Becca Rothfeld of the Washington Post says Godine Nonpareil has brought out a new edition of Guy Davenport’s The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays.
My old edition, battered and dogeared, is 43 years old. I suppose it’s time.
The archives of this collection turned up 17 other notes on Davenport. So I’ve shown a little restraint.
I think “Finding” is one of the great American essays. (You’ll find it in this book.) I also think his “John Charles Tapner” is one of the great American short stories. (It’s in the collection Da Vinci’s Bicycle.)
John Jeremiah Sullivan, who wrote an introduction to the edition, mentioned Davenport’s academic credentials, but then said:
At the same time, I think he was someone who sincerely believed that
You can learn something interesting from every person you ever meet,
And that no thought is really interesting until you can discuss it plainly.
Curiosity was his philosophy, a way of being alive and liking the world.
I love that way of liking the world.
• Sources: Becca Rothfeld, “He joked that he had 13 readers. He deserves millions,” The Washington Post, Jan. 11, 2024. The article is here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/01/11/guy-davenport-geography-imagination-review/
John Jeremiah Sullivan, “The labyrinth of Guy Davenport’s mind” was published on unherd.com with a note saying that it’s the introduction to Davenport’s The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays. It’s here:
https://unherd.com/2024/01/the-labyrinth-of-guy-davenports-mind/
I do not have the new edition, but the battered old one is: Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination; San Francisco: North Point Press, 1981. In my mind, the best place to start is his essay “Finding.” My note on it is “Davenport’s search for arrowheads,” March 15, 2022.
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