literary theory and a few short fiction works. A fun and surprisingly coherent set of writings. One of the best definitions of poetry ("creating reality through language") I've heard. I had never heard of Rattray before but the Artaud Anthology he did translations for is one of my favorite books ever. His excellent taste in friends and writing distinguishes the book. I am rather over self-involved writers writing about writers but Rattray has enough spirit to make it enjoyable.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

rattray is one of those guys that all the people you really admire admire. i, however, had a harder time with his work. i like the artaud's cane essay a lot, but even that felt elusive at the crucial points when it should have gelled.

[Peter Pinelli]

quiting this book after about 150 pages. As much as I appreciate his committment to intellectual pursuits I can't get over how much of an asshole he is. I can't stand the mythologizing either. Everything is so affected, so precious in an almost hysterical way. At the same time, it feels like for him objects basically just exist for the sake of his lyricism. Ugh

I feel the same about most of the Beats. whatever their freedom, they suck.

[Zach Werbalowsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very beautiful book toggling between beat-esque story to criticism to views into a artist mind. There is probably an essay in here everyone would like. I preferred the first half, but Rattray's writing in superb.

[Tom Buchanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm going to go ahead and say I liked it the more gossipy it got. I think they should advertise it as about being a pot dealer before cell phones.

[Diana Lynn VanderMeulen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you can push beyond the first ~1/3 of this book you will be rewarded.

[Vincent Silk · Rating 2 out of 5]

some parts were alright but for most of it i might as well have been reading jack kerouac