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Diane C. Donovan Reviewer
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Of the biographies, I would consider "The Bitter Drink" on Veblen the most intellectual item in THE BIG MONEY, and my best introduction to how Socrates ended up drinking the hemlock. Most biographies were about people who were so famous that they might still be remembered. "Tin Lizzie" is a life of Henry Ford. "Poor Little Rich Boy" was William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper owner whose father died in Washington, a senator, but who was only elected to the House of Representatives, where he justified his politics with, "you know where I stand on personal fortunes, but isn't it better that I should represent in this country the dissatisfied than have somebody else do it who might not have the same real property relations that I have?" However familiar this might sound today, Dos Passos wrote that "his affairs were in such a scramble he had trouble borrowing a million dollars, and politically he was ratpoison." The biography of Hearst is at page 375 in the paperback which is currently available, a few pages after "The Camera Eye (50) they have clubbed us off the streets" (p. 371) which says:
America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul
their hired men sit on the judge's bench they sit back with their feet on the tables under the dome of the State House they are ignorant of our beliefs they have the dollars the guns the armed forces the powerplants
they have built the electricchair and hired the executioner to throw the switch
The final nonfiction biography in THE BIG MONEY is called "Power Superpower" on page 420. Samuel Insull had been learning shorthand "and jotting down the speeches in PARLIAMENT for the papers" before he came to American in 1881 to be Edison's personal secretary. As president of Chicago Edison Company after 1892, "If anybody didn't like what Samuel Insull did he was a traitor." The part I liked best was after the stockmarket crash, when there were accounting problems involving a number of companies. "He held directorates in eightyfive companies, he was chairman of sixtyfive, president of eleven: it took him three hours to sign his resignations." When "Revolt against the moneymanipulators was in the air," he ran off and extradition proceedings involved at least four countries to bring him back to Chicago for a trial. So, "With voices choked with emotion headliners of Chicago business told from the witnessstand how much Insull had done for business in Chicago. There wasn't a dry eye in the jury." The result was different from the trial of Socrates in Athens a few thousand years earlier, and I think Insull had a better retirement than Socrates asked his friends to provide if they had to pay a fine for him. Maybe we are better off than some people. Read this book anyway.
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This said, I highly recommend this book, whose grim, surreal atmosphere will appeal to readers in search of unconventional, well-crafted writing.
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On the other hand, I first read this book in the late 60's, and built a few of the projects therein. My parents didn't quite understand, but they tolerated my enthusiasm, and my understanding of our world was better off for it. Get this book. Even if you are a boy that happens to be over 50, you will enjoy many hours of adventure and new understanding of things that have been with you from your beginning. I am thrilled to find a reprint after so many years.
Learn the principles behind radio and other early electrical wonders.
Build a spark coil, a crystal radio, even a toy train with the easy-to-follow instructions contained herein.
With the original long out of print, this modern paperback reprint may be the only affordable way to obtain a copy of this wonderful classic.
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Thanks, Mr. Calkins!
Caroline Peterson
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This may not be the perfect novel, but I urge you not to miss it. The chapter 'On the Pavement' by itself is worth the read!
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I feel that any discussion of A. E. Housman's poetry should first acknowledge that he was never a poet in the same sense as Whitman, Auden or Ginsberg. he was first, and foremost, a scholar, the Chair of Latin at Cambridge and an academic legend. Thus it seems churlish for his detractors to take the rather meagre amount of poetry he produced and deride it for it's lack of thematic multiplicity.
A closeted homosexual, Housman's poetry is perhaps most distinctive for it allusive qualities. One revels in the allegorical poem XVIII from Additional Poems: "Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair." Perhaps my favorite in this collection full of favorites is XXXI from More Poems:
"Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.
To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
'Good-bye', said you, 'forget me.'
'I will, no fear' said I.
If here, where clover whitens
The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,
Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word."
Haunting. First rate. A masterful collection.
Most beautiful of all, to my mind, is the poem entitled "To an Athlete Dying Young". This was the eulogy read by Isak Dinesen at Denys Finch-Hatton's funeral in the movie "Out of Africa". The poem, which was originally included in "A Shropshire Lad" (1896) begins:
"The time you won your town the race, We chaired you through the market place. Man and boy stood cheering by and home we brought you shoulder high. Today the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home. And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad! to slip betimes away from fields where glory does not stay And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose... And round that early laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find, unwithered on its curls, A garland. Briefer than a girl's."
A very moving and sad poem. Many of Housman's other poems are of a similar, outstanding quality. He was not a prolific poet, but he was certainly a great one. Great pleasure will be found in this collection.
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Mr. Corn tells us a little about our fatal flaw in his first poem. There is no common understanding without adversity fully experienced, shared and finally understood. He proceeds to share with us, as someone remaining in the heart of life - at high risk - relying on no sibyls but the souls he meets and his own trustworthy one.
