To read this book is to watch an incisive intellect engaged in joyful work verging on play. It’s a beautiful piece of scholarship that invites you in and leads you along and makes the journey a delight. If only all academic writing could so masterfully balance rigor and tenderness.

P.S. Did I learn about this book from The L Word, forget about it for years, only to come back to it after reading Autobiography of Red and falling in love with Anne Carson? Yes.