This is a thin volume of poetic recollections by Patti Smith intricately detailed and evocatively written. The subject matter gathered from scraps and fragments of her own memories of her life, from childhood or adulthood. Portraits of friends, dreamlike pub crawls, nursing her younger sister Kimberley, family gatherings, all coming in and out of focus in an associative, often oblique, manner.
Woolgathering then, demonstrates the meaning of the concept itself, its a cluster of amorphous recollections that roll along like fascinating tumbleweed. It has no linear narrative, nor necessarily thematic links. Stories simply pop up out of nowhere. Through the command of her language and use of imagery you can almost smell the grease of, she takes you through events as though you were a fellow participant. Breathing in its human dust and the improvisation of lives. It can appear like these are distinctly unreal fantasies thrown up by her fertile inagination, imbued as they are with Smith's own uniquely embroidered manner of expression. But she assures us they are 'written just like it was'. Suffused on ocassions by a childlike, almost innocent abroad, viewpoint.
It's a short book, and I wasn't sure at first about it's episodic rambling character. But as I read further into it, I did become fond of these colourfully written earthy vignettes about an often longed for and lost style of life. Her upbringing within it, the rough edged lives and the brittle tensions that coexisted there. This book casts an eccentric charm that gradually wove itself into my affection.
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