#185 T.S. Eliot's Selected Poems (1954)

Author: T.S. Eliot
Title: Selected Poems
Genre: Poetry
Year: 1954
Pages: 120
Origin: a present from Mrs. W
Nod Rating: 5 nods out of 5

‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.’

The above quote – from the hand of T.S. Eliot himself – is fitting of this paradoxical, puzzling and enigmatic poet. His work is synonymous with the twentieth century, from musings on the passing of time, to the chaos and disorder of a post-war world, and then onwards to his own religious conversion.

This collection was originally selected by Eliot himself and published in the 1950s; it has remained in publication, culminating in the Worm’s particular addition, printed as part of Faber’s eightieth anniversary celebrations (along with other poetic heavyweights such as Betjeman and Auden). It covers the most renowned and feted of Eliot’s catalogue, including poems from Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), Poems (1920), The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash-Wednesday (1930), Ariel Poems, as well as selected choruses from his play The Rock (1934).

‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ featured in an earlier book review this year (see below for the link); the Worm then highlighted the polarising opinions that Eliot’s work seems to evoke in readers: from prophet to pretentious poet, from ground-breaking to bore inducing. But yet this is a poet who continues to enjoy popular appeal, from undergraduate reading lists to even being referenced in an episode of The Simpsons. Prufrock contains the forever entertaining lines: ‘For I have known them all already, known them all / Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons / I have measured out of my life with coffee spoons.’ Eliot writing as a man (still of comparative youth) lamenting the passing of years, his own naivety and innocence.

Other early highlights include ‘Portrait of a Lady’, ‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’, and the celebrated ‘Gerontion’. The last, on first glance, continues with the Prufrock theme: ‘Here I am, an old man in a dry month / Being read to be a boy, waiting for rain.’ But deeper analysis offers different interpretations, possibly that of a man whose values have been destroyed by the advent of the Great War. Eliot writes of the areas of destruction: ‘Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London’; but concerning the individual on a personal level: ‘The word within a word, unable to speak a word.’ Meaning has shattered in pieces, with a loss remaining; the poem itself ending with the harrowing lines ‘Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.’

It is a theme returned to in greater detail in The Waste Land, perhaps the pinnacle of Eliot’s work. It is a poem of great sadness and bewildered ambition; the inclusion of an extensive notes section gives readers hope that sense can be found within its rambling words and pages. But perhaps sense is the one thing that can no longer be found in a world in which has changed beyond all recognition by war and revolution. As Eliot states in the first section (The Burial of the Dead):

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock

The narrator (or should that be narrators?) attempts to continue onwards with life, but within the ‘Unreal city’ of London (now a falling tower), it is a hard to step forward into the darkness:

‘My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
I never know what you are thinking. Think.’

Confusion is central to the poem, with Eliot writing (in numerous voices) the pointlessness of life: ‘Do you know nothing Do you see nothing? Do you remember / Nothing?’ and ‘What shall we do tomorrow? What shall we ever do?’ The narrator, standing on Margate Sands, is unable to connect the old world with the new, ‘Nothing with nothing.’

This monumental poem concludes with Part V (‘What the Thunder Said’), in which Eliot writes: ‘He who was living is now dead / We who were living are now dying.’ The reader searches – in vain – for a resolution as to a full understanding; Eliot himself appears to hint at such fulfilment by listing a large list of references alluded to in the course of poem, both literary and historic (ranging from those of ancient Greece, to that of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester sailing on the Thames). But perhaps such understanding is, as the voices in the poem show, impossible to find. Eliot himself is hinting that the modern world has no use for an older language of references, and that a new lexicon is needed in order for fresh problems to be surmounted. The ending words of Sanskrit ‘Shantih Shantih Shantih’ allude to the death of the old world, rather than the key to unlocking the future.

Interestingly, Eliot himself appears to solve such problems by seeking truth and enlightenment internally, through religion. This development can be traced from The Hollow Men, again dealing with themes of alienation and confusion: ‘This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper’; and more crucially Ash Wednesday in 1930. Hailed as Eliot’s “conversion poem”, Ash Wednesday finds the poet in turmoil over which direction to proceed, as found in its opening lines:

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn.

The inclusion of sections of The Rock (first performed in 1934), is perhaps most intriguing. As expected, a narrative is hard to find, the beginning starting in typical Eliot-ian fashion:

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!

Eliot himself wrote an apparent disclaimer to The Rock: ‘I cannot consider myself the author of the “play”, but only of the words which are printed here.’ It is the type of paradoxical language that infuriates the legions of Eliot detractors in the world; but perhaps that which embraces many more.

