The Elsewhere Community

by Hugh Kenner

"'All humans, by their nature,' said Aristotle, 'desire to know.' A special and unparalleled way to know is to simply go where you've never been before. And the key to this quest for knowledge is 'elsewhere.'"
So begins The Elsewhere Community by acclaimed literary critic Hugh Kenner, author of The Pound Era, and himself a living archive of modernism in twentieth-century literature. Kenner traces the quest for elsewhere as it manifests itself in various modes of "travel," from the eighteenth century English tradition of a Grand Tour to the continent, to literary meetings-of-the-mind (Milton's visit to Galileo, T. S. Eliot's to Ezra Pound, Kenner's own visit to Beckett), to today's planet-wide Internet journeys, free from all physical limitations. As he chronicles this Elsewhere Community built of people exploring the unknown, Kenner illuminates how this passion has infused literature, from Homer and Dante to Dickens and Joyce. Kenner frames this unique exploration with a witty rumination on the life of the literary expatriate, fondly recalling his friendships with Ezra Pound, Samuel Beckett, Wyndham Lewis, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, and other twentieth-century literary luminaries. Thus a fascinating intellectual autobiography emerges of Hugh Kenner as critic and chronicler, a man whose own life and work uniquely position him to assess the importance of travel in literary life.
Written with the confidence, grace, and verve that have always characterized Kenner's work, this delightful book is for anyone seeking to understand the irrepressible human urge to travel and to know.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Criticism, Travel, Literature, Memoir, Essays

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kenner crafter a series of lectures for the radio in the late 1990s with the idea that community and mentorships was essential the cultivation of aesthetic modernity. He brackets this in the idea that aged notion of the grand tour where folks form North America (Kenner is Canadian) would go to Europe and see the essential, typically culminating in the Roma, that Eternal City. His erudition then traces the paths of Ezra Pound following somewhat the lumbering steps of Henry James. Kenner is quite the scholar and a crisp stylist. Much like his letters with Guy Davenport or his magnum opus The Pound Era, Kenner embraces a certain trajectory of Modernism: Yeats, Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Beckett and doesn't appear overly concerned with other tribes along the foot path. This was enjoyable though the final notion of the internet as a failed elsewhere can't help but appear hopelessly dated.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the end of his spectacular career, Kenner writes this book as a victory lap. It advances his theory of mentorship as being the passing on of community-specific information, and how we can appropriate specific communities as our own in order to create a stable version of a self. Or, more easily, how important travel is and has been for art.
It also has a fascinating series of reflections on various modern greats that Kenner knew personally: Pound (of course), Williams, Moore, Eliot, Beckett. Good and short.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally a series of talks for Canadian radio, Hugh Kenner riffs on the idea of the Grand Tour, the importance of travel, and the distributed worldwide community created by artists, writers, and scholars. While this is fine reading, it's not as meaty as just about all of Kenner's other books, and my appreciation for the book and Kenner's argument is largely nascent; I recommend that the publisher bundle future editions of The Elsewhere Community with a $2,000 check and a Eurail pass.

[Michael Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kenner explains the grand tour tradition and draws special anecdotes from the literary community. For those who enjoy reading good books and travel for cultural enrichment would find justifications (do you need any?) for doing more of the same. The idea is simply this: "Ideally, the traveller saw the sights his education prepared him for, and the sights in turn extended his education." And since the early education is focus on the classics, Rome is typically the epicenter of the grand tour.

Another two sentences close to the end are apt too "the life of the mind, and the fulfillment of the person, these are the rewards of participating in a community. And because we learn most from people who've experienced things we haven't, the most fulfilling communities have lain elsewhere." -- hence the title.

There are many little anecdotes that are interesting. For instance, many years before he'd begun his major poem, Milton went on his Grand Tour and met Galileo in Florence under house arrest (for affirming a heresy). Milton said in Paradise Lost:

"Through Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist views
At Ev'ning from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands,
Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe."

It seems going or being elsewhere is a major requirement for literary success: "It's hard to call to mind a major figure of the Irish Revival who didn't die abroad." There are more such observations. If I had to nitpick, he spent way too much time talking about Erza Pound in my opinion, not necessarily because Pound is more remarkable than other figures but because somehow they are close in some ways. But it's a small book anyway.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is the 'elsewhere community'? Addressing this in five lectures for Canadian radio (that parallel universe), Kenner began with some suggestive notions, bringing in the 18th century Grand Tour, the fruitful exiles of Joyce, Beckett and Pound, and the idea of going to the library in order to find things you don't have at home. Perhaps a little overstretched and baggy and vague, it all comes down to: 'be awake and curious; get off your duff and out of the house.' But never mind -- Kenner got off his duff and set out to meet and engage as mentors Pound & Eliot & Beckett & Wyndham Lewis & William Carlos Williams & Marianne Moore (you have to imagine the 6'4" Kenner stooping to converse with the diminutive Moore under her broad-brimmed hat). That quest gave him, along with his career, a treasure chest of anecdotes and perspectives. For me, that's what the book is about.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slight but beguiling memoir by the master literary critic whose magnum opus, The Pound Era, meant so much to me when I was young. I read this with great affection -- waves of nostalgia washed over me -- and I thought, "Was there really such a world?"

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very scholarly book...not what I was hoping for (or interested in reading right now). One of the books I inherited from my brother. He had left a bookmark at page 10 (I got a bit farther), so I guess he didn't care for it, either!

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully written account of the grand tour updated for the 20th century as seen through musings on Ezra Pound, T S Eliot and James Joyce. Absorbing

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nostalgic in a way that I feel one likely is toward the end of one's life, especially a life lived in letters, as Hugh Kenner so admirably did. It's a short but enjoyable meditation on the "elsewhere community" that writers and artists necessarily create, and it utilizes some of my favorite modernists in order to illustrate these ideas.

[Michael Nelson]

What did I think? I dunno...

[Paul Secor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming literary memoir, collected from five radio scripts. I read it twelve years ago, when it was published in the U.S. and, taking it off the shelf today, I find that it wants rereading.