Yonder: Essays
Hustvedt's heightened sensitivity to the aesthetic experience and its revelations of the self is evident in her novels,The Blindfold(1992) andThe Enchantment of Lily Dahl(1996), and she brings this fruitful orientation to her essays with equal force, elegance, and originality. In the title piece, Hustvedt muses on her dual Norwegian and American heritage and analyzes the role language plays in shaping memories. She loves "words that wobble," a clue to her profound curiosity about the nature of duality and the pervasiveness of ambiguity in our lives. This slippery line of inquiry inspires her to try to describe the shifting emotions she feels while studying in a library, or the varied interpretations that arise in the mind while contemplating a painting, a subject she pursues with ardent specificity in "Vermeer's Annunciation." Hustvedt further explores the act of looking, identifying it as a key aspect of eroticism in her frank yet subtle "Plea for Eros." Even at her most "personal," Hustvedt is acutely intellectual: precise, questing, and disarming.Donna Seaman--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.