'The essays in this mischievously titled collection, How to Proceed, are, in the author’s own words, ‘apparently offhand, informal, digressive and unashamedly personal’. Perhaps, he suggests in the introduction, they are not really essays at all. They explore subjects ranging from the nature of time to the pleasures (and pitfalls) of walking, the mysteries of marriage to the matter of taking risks. Trust is scrutinized and the gaining of self-knowledge tested. Always lively, often amusing, sometimes poignant, these verbal excursions make clear that, in most circumstances, discovering how to proceed is rarely less than tricky. Written with a poet’s eye for detail – the author is a distinguished poet – this collection, whether focusing on the perils of modern transport or the potential satisfactions of curiosity, contains many surprising departures.' (Publication summary)
'How to Proceed is a quandary understood simply by the implication that to proceed is a question, cognisant of the necessity of an answer but ‘more reality without one’ (‘On Consuming Durables’). Utilising a form that shakes off uniformity, categorisation and constraint, Andrew Sant’s collection of prose essays, quite the divergence from his ‘stock-in-trade’ poems, envisions ‘ever-expanding terminals to itself’ (‘On Airports’) and consistently toys with the ideological complexities ‘On Discovering How to Proceed’. Peripatetically tracing literary excursions on the fringes of the personal and, contrarily to the preceding statement, the knowledge that ‘taking flight doesn’t involve some kind of personal commitment’ (‘On Airports’, p. 30), Sant’s essays deploy and redeploy ‘miniature windows […] into other worlds’ (‘On Only Children’) and endeavours to ‘make a statement without implication – state a fact of life’ (if such a thing is possible).' (Introduction)
'How to Proceed is a quandary understood simply by the implication that to proceed is a question, cognisant of the necessity of an answer but ‘more reality without one’ (‘On Consuming Durables’). Utilising a form that shakes off uniformity, categorisation and constraint, Andrew Sant’s collection of prose essays, quite the divergence from his ‘stock-in-trade’ poems, envisions ‘ever-expanding terminals to itself’ (‘On Airports’) and consistently toys with the ideological complexities ‘On Discovering How to Proceed’. Peripatetically tracing literary excursions on the fringes of the personal and, contrarily to the preceding statement, the knowledge that ‘taking flight doesn’t involve some kind of personal commitment’ (‘On Airports’, p. 30), Sant’s essays deploy and redeploy ‘miniature windows […] into other worlds’ (‘On Only Children’) and endeavours to ‘make a statement without implication – state a fact of life’ (if such a thing is possible).' (Introduction)