Such a collection – of the fantastic, puzzling and enjoyable – marks out T.S. Eliot has a supreme poet; not just one of high stature in the twentieth century, but of all time. As noted in the previous review, it is all too easy to dismiss him as a snob; it is far better - for the reading eyes and the soul – to embrace him as he is. The poems are a delight to read aloud, as well as to muse over. What is clear, having read the selection, is the interesting direction in which Eliot’s own choice of career took: from the outside who is up against the grain, to voicing concerns and the mood of a generation, to religious convert and the worthwhile works that resulted from this, to become an accepted part of the literary establishment. Selected Poems is the collection gathered on his own terms; its contents make for a fantastic addition to any bookshelf.


Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Selected-Poems-Eliot-Anniversary-Edition/dp/0571247059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351541480&sr=8-1

Hear The Waste Land performed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP9taUtLlYQ 

Read the review for Eliot’s Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) from July 2012:
http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/prufrock-and-other-observations-ts.html

#184 The Dark Knight Returns (1986)

Author: Frank Miller

Title: The Dark Knight Returns

Genre: Graphic Novel

Year: 1986

Pages: 220

Origin: read online during September 2012

Nod Rating: 4 nods out of 5

2012 was to be the year of the Bat. Christopher Nolan’s climactic ending to his Dark Knight trilogy was released to screams of… well, perhaps indifference. Accusations of plot holes and long bouts of tedium were thrown at the director, all of which detracts from the material that Nolan gleamed from the atmospheric and emotionally charged comics from the 1980s. Key among these was Frank Miller’s visualisation of a particular dark and violent tale of the Batman; and it is interesting to trace the origins of the recent hype and hysteria back to the 1980s, and in Miller’s work, in particular.

The Worm has previously taken the time to read and review one of Miller’s previous works on the Dark Knight legend, Batman: Year One (see below for a link to that review). Of greater importance was his setting of an older Bruce Wayne in a bleak and troublesome world, far away from the camp of previous incarnations of Batman from the 1960s and 1970s. Issued in four parts during 1986, Miller assumes the creative force and direction of this series: writing and doing the principal pencilling, it was later left to other talents to complete the visual art; including Klaus Janson (Inker), John Costanza (Letterer) and Lynn Varley (Colourist). The series’ renowned title – The Dark Knight Returns – in fact, alludes to the first issued comic; the remaining titles including The Dark Knight Triumphant, Hunt the Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Falls.

Having retired his cape for the past decade, Wayne returns as Batman after a realisation that he cannot escape from the mountain that are his scarred memories (the old chestnut of the death of his parents, as well as the haunting memory of a long, lost former Robin employee). Donning the outfit once more, he takes to the streets in what has become a city that has lost all hope of progress and success; old foes are taken down, including Harvey Two Face (who despite surgery, cannot escape the dual personality of his nature: both good and evil), as well as new ones in the form of a vicious gang called the Mutants. Such actions provide the causation of other events, including the birth of a vigilante group called the Sons of Batman, as well as the reawakening of a previously catatonic Joker (the trading of escalation between the forces of good and evil well used by Nolan in the blockbuster The Dark Knight in 2008). Such is the mayhem of the city during these issues, with Superman called in to pacify the situation, ending in a climatic fist-fight between the two legends.

Superman himself is never seemingly far away from a large DC comic book involving Batman, much to the chagrin of the Worm; however, Miller uses his presence here to contrast the two roles and personalities of the two heroes. Superman is welded to authority, the good boy who never does wrong; whilst Batman is the dark, lurking presence who deals in the shadow of night in the underworld. The ending is a perfect way to the end the series, with Miller fittingly commenting on society and the possibilities of dealing with the wrongs in the world at that time.

Thematically, The Dark Knight Returns is a triumph in including issues of great importance to the eighties (such as the threat of the Cold War and the power of the media). Television plays a massive role – in moving the story forward as well as in highlighting the negative effects it can play in society. There is constant cutting away from the action to read an interview and comments from “experts” and leaders in Gotham society: criticising the efforts of the Batman to bring justice to the city’s criminals. Undoubtedly, Miller would have rich pickings for today’s role and power of social media and how this may influence how a vigilante such as Batman could operate. Such thematic links are aided by the great illustration and interesting dialogue that Miller provides.

However, there are inclusions that disrupt these positives, including that of a new Robin. In a teenage female form, it is perhaps the ending result of the character’s transformation that makes most sense to readers (the former male Robin having played a subservient role to the forceful tutoring of the older Batman); however, it is none the less annoying because of it. More concerning is the direction of the comics, from issue one to issue four: from a seeming desire to position Batman in a real world with real limitations, to the involvement of supernatural powers such as Superman and Kryptonite.

Miller later returned to this version of Wayne-Batman, writing and illustrating a sequel in the twenty-first century, The Dark Knight Strikes Again. The Worm will continue reading and delving into Miller’s twisted, cynical – but yet strikingly familiar – world.

