I'd been curious about Kathy Acker; I knew of her work by reputation only, but she once did an interview with Alasdair Gray that I found interesting and insightful, so I guess I was already favorably predisposed. And thus, when I was having dinner at a friend's house and saw some of Acker's books on her husband's shelves--her husband being the more po-mo half of the couple--I called in a favor ("How many of my Julian Barnes books do you have in your possession right now?") and borrowed them.

Well. Whoa.

For one thing, I was reading this book in parallel with my friend's husband's annotations, which...is actually something I recommend. Not necessarily reading Michael's annotations (although they're quite good), but following along with the marginalia and underlinings of someone you sort-of-but-don't-really know. I mean, if we're talking postmodern, it's hard to get much more fragmented and post- than that.

But the book itself is an experience, too. Acker's writing is spiky, prickly, and so are her ideas (about sex, about gender, about power, about literature). And as someone who's read a goodly amount of postmodern/experimental fiction, I'm surprised to say that her use of the various standard techniques (parody, pastiche, etc.) actually worked on me as a reader--that is, the text was unsettled and unsettling, destabilized, all of that exciting stuff that can sometimes get lost in fancy typographical tricks and footnotes or whatever.

I'll have to read more of her work, obviously, but I'm almost afraid to because Don Quixote was so...I don't know. Stunning, maybe? I feel a bit stunned by it at the moment. It's not a bad feeling to have. ( )