For purveyors and curators of literary and cultural parallels, those of us who consume so much content as to not anymore be able to explore new artistic territory without suddenly being mentally taken aback and thrown into the rolodex of references in our minds; internally asking ourselves what preexisting sensation have I felt in response to a piece of art that identifies with what I feel in this moment? Who out there has expressed for me what I could not express for myself, in better or different ways?
I so often have moments of uncanny coincidence – a scene from a past dream perfectly enacting itself in reality, hearing a topic or a phrase said in person right before it appears in a book or a song, experiencing a piece of media at a weirdly exacting point in my life where it’s content is eerily topical to the state of mind I am in and these moments always prove to be almost bone chilling, sometimes (though rarely) seemingly impossible enough to even push forward a questioning of one’s faith, because in what would I need to believe for this synchronized moment to make sense, to feel possible? In the heat of questioning these fleeting coincidences, to quote the Talking Heads, “you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”
In Any Person is The Only Self, Gabbert sources from her own personal libraries of human experience, cultural history, and literary knowledge and warmly weaves this collection of intricate and dovetailing essays equally consisting of poignant references to niche but deeply touching pieces of art both integral and conducive to the unique and personal formative moments, thoughts, and memories of her
own.
These deeply personal parallels and correlations Gabbert draws throughout the book
-channeling countless references from underrated hidden gems to iconic figures and works so often resonated with me as to evoke an almost tickling feeling, aligned so funnily with my own experienced media and personal life, creating a special bond in my mind with Gabbert herself; how did this book of hers end up in my hands at this exact moment, and did she even have a modicum of intuition into the ways it would resonate with someone else? how her topics would prove to be so incredibly topical to a complete stranger?
I often feel like the truest and most authentic writing often takes place when the pressure to pander to a wider audience is abandoned, though inevitably producing a smaller reception, for those who do align with it, this authenticity produces an incomparably deeper and identifiable experience for the reader. To write a collection of essays with references so idiosyncratic to herself and her own history could definitely consequently go on to be a shot in the dark, but a shot in the dark does inevitably hit at least one target.
Gabbert writes about literature and culture in a way that only someone truly passionate about these topics could, referencing ranging topics from Proust to Phil Collins, Kierkegaard to Keanu Reeves, Woolf, Sontag, Carrington, Plath, Shelley, oh my! At one point in the book, Gabbert says the line from Sylvia Plath’s poem
“Lady Lazarus”, “I eat men like air.” is one she perpetually wishes she could’ve written herself, and while she might not have conceived this iconic line evoking the carnivorous consuming of men as easily as taking a breath, she has her own type of consumption, that of endless artistic expressions, and she pulls from the air of these seemingly tangential pieces what would be for others the most indiscernible similarities, but then goes to prove them to share such valuable parallels and likenesses.
If I had to myself reference a piece that to me aligns with the essence of this book, it would undoubtedly be: “You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important.”
James Baldwin, Conversations with James Baldwin
portraitofayoungwoman 