Life exposes, fragments, blinds, lures, denies and traps, but this poet is no seeker of easy ways out. He takes us on a journey of new angles, weaving pieces together into a unity of being. Great themes are pieced with smaller poems. Through them, he establishes a running theme that a painstaking life (mastery) is worth its price.
Corn's "Contradictions" begin and end as a triumphant cross - a cross-weave of themes and a path cut by art through life, a textile of words that the artist carries for us to light our own paths and help us see what we might otherwise miss.
This book is a triumph of art over darkness, of heart over fragmentation, of eternal meaning over death, and in my opinion there isn't another book more perfectly timed for its private public.
As Corn hold his lines taut, the reader proceeds, step by step, discovering new perspectives.
In most collections it would be generous to say that two or three pieces are memorable; in Contradictions, at least a dozen poems etch themselves on the reader's memory, demanding to be reread, revealing more each time.
very representative, very inclusive. In order to make
room for so many poems with full texts, the editor has
chosen not to include an Introduction. This, of course,
for the non-Tennyson reader or person wishing to know
more about him presents something of an obstacle. However,
a bit of rambling to one's own library, or a municipal
one, can solve that.
There is included a Chronology of important dates and
events concerning Tennyson's life. From this, a few of
the important facts seem to be: 1809--born at Somersby,
fourth son of Revd George Clayton Tennyson, Rector of
Somersby; 1816-1820--pupil at Louth Grammar School,
subsequently educated at home by his father; 1827--
publishes _Poems by Two Brothers_ with his brother
Charles, also enters Trinity College, Cambridge University;
1829--meets Arthur Henry Hallam, also a student at Trinity,
who was to become Tennyson's close friend and the fiance
of Tennyson's sister Emily, also wins the Chancellor's
Gold Medal with his prize poem "Timbuctoo", and becomes
a member of the "Apostles," a Cambridge debating society;
1830--publication of _Poems, Chiefly Lyrical_; 1831--death
of Tennyson's father, he leaves Cambridge without a
degree; 1833 (September) death of Hallam, his close
friend, from a cerebral hemorrhage while on holiday in
Vienna; 1840--beginning of almost a decade of depression
and ill health for Tennyson; 1850--marries Emily
Sellwood, appointed Poet Laureate of England; 1852--birth
of first son whom he names "Hallam"; 1883--accepts offer
of title of Baron, taking his seat in the House of
Lords in March 1884; 1892--dies on 6 October.
The poems in this anthology come from the major
publishings of Tennyson's poems. The first two:
"Timbuctoo" was published in the _Cambridge Chronicle
and Journal_ (1829) --and "The Idealist" was not
published during Tennyson's lifetime [this information
comes from the very good notes supplied by the Editor
Aidan Day at the back of the volume].
The poems included in this volume which the scholar or
general reader might wish to know are here collected
in one edition [full texts], along with many more
than these mentioned, are: The Lady of Shalott; Oenone;
The Palace of Art; The Hesperides; The Lotos-Eaters;
Morte d'Arthur; Ulysses; Locksley Hall; short poems
from _The Princess_; IN MEMORIAM, A.H.H. (1850);
MAUD (1855); Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington;
The Charge of the Light Brigade; Tithonous; Lucretius;
To E. FitzGerald; Tiresias; The Ancient Sage; Locksley
Hall Sixty Years After (1886); Demeter and Persephone;
Crossing the Bar. These poems are presented in
chronological order in the text, and the very good
Table of Contents in the front of the book tells
the poetry collection and its date from which the
poems come.
Tennyson is one of those interesting poets that take
a bit of time (at least for me) to get used to -- to
want to read, to really listen to. Having had the
experience of being required to memorize some of
Tennyson for my early academic training in school
at least got me acquainted with the more accessible,
but somewhat less deep poems. But it has taken several
years, much experience, and depressed grief over the
loss of a beloved, to bring me into synch with
the deeper poetry...or at least, being able to hear
it with deeper understanding, deeper reading.
From these poems it is hard to pick "favorites," and
that almost seems too trite a word. Maybe "meaningful"
would be more appropriate as a term. The two I would
select out would be "The Palace of Art" (1832; rev.
1842) and IN MEMORIAM, A.H.H. (1833), on the death
of his dear, beloved friend Arthur Hallam.
From "The Palace of Art," these lines resonate:
* * * * * * * * *
And with choice paintings of wise men I hung
The royal dais round.
For there was Milton like a seraph strong,
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;
And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song,
And somewhat grimly smiled.
And there the Ionian father of the rest;
A million wrinkles carved his skin;
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast,
From cheek and throat and chin.
......
And thro' the topmost Oriels' coloured flame
Two godlike faces gazed below;
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam,
The first of those who know.
-- Arthur Lord Tennyson.
* * * * * * * *