The Long Form
Description
It's early morning and there's a whole new day ahead. How will it unfold? The baby will feed, hopefully she'll sleep; Helen looks out of the window. The Long Form is the story of two people composing a day together. It is a day of movements and improvisations, common and uncommon rhythms, stopping and starting again. As the morning progresses, a book - The History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding - gets delivered, and the scope of the day widens further. Matters of care-work share ground with matters of friendship, housing, translation, aesthetics and creativity. Small incidents of the day revive some of the oldest preoccupations of the novel: the force of social circumstance, the power of names, the meaning of duration and the work of love. With lightness and precision, Kate Briggs renews Henry Fielding's proposition for what a novel can be, combining fiction and essay to write an extraordinary domestic novel of far-reaching ideas.
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Person
Kate Briggs grew up in Somerset, UK, and lives and works in Rotterdam, NL, where she founded and co-runs the writing and publishing project 'Short Pieces That Move'. She is the translator of two volumes of Roland Barthes's lecture and seminar notes at the Collège de France: The Preparation of the Novel and How to Live Together, both published by Columbia University Press. The Long Form follows This Little Art, a narrative essay on the practice of translation. In 2021, Kate Briggs was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize.
Content
- Intro
- PRAISE
- TITLE PAGE
- CONTENTS
- EPIGRAPH
- FIRST THING
- GUESSING AND MOVEMENT IN THE LIVING ROOM
- SLEEP
- THE EARLY MORNING
- HELEN STARTED AGAIN
- INDOOR WALKING
- ALTERNATING
- ART AS EXPERIENCE
- CHEST-TO-CHEST
- LIKE THIS
- AT THE SAME TIME
- ARTICLES
- WALKING ON AND AROUND
- SOUNDING AND LANDING IN THE LIVING ROOM
- SLEEP
- WELL?
- EXCELLENCE, SIMPLY DELIVERED
- ROSE
- THE MOBILE
- SUSPENDED ABOVE ROSE'S EASY CHAIR
- AN ENVIRONMENT WITH ITS OWN SUGGESTIONS
- HELEN LOOKED OVER AT ROSE
- ENTER SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
- LECTURE ONE: 'THE LIVE CREATURE'
- BATTERIES
- REBBA
- MOUNTAINS
- A NEW PROVINCE OF WRITING
- A CONTAINER CONTAINING:
- ESSAYS
- ROSE
- A HOLD-ALL
- LENGTH - AND ENTERTAINMENT
- LIVING APART
- MEASURING AND THEORIZING IN THE LIVING ROOM
- REBBA
- CONTINUATION
- LAYERS
- ALTERNATIONS
- BUT ROSE -
- HE'D HEARD HER
- HELEN SET THE NOVEL FACE-DOWN ON THE CARPET
- WE WASHED THE NOVEL
- A NARRATIVE MAKES ITS OWN TIME
- NAMES
- A TALE OF FIRST NAMES
- NAME-CALLING
- LISTEN
- NAMING POWER
- NAMING POWER: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
- THE FOUNDLING
- MR ALLWORTHY
- THE STORY OF AN ARRIVAL
- MR ALLWORTHY
- MOTHERING
- HELEN
- THE DOING OF IT
- MR ALLWORTHY
- HELEN
- ROSE
- ALL-WORTHY
- CHOOSE NAMES
- NAMES
- MOTHERHOOD
- 'NOVEL' IS AN AVAILABLE NAME
- IDYLL
- GUY DE MAUPASSANT, ADDRESSING THE READING PUBLICS:
- HELEN STRONG
- A SIMPLE THING
- IT TOOK TIME
- HELEN STOOD UP
- THE LEISURE CENTRE
- SWIMMING
- 'THE LAWS THEREIN'
- 'A WONDERFUL LONG CHAPTER CONCERNING THE MARVELLOUS'
- LIFE-LIKE
- JUNE
- A CHANGE OF ENVIRONMENT
- OUTSIDE, WALKING
- A LITTLE BRIDGE
- THERE WERE OTHER SCENES
- COMFORT ME
- FALLING IN AND FALLING OUT
- THE SKY HAD WHITENED
- THE MAIN ROAD
- WAIT
- THE LIGHTS CHANGED
- ROSE
- 'HERE I AM ENJOYING A CONTINUITY OF BEING'
- NOVEL READING
- THE SCENE SAID THIS
- SQUARES (BOXES)
- I AM AN AEROPLANE
- IN THEIR ABSENCE
- THE PARK
- THE TIME ARTS
- AND THEN?
- THE RIVER
- INTENSITY
- ONCE IN A LIFETIME
- THE FUTURE
- 'I ONLY SAW HER FOR FIVE MINUTES, BUT IT WAS WORTH IT'
- ROSE, MEANWHILE
- IN THE MINUTES IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING ROSE'S BIRTH
- MOVING ON
- STOP
- PREPARATIONS
- THE NIGHT BEFORE
- THE DAY AHEAD
- PREPARATIONS, TRANSITIONS
- THE INCIDENT OF THE BIRD
- THE NEXT CHAPTER
- STOPS, BREAKS
- HENRY FIELDING: THEORIST OF CHAPTER DIVISION
- OUT OF DOORS, THE PARK WAS OPEN AND STILL THEIRS -
- RAIN
- A PURVIEW OF RAIN
- OMNISCIENCE
- ON HER FIRST NIGHT AS A MANIFESTLY SEPARATE BODY
- MORNING SWITCHED ON IN THE WARD
- STANDING STONE
- IT IS FORBIDDEN / TO ENTER THE PARK / CARRYING FLOWERS
- THERE WAS SUCH A SIGN
- UNDER THE SAME RAIN
- LUV U x
- SCARCITY, ABUNDANCE
- ALLOW FLOWERS
- THE SHOP
- THOUGH EASING
- IT STOPPED
- BRINGING THE ENERGY HOME
- HALLWAY
- SEPARATION
- MR ALLWORTHY FALLS ILL
- AND THEN?
- THE ACTIVITIES OF THE AFTERNOON
- A LITTLE CHAPTER, IN WHICH IS CONTAINED A VERY GREAT INCIDENT
- THE SIMULTANEOUS RECEPTION OF LIGHT
- HELEN AND ROSE
- BUT ROSE
- THE ONE WHO WAITS
- WHOOP!
- HOME CINEMA
- ANTICIPATION
- PREPARATIONS FOR LATE AFTERNOON
- READING
- THE MOBILE COMPOSITION
- THE KNOWLEDGE OF CONTRAST
- EVERYONE IS AN AUTHORITY
- NOVELNESS
- PACING IT OUT
- HOLD
- HOLDING
- A CHANGE OF INPUT
- KNOWING AND LEARNING
- HOLDING
- HELEN LAY QUIETLY FOR A WHILE
- ROSE WAS FULLY, DEEPLY ASLEEP
- LATER: EXPANSION
- THE BASKET PROVIDED A LANDING SITE
- SOURCES
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- FIGURES
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- COPYRIGHT
