Lecture (Undelivered Lectures)

Despite that headline, there are some meritorious notions in these lectures, despite the author's comments regarding genders and ways of presenting ideas. Quite opinionated, which is her right, and those opinions also invited me to consider whether I agreed or not...and I do not. But that may be the purpose.

I need only quote THE ATLANTIC: "[Cappello's] excellent new book-length essay, Lecture... at once defends the lecture and calls for holistic and creative improvements to the form."

Rich and aphoristic, lapidarian and fun, Mary Cappello's Lecture is a serious rumination on 'nonfiction's lost performative,' 'cousin to the essay,' the lecture. To turn the screw, it is a rumination on consciousness and time in a time when, as she says, 'so much demands our attention without requiring it.' In this wonderful book, the lecture, 'that non-genre,' coruscates at the center of attention, barely glimpsed but like dark matter known by its effects. Its history and etymology, the notes from which the lecture is born and the notes to which it returns, the ways of experiencing the lecture--gaining wakeful purchase on a single point or nodding off to the human voice--all celebrated in Cappello's decidedly non-polemical appreciation. The first section, 'Why Lecture?' is a tour de force--as you read you already look forward to the re-reading. The section on Notes, with extended consideration of her grandfather, a shoe maker who jotted his thoughts on job tickets, gives meaning to the Transit series title, 'Undelivered Lectures,' and is simply a beautiful tribute to a loved one, to an artisan and by extension to the working class intellectuals too pressed by capitalism to conduct intellectual work. Upon finishing the book/lecture, I found myself wanting one more chapter, a polemical chapter on the degraded status of the lecture in a time when time is measured in megabytes per second and where 'flipped' classrooms make a virtue of necessity in a society of overcrowded and underfunded classrooms. But such a chapter is unnecessary and would be out of place. The fact of this book is itself a testament to that other way of thinking, of being, and of being together.

Over the years, I've learned to sit quietly and absorb every opportunity to accompany Mary Cappello through her myriad musings. The world as perceived and expressed by Cappello is one in which things are not as they superficially and unthinkingly seem. Instead, Cappello's mind discovers and creates surprising and satisfying new connections, associations among disparate things, re-sees and refreshes and gives new insights. In "Lecture," she turns her keen attention to the venerable (if dusty) form of study and conveyance, rejecting the default top-down (or focus-outward) modes and understandings in favor of collaborative (essayistic) conversations. "Even an occasional shake can tempt our lives toward something more than a dim assemblage of rote transactions and the automated reaching toward a cellphone," she invites. I (and all wise readers) accept, and savor every word of this remarkable book.

The best essays not only let us know a subject, they let us know a mind. Cappello's willingness to share not only her smart insights into the incredible world of words, we are granted access to the incredible mind of Cappello. What a gift that is.

“Midway between a sermon and a bedtime story, the lecture is knowledge’s dramatic form.” Lecture is yet another brilliant experiment in essay-making by one of the best essayists alive. In this book Cappello transforms how we think about the art of lecturing, inviting us to see in this seemingly staid and stolid form fugitive possibilities for learning and listening, for “re-valuing wandering ways.” This is the work of a singular artist at the peak of her immense abilities—I cannot more strongly recommend it!

In the same lively spirit as SWALLOW, AWKWARD, and LIFE BREAKS IN, Mary Cappello’s LECTURE makes the familiar form and gesture of the lecture fascinatingly alien (the kind that comes not to destroy humanity but to show us just how good we really can be). Both historical and personal, careful and iconoclastic, LECTURE makes me simultaneously yearn for the rich, intellect-affirming digression of the classroom and trust in our collective capacity for productive, wholehearted civic debate. LECTURE uses old ways to arrive at new places and is a brilliant companion to our still cooped-up days as we imagine how to rejoin the world, vital and awake to ourselves and others. The book is a window thrown open after too many musty days. It's just what I needed.

In her new book LECTURE Mary Cappello asks "what if the lecture were an opportunity for freedom; a conduit to a deeper place, a brighter consciousness...." This is writing that reminds us of the subtle and passionate joys of reading, thinking, breathing—an affirmation of the human, inventive, connecting mind. Page-by-page Cappello's wit and brilliance carry me away.

The author quotes Goffman on how the lecturer can "exaggerate, be dogmatic, say things that are obviously aren't quite fully true, and omit documentation". Expect the same. (With lots of publisher's white space - although this might also be an echo between text and voice). There is a place for such - so just be clear, dear reader, about what you will be getting.