Eliot, T. S. Books - Page 4

The Family Reunion

T. S. Eliot

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Brilliant writing, problematic drama 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

T. S. Eliot's second play is loosely based on Aeschylus' "Eumenides," though set in modern times. The integration of classical elements is only partly successful: the Greek chorus of meddlesome relatives is oddly effective, but the several appearances of the Furies are forced and strange (as Eliot himself came to conclude). Furthermore, the play is awfully talky -- lots of setup without much payoff in dramatic action.

But what talk it is! "The Family Reunion" was written in the interregnum between the first and second of "Four Quartets," and the play develops and amplifies many of the same themes as the poems. We return to the "Alice in Wonderland" rose garden of "Burnt Norton" (the first Quartet) -- "I only looked through the little door / When the sun was shining on the rose-garden: / And heard in the distance tiny voices" -- while looking forward to key passages from later poems: "Or the distant waterfall in the forest, / Inaccessible, half-heard. / And I hear your voice as in the silence / Between two storms ...."

Though "The Family Reunion" may be justly criticized for its dramatic problems and weak conclusion, the writing is vintage Eliot and will prove both enjoyable and enlightening for devotees of his poetry.

Editorial Review:

A modern verse play dealing with the problem of man’s guilt and his need for expiation through his acceptance of responsibility for the sin of humanity. “What poets and playwrights have been fumbling at in their desire to put poetry into drama and drama into poetry has here been realized.... This is the finest verse play since the Elizabethans” (New York Times).

The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays (Dover Books on Literature and Drama)

T. S. Eliot

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Editorial Review:

With the 1920 publication of his first collection of essays, The Sacred Wood, Eliot established himself as an authoritative and influential literary critic. These insightful meditations on poetry, drama, and literary criticism include observations on the works of Dante, Shakespeare, Blake, and other authors. Plus 4 essays from The Times Literary Supplement.

Pensees (Thoughts) (Dover Philosophical Classics)

Blaise Pascal

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 1.0 of 5

Great for Academic Study 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 16 people found this review helpful.

This volume contains the raw, unedited (but translated) thoughts of Pascal. It reads sometimes like a typical first draft, albiet the first draft of a genius. However, for the average Christian wanting to learn of Pascal's perspective, the volume bogs down with logical arguments and criticisms of the day, and thus his universal themes become lost.

Editorial Review:

Intended to prove that religion is not contrary to reason, Pensées ranks among the liveliest and most eloquent defenses of Christianity. Pascal had intended to write an ambitious apologia for Christianity but his untimely death prevented the work's completion. The fragments remain a vital part of religious and philosophical literature. Introduction by T. S. Eliot.

My Brother's Keeper: James Joyce's Early Years

Stanislaus Joyce, T.S. Eliot

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The return of a classic: This biography of the young James Joyce is "a remarkable exposition of the relationship between a famous man and [his] brother."--T. S. Eliot.

Stanislaus Joyce was more than his brother's keeper: he was at various times his brother's co-dependent, touchstone, conscience, and biggest fan. The two shared the same genius, the same childhood influences, and had the same literary instinct, but in Stanislaus it was channeled into sober academic pursuit, while in James it evolved into gaiety, wild whimsy, and at times sodden despair.

Covering the first twenty-two years of James Joyce's life in Dublin and Trieste, My Brother's Keeper is a window onto the drama that was his youth. Thanks to Stanislaus's superb memory and sure hand, here we find the Dublin of Dubliners: the streets, neighbors, churches, and unforgettable eccentrics. Here we see the model for Ulysses' Simon Dedalus: James' father, a dour and violent figure when in his cups. Here are the Joyces in their own home, and the minor characters that pepper A Portrait of the Artist: Eileen, Leopold Bloom's comely daughter; Mrs. Riordan, the surly teacher; Mr. Casey, the political agitator. And finally, here is Trieste, a place of exile for Stanislaus but a retreat for James. Stanislaus Joyce has fashioned both an invaluable primary source for his brother's opaque masterpieces and a loving memoir of his brother's early life.

