Jean-Fran?ois Lyotard once wrote that the essay is postmodern inasmuch as it denies itself the solace of good form. At the Risk of Sounding is a wide-ranging collection of essays on writers such as Alice Munro, bpNichol and Antonin Artaud; on artists such as Barbara Caruso and Kim Ondaatje; and on fillm directors such as Margarethe von Trotta and Robert Lepage. The essays are personal, yet not "subjective." Their loyalty to the search for truth and...