On Dolls

Author: Kenneth Gross

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Please note, this title is no longer available from us in hardback, but is available as a digital edition from Exact Editions.

Some of the greatest thinkers and writers of our age, such as Baudelaire, Rilke, Kleist, Freud and Kafka, meditate on play and the mysteries of inanimate life.

The essays and reflections in this collection explore the seriousness of play and the mysteries of inanimate life – ‘the unknown spaces, noises, dust, lost objects, and small animals that fill any house’ – which have provoked many writers to take the side of these dead or non-human things, resulting in some of the most profound passages in literature.

On Dolls includes contributions from: Heinrich Von Kleist On the Marionette Theatre, Charles Baudelaire The Philosophy of Toys, Sigmund Freud The Uncanny, Rainer Maria Rilke On the Dolls of Lotte Pritzel, Franz Kafka The Cares of a Family Man, Bruno Schulz Tailors’ Dummies, Walter Benjamin Old Toys: The Toy Exhibition at the Märkisches Museum, Elizabeth Bishop Cirque d’Hiver, Dennis Silk The Marionette Theatre, Marina Warner On the Threshold: Sleeping Beauties.

A fantastic compendium ... It will educate you; it will change the way you think about yourself in relation to the world. In short, it rehabilitates doll-life as a legitimate field of study.

Sadie Stein, New York Times

‘Gross brings together in one beautiful volume key texts about the uncanny world of inanimate beings…[Heinrich Von Kleist’s] ‘On Marionette Theatre’ makes the unsettling case that the marionettes’ experience is superior to man’s bondage in living flesh.’

Guardian

‘The eleven gems assembled cast light on thoughts that startle and soothe. What does it mean to play along? And what else would it be good to consider about our playmates of choice? A visit to a dollhouse is probably best kept brief, but once you’ve begun wandering your way through this collection it’s hard to leave off wondering.’

Helen Oyeyemi

‘[There is] a masterly 1810 essay on marionette theatre by Heinrich von Kleist – a great German writer little regarded in the English-speaking world – which in the space of half a dozen pages expresses as much about the nature of art, consciousness and human freedom as all of Goethe’s and Schiller’s philosophical musings taken together. Yes, it is that good… A handsome and delightful little volume.’

John Banville, Guardian

‘A thoughtful and stimulating enquiry into mankind’s relationship with simulchra.’

Dazed

‘A fascinating and intermittently creepy compilation of writings on dolls, puppets and other lifelike toys.’

Brian Dillon, Irish Times

Description

Please note, this title is no longer available from us in hardback, but is available as a digital edition from Exact Editions.

Some of the greatest thinkers and writers of our age, such as Baudelaire, Rilke, Kleist, Freud and Kafka, meditate on play and the mysteries of inanimate life.