by Lawrence Weschler
ISBN: 9781932416862
I wrote a blog post not too long after I finished reading this book pulling together examples of connections I had noticed as a result of reading it. That’s probably the best evidence I can offer that the book is worth reading: it will lodge itself in your brain and affect how you see and think long after you’ve put it down.
I’m a fan of Weschler’s work, so I knew I’d love this book. Take the appreciation of the unexpectedly marvelous from Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, add in the odd connections made in Vermeer in Bosnia and mix with liberally with images and you have Everything That Rises. The book might not be as portable as those two (with its pleasing square, nearly coffee table book proportions) but that just means the images are reproduced at a size you don’t need to squint at.
In “The Graphics of Solidarity” a key point of Weschler’s most clearly emerges: people are prepared for images. This is not a revolutionary insight, but it is an important one — we are prepared for images by other images. In his discussion of a famous photograph that depicts something contrary to what most people remember (most people remember the woman in the image carrying a flag, but it was carried by a man behind her), he compares the photo to Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. It is that painting, he explains, that sets the stage for the misremembering:
I am convinced this particular photograph, rather than any of the innumerable others taken that day, was the image Poles came to remember because, in a strange sort of way, they already knew it by heart.
I’ve recommended Weschler’s work before. Having read this book, I’ll recommend it even more highly. His thinking takes unpredictable turns and reveals things you won’t have quite thought of in that way before, but make perfect sense now.
