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Hinges: Meditations on the Portals of the Imagination
Grace Dane Mazur uses the idea of the hinge to illuminate real and metaphysical thresholds in fiction, poetry, myth, and ordinary life. From ancient narratives of Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Parmenides, and Orpheus, to modern works by Katherine Mansfield and Eudora Welty, the exploration of the Other World acts as a metaphor for the entrancement of reading and writing.
Looking at Lascaux, Renaissance and Byzantine images of Christ harrowing Hell, Rubens, Vermeer, and others Mazur contemplates writing, attention, Hades, the gates of Hell, trap doors, demons, love, the human body, forbidden looking, Virgil, Ovid, Nicodemus, Nighttown, and the melancholy of twilight.
- GenresNonfiction
152 pages, Paperback
First published November 8, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 9, 2020
This is the most noticeably conversational book I can recall having read. I am reminded of Yiyun Li's _Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life_, which, despite its so promising title, left me feeling bereft. Mazur's book is the opposite, and I found myself answering aloud some of the questions she poses in the text. In the best sense, this was like a conversation with an admired, very well-read, somewhat over-the-top and all-over-the-place friend. Mazur is obviously extremely erudite and curious; she appears to delve deeply into her widely ranging interests.
Though this book could have done with a good round of copy editing for commas and occasional syntactical awkwardnesses, these remain primarily in the first couple of dozen pages. The work is the playful result of the musings of an imaginative and thoughtful person fully in command of language, mythology, and lots of other things that may seem unconnected but that will draw in and delight the open reader.
Coincidentally, it was very useful to pick this up after Max Frisch's _Homo Faber_, because it got me thinking further about the mythological implications in that work. I would have missed quite a lot without this lucky choice to read Mazur just afterwards.
In short, an insightful, accessible, sometimes pleasantly random book like an intriguing intellectual scent that one can't help but follow. I didn't agree with all of Mazur's assertions, but I really like the way she thinks.
This book went on my "to re-read" list, which only contains 6 books, before I had even finished it.
Though this book could have done with a good round of copy editing for commas and occasional syntactical awkwardnesses, these remain primarily in the first couple of dozen pages. The work is the playful result of the musings of an imaginative and thoughtful person fully in command of language, mythology, and lots of other things that may seem unconnected but that will draw in and delight the open reader.
Coincidentally, it was very useful to pick this up after Max Frisch's _Homo Faber_, because it got me thinking further about the mythological implications in that work. I would have missed quite a lot without this lucky choice to read Mazur just afterwards.
In short, an insightful, accessible, sometimes pleasantly random book like an intriguing intellectual scent that one can't help but follow. I didn't agree with all of Mazur's assertions, but I really like the way she thinks.
This book went on my "to re-read" list, which only contains 6 books, before I had even finished it.
July 6, 2019
Intriguing concept, but muddled execution. Meanders between pseudo-academic style ("In the following paragraphs I will discuss...", and even a couple of "the Oxford English Dictionary defines..."!) and fairly dull personal anecdotes. There are some interesting bits on art history and "hinge" points in literature (liminal points between worlds, basically), but much more than I expected about literal hinges!
August 10, 2013
Hinges is a compilation of 5 essays: The Hinges of Hell, The World of Fiction and the Land of the Dead, Forbidden Looking, Hell and Hinges Revisited, and Hinges of the Mind and of the Heart.
Mazur unusual pedigree grants here uncanny perspective in the nature of art, imagination, eros and death. She has studied painting and ceramics, morphogenesis and micro-architecture of silk worms, and teaches at the MFA program at Warren Wilson in Creative Writing..
Through this collection of essays, Mazur feels free to hinge (her verb of choice) between the classical works of Literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Parmenides-- to the classics of Visuals Arts, Ruben's Orpheus and Eurydice with Hades and Persephone, Fra Angelico's Christ in Limbo, and the 17,000 year old Cave Paintings of Lascaux. These literary and artistic investigations are punctuated by her personal accounts of the adventure to the Caves of Lascaux with her husband Barry and Eva Brann, the rape of Turk's Caps from a local farm, and her keenest interest--the act of writing.