Buy it here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Batman-Knight-Returns-Frank-Miller/dp/1852867981/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349517100&sr=8-1

Read the Worm’s Batman: Year One review right here:

http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/batman-year-one-frank-miller-david.html

#183 Traitors of the Tower (2010)

Author: Alison Weir
Title: Traitors of the Tower
Genre: History
Year: 2010
Pages: 80
Origin: Bought for 99p from an Oxfam Bookshop
Nod Rating: 2 nods out of 5

Is there anything that Alison Weir does not know about the Tudor age? The Worm had the pleasure of recently reading one of her larger works – Elizabeth the Queen (see the link for the review below) – earlier this year. Another addition to the Worm’s book shelf places her in competition with another popular Tudor historian: the smug and inflammatory David Starkey. But where Starkey appears convinced that he must shout as loud as possible, Weir takes a different approach: an aim to simply tell a good story.

As such, Weir’s books have grown in popularity in the past decade. This particular book – Traitors of the Tower – is no more than a taster of her bigger, meatier works or research. Published as part of the ongoing series Quick Reads, it hopes to add to the growing catalogue of books that will hook in new and uninitiated readers across the land. As the Quick Reads website (see below for a link) promote, they are ‘bite sized books by big name authors and celebrities. They are perfect to engage people with reading as they are short and use clear language but still have fast-paced, brilliant storylines.’

Weir – a true big name in historical reading circles – has chosen to focus on short chapters on those who succumbed to the scaffold during the reign of various Tudor kings (and the last Plantagenet), extending from unfortunate Lord Hastings in 1483 to the bold and foolish Earl of Essex under Queen Elizabeth in 1601. In a fast paced tour, Weir brings in the back story and the downfall of the seven protagonists. Many have been told – and in greater detail and space – many times before, including the likes of Anne Boleyn and her ‘little neck’ as well as the intriguing case of England’s nine day queen Lady Jane Grey (Paul Delaroche’s 1833 painting The Execution of Lady Jane Grey adorning the cover of the book). Of greater interest is Weir’s focus on Margaret Pole, whose death strikes a chord with the still lingering influence of the Wars of the Roses a century earlier.

The book – like most in the Quick Reads catalogue – is one of style over substance. Little analysis can be added in ten pages per chapter, besides that of a nuts and bolts narrative that is more akin to a Wikipedia article than a book. More annoyingly is Weir’s choice of language throughout: simplicity is the conscious method here, as if Weir is writing for children readers rather than those who are less inclined to pick up a book.

The Quick Reads agenda is a commendable one; but as can be expected, eighty “bite sized” pages are hardly enough of a meal when a reader is ravenous to find out more. For those who wish to read a book by Weir, her other involving reads are available and strongly recommended. Traitors of the Tower is one to leave to hook the uninitiated book worms that walk among us.


Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Traitors-Tower-Quick-Read-ebook/dp/B0038AUYEQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350069963&sr=8-1

Read the review of Elizabeth the Queen here:
http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/elizabeth-queen-alison-weir.html

Find out more about Quick Reads here:
http://www.quickreads.org.uk/what-are-quick-reads/introduction

#182 David Copperfield (1850)

Author: Charles Dickens
Title: David Copperfield
Genre: Novel
Year: 1850
Pages: 980
Origin: read on the Kindle during August-September 2012
Nod Rating: 4 nods out of 5

‘Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield.’
(Charles Dickens, 1869)

Such is the beatification of David Copperfield: Charles Dickens has blessed it as his favourite, whilst other writers – of the high ilk of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Woolf – appear to be in unison on the greatness of the novel. Woolf, in particular, was read the book on several occasions, assessing it ‘magnificent’. These are massive endorsements, especially when considering the bulk and expanse of Dickens’ canon of fictional creations.

David Copperfield (or, to give its wondrously large original title: The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)’) was initially published in serial form across two years – similarly to many other Dickens novels. It follows the life of its title character, from childhood to manhood, in what is hailed an example of a bildungsroman novel.

For the Worm, this was to be the second attempt at reading the novel whole. The first began many moons ago, having bought a cheap copy in a second hand book shop and spending days not going to class but rather read dusty volumes in a nearby park. Pretentious? Yes. And far too long for the attention span of a sixteen year-old. The moons have continued to pass, and now it was time to return to the novel, to continue beyond page two-hundred and finally attain closure on this story. Of course, the old dusty volume is no longer with us and is long gone; in its place is the robust and ever-ready (dependent on battery life) Kindle, that now homes many of Dickens’ famous novel. David Copperfield is one of the first in a journey through the mind of one of the world’s greatest writers.

