Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life

Kenneth Gross explains why puppets are so powerful and why puppetry is such a vital part of our culture both past and present.  Following a provocative prologue on The Madness of Puppets, the author produces eleven chapters of scintillatingobservation and philosophical probing. Their titles give a flavour of the contents: A Conversation in Rome; Bad Manners; The Scale of The Puppet; The Fate of Hands; Wooden Acting; Fables for a Puppet Theatre; Destroying the Puppet Show;Hunger; The Blackened Puppet; Shadows; A Test of Innocence. There is also a final coda or epilogue entitled Everything Else. A book about re-seeing what we know, or what we think we know, "Puppet" evokes the startling power of puppets as mirrors of the uncanny in life and art. A fine read! Published by The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London, 2011, pp.206. 23 b/w photos.