Skip to main content

The Longcut by Emily Hall: book review


 

The Longcut by Emily Hall (2022) is set in America in contemporary times.

 

The narrator works in an office, and her work is boring. She says all day she moves the status of projects in an excel sheet from “in progress” to “completed.” During the evening, she can’t sleep.

 

She lives in a studio apartment, because she is also a part-time artist striving to be a full-time artist. She is lost on her way to an art gallery for an interview. She walks around in circles, all the while in deep reflection about her art.

 

She doesn’t know what her art is, or how to articulate her art to anyone else. Who is she an artist for? What is her art? Is it taking shape into something comprehensible? Does it matter if it’s not? 

 

How is her art relevant in her world, in her local world and in her wider world? How can she know the answer if she doesn’t know her art and what it represents?

 

She resists answering herself – is that because she doesn’t know her own art, and doesn’t know herself?

 

She writes, ‘My further following of this vein of thought was almost certainly ready to lead me to a point of paralysis at which my wanting to resist anything partaking of business as usual would also want to resist any kind of tolerance for the nonusual, to resist what people or viewers of art wanted or felt affection for, leading me to the conclusion – as it horribly and paradoxically did – of having to make reasonable or normal or business-as-usual objects.’ 

 

Got that, readers? That is the state of her mind – confused, random, and anxious. 

 

This is a stream of consciousness novel. Does she know the answers to her own questions about her own art? No. 

 

The Longcut is a short book of 120 pages – mainly about words and meaning, thoughts and meaning, reflection and meaning, the meaning of her art, and the meaning of herself. 











 

 

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

 

 

MARTINA NICOLLS

MartinaNicollsWebsite

Rainy Day Healing

Martinasblogs  

Publications

Facebook

Paris Website

Paris blogs

Animal Website

Flower Website

Global Gentlemanliness

SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES 


MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009). She lives in Paris.

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2016 update on Rike Park, Tbilisi: from construction to busy park

From a flat patch of uninteresting dirt, Rike Park in Tbilisi, Georgia, has transformed in four years (from 2014-2016) into a busy park full of trees, flower beds, sculptures, fountains, and events. Rike (Rikhe) Park is on the left bank of the Mt’k’vari River (the Kura River) near the Old City of Tbilisi. The Peace Bridge links the right bank to Rike Park. Rike Park is below the hillside Presidential Palace and, via cable car, it is the starting point for the ride to Sololaki Ridge (with the Narikala Fortress and the Mother of Georgia statue). The glass box-shaped cable car terminus was opened on 23 June 2012, and since then the park has continually developed into a ‘people’s park’ where people can walk around, eat at the nearby restaurants, sit next to the statue of American president Ronald Reagan, climb the steps to Avlabari district, and access the sights of Meidan Square, the Peace Bridge, the Metekhi Church, the Old City, the waterfall, the sulphur baths, and t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Hop on hop off bus tourism comes to Tbilisi, Georgia

City Sightseeing buses have arrived in Tbilisi. The iconic red double-decker buses, a feature of many cities around the world since the company was established in Seville, Spain in 1999, is now in six continents and almost 100 cities. The company established its Tbilisi business in November 2013, with its operations commencing in February 2014. The 90-minute tour stops at 11 major locations in Tbilisi (with 2 to 5 minute waiting times at each location): the Old City (where it commences), Freedom Square, Rose Revolution Square, Marjanishvili Square, the Dry Bridge, Konka, Avlabari, Metekhi, Akhundov Museum, the Sulfur Baths, and European Square. Passengers can hop off at any stop and see the sights, hopping back onto the next bus at any time. Alternatively, passengers can remain on the bus for the whole tour and take photographs when the bus stops at each location. There are one day (24-hour) passes (for 35 lari – about $20) and 48-hour passes for 55 lari, with family d...
2 comments
Read more