Although the storyline is not – arguably - as well known as the other novels in Dickens’ catalogue (principally those of Oliver and Great Expectations), the colourful character descriptions find the author on the top of his game. Here are a few examples, including that of his nurse Peggotty, with ‘eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that I wondered the birds didn’t peck her in preference to apples’; the ominous arrival of the Murdstone’s: ‘the gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful’; the hilarious and bumbling Mr Micawber ‘who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a creature about everything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy when he was busy about something that could never be of any profit to him’; the villainous Uriah Heep: ‘All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishy fingers, while I made every effort I decently could to get it away’; and the rather more cheerful names for his wife, Dora: ‘Child-wife’ and ‘Little Blossom’.

Furthermore, the description of thoughts, feelings and surroundings find a writer who has improved from earlier “fancies”; a writer who is stepping into a second, in-depth and all the more creative period of his life. The Worm delighted in reading the young Copperfield’s earliest memories of his dead father:

‘the remembrance that I have my first childish associations with his white grave-stone in the churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark night, when our little parlour was warm and bright with fire and candle, and the doors of our house were – almost cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes – bolted and locked against it’.

And the recalling of his wedding day to his ‘Child-wife’:

‘Of her waving her little hand, and our going away once more. Of her once more stopping, and looking back, and hurrying to Agnes, and giving Agnes, above all the others, her last kisses and farewells. We drive away together, and I awake from the dream. I believe it at last. It is my dear, dear, little wife beside me, whom I love so well! “Are you happy now, you foolish boy?” says Dora, “and sure you don’t repent?” I have stood aside to see the phantoms of those days go by me. They are gone, and I resume the journey of my story.’

The novel – the plots and subplots of which are far too vast to fully cover in this review – enrapture characters of the good (Traddles, Peggotty and her brother, Mr Peggotty, as well as Dr Strong), the bad (Uriah Heep and the Murdstones), the confused (the Micawbers), the mistreated (Mr Mell), the complex (Rosa Dartle) and the bold (Betsey Trotwood and James Steerforth); and unfortunately, the dull (chiefly, the angelic and dutiful Agnes). As in every Dickens novel, we have the battle between good and evil, the peculiar and comedic elements that surround us, as well as that classic Dickensian theme: the differences between class in Victorian society.

The Worm’s three largest gripes with this novel are the following: the first, is the weakness of Copperfield as a character. The book is filled with colourful people, memorably the likes of Steerforth, his aunt Betsey Trotwood and Peggotty. However, Copperfield himself appears devoid of doing evil or harm (bar, perhaps, the incident with Dora’s father); he is left to play the straight-man to the incidents of others around him, something of a blank canvas to be impressed upon. The book’s first quarter – that of Copperfield’s youth – hints upon the boy having been an unreliable narrator; an element not followed up by Dickens. The Worm’s evidence for this is, admittedly scant, and may have been an invention of his mind in the hope of a greater pay-off as Copperfield entered manhood. But there are a few remarks, including: ‘When my thoughts go back, now, to that slow agony of my youth, I wonder how much of the histories I invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts!’

The second gripe focuses on the supposed villainy of Heep. Undoubtedly, Heep plays the part of the “bad guy” in illicitly stealing the funds of those around him; but he has a long way to go to repeat the wickedness and complexity of other Victorian creations, principally that of Bronte’s Heathcliff. Furthermore, Copperfield’s instant dislike to this character is at odds with his transaction with every other person in this novel: after all, instant affection and warmth is one of Copperfield’s few saving graces.

But the gripe that eclipses all others is the rambling structure of the plot. This is a common complaint held against Dickens, who didn’t write succinct novels, but rather a series of chapters to be published week after week. This feature has a modern equivalent in the never-ending soap operas on television; or more exactly in the Worm’s reading material, that of an extended comic book run, with prints issued each month. It is clear that Dickens introduces characters, such as the legendary Micawber, to await a pay-off further down the road; what is not clear is the author’s actual intention in the finish line when commencing this story. It is this sense of chaos, of continuing to write until the story had worn thin, that demotes David Copperfield from the possible starry heights of a 5 nodder commendation.

But, dear reader, these gripes cannot wholly detract from what is a fantastic novel. Dickens’ love is clearly shown on these pages, and as becomes clear during Copperfield’s journey, the two – author and character – are undisputedly linked. As noted above, David Copperfield was Dickens’ ‘favourite child’; the Worm, however, will continue to plough through his back catalogue, to continue forwards to the exploits of Pip, of the deeds of Darnay and Carton from A Tale of Two Cities, as well as the adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Copperfield-Vintage-Classics-Charles-Dickens/dp/0099511460/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349517253&sr=1-1

Read it here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/766