Mazur explores a question that I myself have been interested in for some time: why do men seek wisdom through Hades? What can we learn by traveling through the darkest parts of the soul and of the world? She explores this question through Odysseus, Gilgamesh, Parmenides, and the modern work of Katherine Mansfield's Laura in "The Garden Party". I continue puzzle over the descents or movements outside (Mazur stresses that we need not think of the journey into the underworld as strictly "under" or "below" but that the journey is simply into the world of the Other, free of strict spatial relation) of Don Quixote into the Cave of Montesinos, Dante into Hell, and Hans Castorp up to the Sanatorium. She has helped me reexamine these latent questions with honest blend of phenomenology and poetry.
Mazur is most interested in the writing. This gives her writing an electric thoughtfulness that transcends a typical synthetic pan-department essay. This stands out with lines like, "Because the close, focused attention of the writer is often even more piercing and prolonged than that of the reader, the imagined world replaces by its intensity and brilliance the ordinary world of the living. This, too, can lead to a certain terror." P. 51
Hinges is a meandering journey through the soul of the artist. Mazur writes in an accessible syntax, approaching poetic heights. I would recommend this to all who are interested in the matters of art.
Mazur unusual pedigree grants here uncanny perspective in the nature of art, imagination, eros and death. She has studied painting and ceramics, morphogenesis and micro-architecture of silk worms, and teaches at the MFA program at Warren Wilson in Creative Writing..
Through this collection of essays, Mazur feels free to hinge (her verb of choice) between the classical works of Literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Parmenides-- to the classics of Visuals Arts, Ruben's Orpheus and Eurydice with Hades and Persephone, Fra Angelico's Christ in Limbo, and the 17,000 year old Cave Paintings of Lascaux. These literary and artistic investigations are punctuated by her personal accounts of the adventure to the Caves of Lascaux with her husband Barry and Eva Brann, the rape of Turk's Caps from a local farm, and her keenest interest--the act of writing.
Mazur explores a question that I myself have been interested in for some time: why do men seek wisdom through Hades? What can we learn by traveling through the darkest parts of the soul and of the world? She explores this question through Odysseus, Gilgamesh, Parmenides, and the modern work of Katherine Mansfield's Laura in "The Garden Party". I continue puzzle over the descents or movements outside (Mazur stresses that we need not think of the journey into the underworld as strictly "under" or "below" but that the journey is simply into the world of the Other, free of strict spatial relation) of Don Quixote into the Cave of Montesinos, Dante into Hell, and Hans Castorp up to the Sanatorium. She has helped me reexamine these latent questions with honest blend of phenomenology and poetry.
Mazur is most interested in the writing. This gives her writing an electric thoughtfulness that transcends a typical synthetic pan-department essay. This stands out with lines like, "Because the close, focused attention of the writer is often even more piercing and prolonged than that of the reader, the imagined world replaces by its intensity and brilliance the ordinary world of the living. This, too, can lead to a certain terror." P. 51
Hinges is a meandering journey through the soul of the artist. Mazur writes in an accessible syntax, approaching poetic heights. I would recommend this to all who are interested in the matters of art.
December 28, 2011
What a curious little book Hinges is. Written by a biologist-turned-writer, the spouse of a mathematician, it combines art history, the act of reading, memoir and mythology into one accessible package. Grace Dane Mazur explores what happens when we cross the threshold between reality and imagination, and also examines the importance of the threshold itself. Mixing Greek and Christian stories — among other religions/philosophies — with classic poetry and paintings, she demonstrates how other inquisitive minds have tackled the notion of Other Worlds. It is a fantastic and useful read, especially those looking to better understand their own craft.
(My full review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.)
(My full review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews