Other Walk is a series of autobiographical pieces by the master of
reflection and slow time
Throughout his life, Sven Birkerts, one of the country's foremost
literary critics, has carved out time for himself--to walk, to swim, to
read, to contemplate. Now in his late fifties, he has clocked up many
thousands of hours of reflection. It shows in his prose, which proceeds
at a refreshingly deliberative pace as it draws the reader into his
patterns and rhythms.
In this deeply appealing and engaging collection of essays, Birkerts
looks back through his own life, as well as at the generations before
him, and ahead at the lives of his children. We read how the writer
witnesses his son's frightening sailing accident, how he feels when he
encounters his own prose from many years ago, how finding a cigarette
lighter or a lost ring releases a cascade of memories. The objects he
sees around him--old friends, remembered places--are excavated, their
layers exposed.
But most winning of all is the emerging character of Birkerts himself.
We come to have great respect for this competitive but deeply loyal
friend, the caring father who respects his children's independence even
as he tries to connect with them, the traveler, the onetime bookseller,
the writer at all stages of his writing life, and throughout it all, the
attentive, passionate reader.
