OUTSIDE LANGUAGE: Essays

"The appeal of a work of art—a book, a sculpture—rises from faith that the work represents more than information. Despite certain disappointments, each newly discovered book dangles before us a single possibility: that a human mind has found its expressive hanging garden, its Atlantis, its road to Damascus," writes essayist Stewart in "Art Parts," the third in this six-essay collection., Literary-minded beachgoers have something to cheer about this summer. These elegantly written pieces take readers on an exploratory tour through language: its role in creative work, the nature of that work and its place in society. Through childhood memories of his Italian immigrant family, Stewart examines the ways in which words and language function as vehicles to reach the meanings that lie beyond them. His approach, he explains in "Art Parts," owes much to his experience as an apprentice plumber. When Stewart compares words and the ways in which they can be assembled and rearranged to create something far greater and more lasting than their individual parts to the similar result of a bead of lead poured into a cast-iron fitting and worked on by a master plumber in the presence of an apprentice, it's easy to grasp what he's communicating. Stewart's gift for showing us the magic contained in the obvious exalts daily life and art. In "Defending the Body," he describes what happened to a photograph he published in two different literary collections. Taken by a woman who later died of cancer, the photograph serves as the springboard to a discussion of the idea that an artist's work remains untethered to a single cause or symbol. Stewart writes that he wants his essays "to entertain more than to instruct"—in fact, he succeeds admirably on both scores. (Aug.)