{"id":121187,"date":"2022-07-13T18:57:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T23:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=121187"},"modified":"2022-07-11T13:01:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T18:01:44","slug":"book-reviews-by-conor-hultman-beatrice-by-stephen-dixon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/book-reviews-by-conor-hultman-beatrice-by-stephen-dixon\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Reviews by Conor Hultman: “Beatrice” by Stephen Dixon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Beatrice<\/em>
by Stephen Dixon
Publishing Genius Press ($15)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I am as confident saying that Stephen Dixon<\/strong> is the most underappreciated American writer of the latter half of the twentieth century as I would be telling you my birthday. He repeatedly took the stylistic devices of Modernism and sieved them through his fervently alive voice, writing romans \u00e0 clef that add up to the richest bibliography I\u2019ve ever seen\u2014the tapestry of a man\u2019s life woven through with dreams and what-ifs and marvelous, disquieting obsessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Beatrice<\/em> is one of Dixon\u2019s later auto-fictions, full of a December sadness. It begins with arrival: \u201cSomeone rang his doorbell.\u201d It ends with departure, and the longing of absence: \u201cAnd she would have wanted to go to the reading and then the reception and for that reason alone he would have wanted to go too.\u201d In between is a fierce gunshot of consciousness, neurotic recollection and hyper-awareness, ego-paralyzation, the psyche at self-loathing attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The characters: Philip Seidel, seventy-something retired teacher, prolific but obscure writer, a recent widower extremely bereaved. Beatrice Hagen, middle-aged translator, attractive divorcee, and ex-student of Philip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plot: Philip is visited by Beatrice, dropping in to say hello and express condolences about the death of Philip\u2019s wife. Over months a friendship, and possibly something more, is developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conclusion: living accumulates attachment, setting you up for disappointments unimaginable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The style: Here is the main reason to read Dixon. Everything from dialogue to observation to action is presented in the same seamless, streamlined manner, allowing for the \u201cstream-of-consciousness\u201d flairs to be absorbed as naturally as any utilitarian sentence. There are not many dialogue markers, the punctuation is loose and free, em-dashes employed liberally; but, unlike Cormac McCarthy, the effect is not effaced or obscurant, but rather easier<\/em> to understand. Dixon writes all manner of experience in a way that makes it sound like a story you\u2019re telling yourself<\/em> in your head. Reading Beatrice<\/em> feels as good and clean as drinking a glass of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what a sad glass of water! A hundred-and-nineteen pages, and the very last one makes you want to lie down and die. If this is your first Stephen Dixon book, I envy you; they\u2019re all glittering gems of human experience, wrought in an exquisitely American argot, tales told by a genius, full of euphony and awe, signifying everything. And Beatrice <\/em>is one of the better places to start. It can be read in an afternoon. What a memorable afternoon that will be for you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(August 5th, by the way. For presents, you can send me more Stephen Dixon books)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beatriceby Stephen DixonPublishing Genius Press ($15) I am as confident saying that Stephen Dixon is the most underappreciated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123467,"featured_media":117396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20522],"tags":[21919,6480,20523,21920],"class_list":["post-121187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-beatrice","tag-book-review","tag-conor-hultman","tag-stephen-dixon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/2022-02-03-Book-Reviews.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}