Any Person Is the Only Self: Essays
Charming ... The 16 delightfully digressive pieces in this collection are all moods that involve books in one way or another. But they are not just about the content of books, although they are about that, too: They are primarily about the acts of reading and writing ... Gabbert is a master of mood, not polemic, and accordingly, her writing is not didactic; her essays revolve around images and recollections rather than arguments ... Both funny and serious, a winning melee of high and low cultural references.
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When Any Person Is the Only Self embraces the random, it’s terrific. When Gabbert neatens or narrows her essays, though, they can feel more dutiful ... It feels like an expression of gratitude for both the act of reading in itself and for reading as a route to conversation, a means of socializing, a way to connect ... Had Gabbert allowed mess and chaos to dominate, Any Person Is the Only Self would have been a near-perfect collection. As it is, when she lets those elements come to the fore, her work sings.
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Invigorating ... Gabbert is an original thinker, and the literary analysis is refreshingly unstuffy. Bookworms will appreciate these intelligent essays.
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