Description
Book SynopsisComprised of twelve essays that straddle the classical and the contemporary,
Sublime Physick transmutes the ruder world into a finer one, articulating with subtle humor and playfulness how science and experience abut and intersect with spirituality and everyday life.
Trade Review“No one writing essays today does so with a greater awareness of the genre’s literary traditions than Patrick Madden. Irresistible, with their meditative musicality and erudite reflections, these essays brilliantly balance a tough-minded pragmatism with a warm embrace of the impossible. Like all the great essayists he pays homage to, Madden seeks to find the miraculous in the mundane, the sublime in the ordinary, the hazards lurking in our momentary contentment. He understands perfectly why Emerson thought the joy of essaying lay in surprise: to surprise their readers, essayists must first surprise themselves.”—Robert Atwan, series editor of
The Best American Essays“It’s like Montaigne and Sebald got drunk and wrote a book together.”—Brian Doyle, author of
Mink River and
Leaping "[
Sublime Physick is] a collection of moments that culminate in lives both exalted and ordinary."—Amanda Forbes Silva,
Ploughshares“Ingenious and witty, audacious and charming, learned, moving, and frank: Patrick Madden’s
Sublime Physick places him among the most interesting and essential essayists of our time.”—Mary Cappello, author of
Awkward: A Detour and
Called Back"A fun and funny book."—Joe Plicka,
Dialogue"Reading Madden’s meta-writings on his own writing is like listening to a magician revealing his tricks, yet he always holds the upper hand."—E.V. De Cleyre,
Brevity“Patrick Madden combines, to a rare degree, a scholar’s knowledge and an artist’s command of the essay as a literary form. In his hands, the essay becomes a medium for pondering and celebrating our mysterious existence. Readers who wish to reflect more deeply on their own lives will find abundant rewards in these pages.”—Scott Russell Sanders, author of
Earth Works: Selected Essays"To read a Patrick Madden essay is to interface with the mind of an engaged, self-conscious thinker. Actually, that's not quite right: It is to interface with Madden's curation of the minds of many thinkers within the expanse of his own."—John Proctor,
Numéro Cinq "The essays in
Sublime Physick are more than self-reflective; they connect internal states with the marvelous world."—Renée E. D'Aoust,
Inside Higher EdTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Spit
Fisica Sublime
Entering and Breaking
In Media Vita
Empathy
Miser’s Farthings
Buying a Bass
Moment, Momentous, Momentum
On Being Recognized
For the Last Time
Independent Redundancy
Fixity
