What began as a plan to review Michael Levenson’s Modernism (Yale, 2011) soon unraveled. The book resisted summary; instead, it demanded a conversation. Over a series of emails exchanged during the bitterly cold January of 2012, David Winters and I found ourselves drawn into a dialogue that mirrored the subject itself: fragmented, elusive, and rich with tension. As Ezra Pound put it, we cannot make it cohere.
Our exchange, initially intended as a straightforward critique, evolved into a meditation on the nature of modernism, its dissonances, its provocations, its persistent relevance. The result is a piece that reflects the very qualities we sought to examine: complexity, ambiguity, and a refusal to be neatly categorized.
I’m late seeing this, but what a thoughtful and informative exchange. You’ve given me a lot to think about and, of course, added books to my list. The Melancholy of Resistance arrived last week and is taunting me from a stack on my desk. Hope to get to it soon.
Thank you, Michelle, I appreciate your comment. I look forward to hearing what you think of ‘Melancholy’. I’d also recommend ‘War and War’. It may even be the better of the two.