Customer Reviews

The Beauty of the Husband

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Anne Carson has written a beautiful book of poems/tangoes that somehow tell the story of a marriage without actually telling a story. We have fully realized moments, conversations (Carson writes amazing poetic conversations, here and in her other works), events -- without all the connections in between. And yet these moments are woven together, internally and from one tango to the next, with language used as the steps of a dance, providing motifs and figures that carry the reader from one page to the next. Dance, games, rules, war, the rules of war, love, beauty, truth, lies and betrayal -- all of these themes run in and out of the complicated pattern of steps. The technique always serves the lyric, however, and we never lose sight of the feelings Carson wishes to evoke. You feel the separate pains of each betrayal (her betrayal of her mother, the not-yet-husband's failure to appear for their wedding, his first infidelity, each subsequent lie), but despite the pain there is no bitterness in this book -- in fact, Carson's final advice is to "hold beauty." Just as you cannot tell the tale of the lover without telling the tale of the beloved (as the final poem ironically suggests), so, perhaps, you cannot have love, beauty and truth without their opposites. Carson, plainly, is on the side of beauty.

I disagree with the naysayers.....I just heard Ms. Carson read some of these poems and they are powerful and emotional. These poems are very different from GLASS, IRONY AND GOD or AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN RED but she is just increasing her range. I am amazed at how wide she is able to cast her net, her economy of language, her wide range of references in history, literature, the classics, pop culture. I think when you see her read (and I think her poetry is still great if one doesn't hear her read) her wry humour really clicks....it is amazing how much emotion she is able to convey through her wit....I think she is one of the most unique and refreshing voices in literature today. She is a very exciting poet.

The storyteller in the The Beauty of the Husband is a woman who may or may not be Anne Carson, recollecting a failing marriage with a beating mind. Like other great stylists - Proust for example, her form of telling a story is peerless. Because after you have grasped the story why go back except to relish in style? As Godard has pointed out, "what is art except that by which forms become style." Perhaps Carson herself has written the best synopsis to her book,

what is the nature of the dance called memory

: Proust used to weep over days gone by,
do you?

So put on Piazzolla, read this book and answer for yourself what a lover wants from the beloved. Start with a little beauty and truth...

Anne Carson's poetry reflects an unusual intelligence. Her coruscating language combined with a sensitive nature make for a truly unusual book of poetry.

beautiful and shocking. a piece for any reader. the essential beauty and shocking nature of the human is wonderfully conveyed in this piece. i participate in competitive forensics and placed 9th in the state with this piece, in my first year. the piece has so many levels that it can be understood and throughly enjoyed by the least literate, least educated and those with doctorate degrees in literature. while it may not have the same spirit as many of carson's other works, it has a beauty of its own as it creates a very complex comprehensive story of a husband and betrayed wife, with wonderful words in the 28th tango. remember "hold, hold beauty."

those who are still trapped in carson's other works remember to allow the writer grow too, don't confine her to what you think she should be doing. remain open to changes in carson... she has not yet reached her prime.

A book that captures the beauty and difficulty of love, relationship, and time, more than any I have read.

While I still don't understand all she is saying, I do know her fictional essay was like music put to words and I enjoyed it very much. I would like to read more of her work now as this was my first experience reading Anne and reading the reviews this is said not to be her best.

This is Anne Carson's lastest book, and as with any wonderfully original talent, it is her best. Here there is her characteristic wry tone overlayed with a fine intelligence that only Seamus Heaney currently can rival. Do NOT miss this book!

The book is not as bad as I've been hearing. It is certainly lighter than the previous books by Carson, but there is the same quit witted mind at work here that we all fell in love with in Autobiography of Red. I predict the reader will be pulled into this story despite any misgivings one may have about the subject. I give it 3 stars, but I do still recommend it.

Through the first half of this book, I was disappointed. Although Anne Carson was continuing her interesting use of language and her use of Keats quotations was brilliant, the volume lacked universality. It presented a courtship and marriage every dependent upon the particular individuals and their peculiarities. The courtship and marriage of individuals unknown to the reader has limited interest.

Fortunately, through the remainder of the book, Anne Carson finally finds her voice for this book. It becomes an interesting exploration of beauty especially beauty in the context of marriage. In one brilliant chapter she gives quotations of elegiac couplets recording the view of a branch through her back kitchen window. After a sampling of seasons, she closes with "Well I won't bore you with the whole annal. Point is, in total so far, 5820 elegiacs/ Which occupy 53 wirebound notebooks, / Piled on four shelves in the back kitchen. . ." She succeeds in painting a picture of a year's psychological response in a truly innovative manner.

Any author continually expanding their repetoire will make some missteps. This volume includes some of Anne Carson's missteps but it also includes some exciting innovation. Read and enjoy but don't expect perfection.