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I Think You're Totally Wrong

A Quarrel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
A debate, nearly to the death, about life and art, cocktails included. And a soon-to-be major motion picture from James Franco! Caleb Powell always wanted to become an artist, but he overcommitted to life (he' s a stay-at-home dad to three young girls), whereas his former professor David Shields always wanted to become a human being, but he has overcommitted to art. Shields and Powell spend four days together in a cabin in the Cascade Mountains, playing chess, shooting hoops, hiking to lakes and an abandoned mine; they rewatch My Dinner with AndrE, Sideways, and The Trip, relax in a hot tub, and talk about everything they can think of in the name of exploring and debating their central question: life and/or art. The relationship— and the balance of power— between Shields and Powell is in constant flux, as two egos try to undermine each other, two personalities overlap and collapse. This book seeks to demolish the Q&A format; it also seeks to confound, as much as possible, the divisions between " reality" and " fiction," between " life" and " art." There are no teachers or students, no interviewers or interviewees, no masters in the universe, only a chasm of uncertainty. David Shields is the author of 16 books, including The Thing About Life Is That One Day You' ll Be Dead and Salinger, both NYT bestsellers; Reality Hunger; How Literature Saved My Life; and Black Planet. He lives with his wife and daughter in Seattle, where he is the Miliman Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the University of Washington. Caleb Powell, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, has played bass in a band, worked construction, and spent ten years teaching ESL and studying foreign languages on six continents. He' s published stories and essays in Descant, Post Road and Zyzzyva. He' s now a stay-at-home father in Seattle.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      This audiobook focuses on the two authors. One, Powell, wanted to become an artist but finds himself now with a large family and a conventional existence. The other, Shields, who was Powell's former professor, is an artist and has committed his life to his writing. They spend four days in a mountain cabin arguing about whose life is best. The result is fascinating, and soon to be a film. Jonathan Todd Ross as Powell and Luis Moreno as Shields narrate the book, reading with clear, pleasant voices. However, in trying to re-create the dialogue, they lose much of the argument's emotion. The result is a watered-down version of a once lively debate. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 27, 2014
      Critic and writer Shields (Reality Hunger) and his former student Powell, once an aspiring artist, now a stay-at-home dad, spent four days together in 2011, conversing on a wide range of issues related to the artistic life. At the center of their quarrel is the push-and-pull between which is the best path: devotion to art or life experience? Shields concedes that Powell has traveled more, had more adventures, and raised more children, but Shields’s devotion to writing paid off in the form of published books, prestigious teaching positions, and engagement with the literary world. As a book-in-dialogue, the two freely discuss and dissect their debts to My Dinner with Andre and David Lipsky’s book-length interview with David Foster Wallace, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself (2010). Shields and Powell keep waiting for “the flip,” or the moment when their roles in the interview will reverse, or one will convince the other he is right, but each is so full of complexity and contradictions that it’s difficult to imagine if such a flip is possible. Like any good belletristic conversation, the authors discuss dozens of literary figures, books, and movies, from novelists David Markson and Renata Adler to the movies Sideways and The Crying Game. And, like a true teacher, Shields is always pressing for the larger issue, questioning why art matters or how can suffering be alleviated. A worthy and important addition to the genre, this casual conversation pushes readers to rethink fundamental questions of life and art.

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  • English

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