Devotion
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4.4 • 16 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
From the renowned artist and author Patti Smith, an inspired exploration of the nature of creative invention
A work of creative brilliance may seem like magic—its source a mystery, its impact unexpectedly stirring. How does an artist accomplish such an achievement, connecting deeply with an audience never met? In this groundbreaking book, one of our culture’s beloved artists offers a detailed account of her own creative process, inspirations, and unexpected connections.
Patti Smith first presents an original and beautifully crafted tale of obsession—a young skater who lives for her art, a possessive collector who ruthlessly seeks his prize, a relationship forged of need both craven and exalted. She then takes us on a second journey, exploring the sources of her story. We travel through the South of France to Camus’s house, and visit the garden of the great publisher Gallimard where the ghosts of Mishima, Nabokov, and Genet mingle. Smith tracks down Simone Weil’s grave in a lonely cemetery, hours from London, and winds through the nameless Paris streets of Patrick Modiano’s novels. Whether writing in a café or a train, Smith generously opens her notebooks and lets us glimpse the alchemy of her art and craft in this arresting and original book on writing.
The Why I Write series is based on the Windham-Campbell Lectures, delivered annually to commemorate the awarding of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes at Yale University.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Musician and author Smith (M Train) tries her hand at that most meta of projects: writing a book about writing. This is no craft manual, however; instead, her slim volume contains a single novella bookended by a pair of personal reflections on the tale's genesis (she's inspired to write about a discourse between "a sophisticated, rational man and a precocious, intuitive girl"): among the reflections are her descriptions of a trip to Paris while obsessing over Simone Weil and Soviet deportations; a remembered photograph taken decades before; and wood carvings, seen on a visit to the home Albert Camus, that Camus bought with his Nobel Prize money. The lesson is obvious: that a writer draws on every detail of his or her life for the alchemical, often unconscious process of creation. But seeing the process in action is a profound experience. Smith's writing in the essays is as beautifully structured as her poetry, so the novella's mundanity comes as something of a shock: an orphaned young girl with an obsession for ice skating is stalked, groomed, and abused by an older man, and both meet tragic ends. Smith's writing about her novella is much more thoughtful and captivating than the novella itself.