The Waste Land

T. S. Eliot

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Editorial Review:

This poetic work remains the best manifesto of modernism in poetry. First published in 1922, The Waste Land is T.S. Eliot's masterpiece, and is not only one of the key works of modernism but also one of the greatest poetic achievements of the twentieth century.

Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922 (Letters of T. S. Eliot, 1898-1922)

T. S. Eliot, Valerie Eliot

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

a poet in his prose 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful.

No biography of Eliot could better capture the thoughts and personality of the young poet than these letters. Eliot had a lively correspondence with so many, including family, friends, editors, and partners in verse. Even the short letters -- like the ones in which Eliot simply announces to his correspondent that he's exhausted and doesn't want to write anything -- give a glimpse of how Old Possum acted.

Eliot's poetry is so cerebral and allusive that when reading it, one can feel at his mercy. In his letters he is far less in control, and the contrast is fascinating.

Editorial Review:

Eliot's correspondence from his childhood in St. Louis until he had settled in England and published The Waste Land. Edited and with an Introduction by Valerie Eliot; Index; photographs.

The Sacred Wood

T. S. Eliot

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Criticism as it should be 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

It is a great injustice that The Sacred Wood, which ranks amongthe greatest works of literary criticism, has fallen out ofprint...

These essays reveal Eliot's mastery of language. While writing on subjects as abstruse as the blank verse of Christopher Marlowe, Eliot maintains supreme eloquence, never stumbling or descending into awkwardness. Moreover, Eliot has managed to keep his subject matter--which at times is quite obscure--very accessible, comprehensible to anyone willing to make the effort to finish any given essay.

What sets apart Eliot's essays, however, is neither their eloquence nor their accessibility. Rather, it is that Eliot exemplifies the form that good literary criticism should take. Today's literary criticism is largely descriptive, doing little more than dissecting works and analyzing them. Eliot's criticism is critical--he takes a prominent, and extremely complex literary work or trend, and renders a cogent, logical verdict on it. Eliot is not afraid to lambast the staples of the Western literary pantheon. He almost convinces the reader that Hamlet is a bad play. This is criticism as it should be.

Editorial Review:

First published in 1920, this is T.S. Eliot's first collection of literary criticism. It contains some of his most influential early essays and reviews, including "Tradition and the Individual Talent", "Hamlet and His Problems", and Eliot's thoughts on Marlowe, Jonson, Massinger and Dante.

Classic Poems: Unabridged (Poetry)

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Editorial Review:

A varied anthology from the tradition of English poesy, read by various voices of the recording age. The recordings include Sir Ralph Richardson reading Keats' "To Autumn" and a gallery of poets reading their own works. Poems by Donne, Blake, Burns, Wordsworth and Kipling are also included.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

T.S. Eliot

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

For "cats are very much like you and me" ... 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Based on works such as the poems "Prufrock" (1917) and "Ash Wednesday" (1930) and the drama "Murder in the Cathedral" (1935), American-born and naturalized British poet and future Nobel laureate T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot -- also founder and editor of the literary journal "Criterion" -- was already an established writer when, in 1939, he came up with this series of poems for children, which due to their timeless charm and humorous insight into the feline nature had long become literary classics for the young and old alike before Trevor Nunn and Andrew Lloyd Webber used them as a basis for their award-winning musical "Cats."

My favorite rendition of these poems, which were originally a gift from "Old Possum" Eliot to his godchildren, is the 1983 recording featuring Sir John Gielgud and his recurrent stage partner Irene Worth, who alternatingly read the poems and bring to life the likes of Jennyanydots the old Gumbie Cat (who at night displays a show of unexpected zeal in training mice and cockroaches in the art of keeping a clean house), the old "bravo cat" Growltiger (who, already having lost one eye and one ear in battle, one balmy night has "no eye or ear for aught but [the lady] Griddlebone," thus at last making himself vulnerable to his many enemies and "forced to walk the plank"), Rum Tum Tugger, the "curious cat," who very much has a mind of his own and always seems to want exactly the opposite of what you have given him ("For he will do as he do do, and there's no doing anything about it"), and Macavity, "the Napoleon of crime," who controls even notorious scoundrels like Mungojerrie and who is fatefully remeniscient of Berthold Brecht's Mac the Knife in rhyme, metre, name and character.

