Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rediscovering Eliot and Kirk, July 17, 2008
I first read Kirk's book just out of college in the early 1990's. It guided me to more fully understand the worldview, which I had and in which Eliot and Kirk were my guides. I highly recommend this book for all students of modernity and poetry who are beginning to grapple with Eliot and his thought as well as those who are well versed in Eliot. Kirk's prose is one to study as there no one better at the end of the 20th century. Lockerd's "Introduction" intertwines these two men of letters intellectually, spiritually, and uniquely through "philía". As Eliot continues to be studied and sometimes emasculated by critics, Lockerd turns us back to this often forgotten text for it is an original study of Eliot. Russell Kirk examines and properly refutes the political and racist charges made against Eliot today, but Kirk did this in 1971! Readers should be aware that Kirk is not openly defending Eliot, but rather giving a proper examination to his writings, both poetical and cultural critiques as well as Eliot's relationships. Remember to begin to understand a person; one must first look at the friends around him.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magnificent book, poor binding, May 25, 2009
Recently, the National Review On-Line "corner', carried scornful, ignorant remarks about Eliot by three marginally talented literary hacks: The glib 'popular mathematics" writer, John Derbyshire, whose literary reputation rests on a fairly good novel about a Chinese immigrants fascination with Calvin Coolidge, and who is stupid enough to find Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" a great poem, the talented polemicist ( and frankly, tedious Star Trek enthusiast, Jonah Goldberg),and finally, the film critic for the Weekly Standard, who apparently owes his position, not to his rather meager intellectual virtues, or his very limited taste, but to the fact that he is the son of two very gifted neo-conservative publicists. ( What IS his name again? No matter, it' not important.)
Nothing, I think, could better illustrate the vulgarity and decadence of much- not all- but much of contemporary "conservativism" than such dismissals of the greatest Conservative-and Christian- literary figure and intellectual of the twentieth century. This book-which I urge every intelligent young conservative to read- is a powerful antidote. ( incidentally, it also reminds us of how intelligent the conservative movement in this country used to be.) It is a humane, generous, beautifully written,and beautifully thought out book of great learning, with surprises on virtually every page. Eliot was not without flaws and blindspots, but this book reminds us of the depth of his moral imagination, the acuteness of his mind, and the breadth of his intellectual and human sympathies. READ it..it is the next best thing to reading Eliot himself.
One caveat. The copy I got from Amazon.com has poor binding. The first eight pages actually fell out. the problem is, how do I contact Amazon.com to get a less shoddily bound replacement? I have searched this web-site, and found no place to issue consumer complaints.
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14 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Of the Book in Question and the Amiable Goodness Thereof, May 26, 2000
This review is from: Eliot and His Age: T.S. Eliot's Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century (Paperback)
Upon reading the aforementioned work by the great and amiable Englishman Russel Kirk, I have been forced to come to conclusion that the work is, in general, well-written and, in particular, quite enlightening. His explanations of Eliot's important poetical works are biographically sound, and are given support by cross-references to other prose pieces by Eliot himself (whether from Eliot's own _Criterion_ or some other publication). The fact that Kirk was a friend of Eliot's gives the book great strength and objectivity. I recommend this book to any who are at all serious in their study of Eliot. It is a work no true fan of Eliot can do without, humbuggery notwithstanding. Yours truly, Andy Younan, Esq.
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