Sir John Gielgud and Irene Worth bring not only their entire impeccable theatrical training to the project but, more importantly, a great sense of humor and a true feeling for the nature of each feline protagonist - and for their canine adversaries; because, as nobody can seriously doubt any longer by the time when we have reached the last poem, "a cat is not a dog!"

So you truly hear that Chinese vase go "bing!" when Irene Worth tells the story of the eternal pranksters Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer; you see them turning the basement into a "field of war," and you hear the cook's desperation when she has to inform the family that there will be no meat for dinner because "the joint has gone from the oven -- like that!" You can picture Old Deuteronomy sleeping or sitting in the sun, and see his slow, ponderous movements as you hear John Gielgud's rendition of the oldest village inhabitant's ever-unchanging comment: "Well, of all ... things ... Can it be ... really! ... No! ... Yes! ... Ho! hi! Oh, my eye!" Reading about "the Awful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles," Irene Worth does not merely give you the dogs' various kinds of bark; true to character she moreover endows them with their respective Pekinese, Yorkshire and Scottish accents. Similarly, hearing John Gielgud read the story of the great conjurer Mr. Mistoffelees (whose name is another one of the numerous literary allusions hidden in Eliot's verses - and of course this particular cat is "black from his ears to the tip of his tail"), there can be no doubt about the degree of amazement in which he holds his audience ("Oh! Well I never! Was there ever a cat so clever as Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!"); and of course it also falls to none other than great Shakespearean actor Gielgud to tell us about Gus, the old "theatre cat," and his thespian exploits, endowing the four-pawed stage veteran with a dignity that would do any of his human colleagues proud. Irene Worth does much the same for the St. James Street club-going, pompously condescending (and shall we say it? remarkably fat!) Bustopher Jones, whereas Gielgud's voice finally assumes a hurried, but regular pace -- much like a train rattling over its rails -- as he reads the story of Skimbleshanks, the "railway cat," who keeps the train in order from luggage car to passenger compartments, always ready to assist personnel and travelers alike.

The first and last poems, "The Naming of Cats" and "The Ad-dressing of Cats" are read by Gielgud and Worth together, both in turn taking a verse at a time -- and unflappably pronouncing tongue-twisting, "peculiar" cat names such as Munkustrap, Bombalurina and Jellylorum, and lines like the closing of the first poem, which refers to a cat's meditation on his "ineffable effable effanineffable deep and inscrutable singular Name." -- You can, of course, always pop in a video or DVD and watch the musical based on T.S. Eliot's poems -- but for a closer interpretation of the originals, few versions are as enjoyable as this classic recording featuring two of Britain's all-time greatest actors, at the end of which you truly "should need no interpreter to understand [the cats'] character."

Also recommended:
Collected Poems, 1909-1962 (The Centenary Edition)
Cats - The Musical (Commemorative Edition)

Editorial Review:

The basis for the musical phenomenon 'Cats', this collection of 14 inviting rhymes -- the mixture of the real and the impossible, the familiar and the fantastic -- make for a set of poems that no child or adult can possibly resist.

Eliot: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)

T. S. Eliot

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Many important poems are missing from this selection. 3 out of 5 stars.
38 of 43 people found this review helpful.

Caveat emptor: nothing later than 1922 in this collection - i.e. nothing from 'The Hollow Men', 'Ash-Wednesday', 'Ariel' poems, the Four Quartets, etc. etc. A seriously deficient selection.

Editorial Review:

This large print title is set in Tiresias 16pt font as recommended by the RNIB