Customer Reviews

Life Work

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I am a big fan of Donald Hall's writing, both poetry and prose. This is my favorite and the one that made me think the most. It allows one to put one's life in perspective, realize the importance of life and work. We all aren't as lucky as Hall has been to work at what we love, but the book makes you think about how work can become more worthwhile. Deep and enjoyable.

Reading this book is work -- in the Donald Hall definition, for to read it is to become absorbed in each word to the exclusion of all else. Hall writes of his ancestors, of the rocky farms of New England, a small dairy, his father's early death, his wife's gardening, and then quite suddenly as his colon cancer recurs, of the possible end to life and the very prosaic tasks of cancelling readings, putting papers in order for survivors. Throughout, he achieves a sense of time, place and self which crosses generations. He charts both the constants and the increasing changes of the farm which has been in his family for more than a hundred years and the country around it. Hall, like God, love and grace--all of which are found in abundance in this book, abides.

Poet Donald Hall somehow manages to talk about the craft of writing and, even in prose, wondrously shapes a poetic work. This book is an excellent depiction of the author's life, as well as a fascinating historical account of Hall's life and background. Contrary to the popular romanticized view of writing or the "anyone can do it" mentality, Hall shows the reader just what his writing has entailed, and it is clearly WORK

Donald Hall's memoir, The Old Life, is beautifully crafted in prose form. It is full of personal recollections as well as literary references. It is intense, deeply personal, funny, and wonderfully readable. One has a very real sense of who Donald Hall is - his views of life, his passion for baseball and his family, his trials with his own ill health, his love for his wife, Jane Kenyon, also a poet, and his agonizing grief when she dies quite unexpectedly. A beautiful, poignant, literary triumph

Most who toil in offices, factories, and shops look forward to time off when they can pursue their real interests.

In this short 1992 volume, however, poet and author Donald Hall describes how he exults in his work, taking us into the rhythms and routines of his life as an independent writer, working in the New Hampshire farmhouse that once belonged to his great-grandparents.

Hall delights in what he calls the "absorbedness" of work, meaning that he loses himself in it and becomes unselfconscious and oblivious to time. He is so work besotted that he sometimes makes himself wait until 4:30 a.m. to rise and begin. Devoted to his craft, Hall confesses that he did as many as 500 revisions to one of his poems. He contrasts his work-centric life to those of his fore-bearers who exhibited the same traits, albeit in more traditional roles such as farming.

Lest his experience come across as too idealic, Hall writes of times between his marriages when he was depressed and drinking too much to write productively. Then, in the process of writing this memoir, Hall was diagnosed at age 63 with liver cancer. By the end of the book, he has had a lobe of his liver removed and is undergoing chemotherapy. Clearly, he did not expect to live much longer.

Fortunately, Hall did survive that illness and went on to publish numerous other works of poetry and fiction. In 2006, he served as the U.S. Poet Laureate. Hall was married to the poet Jane Kenyon who died in 1995.

For a portrait of the independent, creative artist at home with himself and his work, this concentrated offering is most engaging.

I don't like to read novels, but a friend, who enjoys history, had recommended String Too Short to Be Saved (Nonpareil Books, No. 5) after I had told her about Home Life in Colonial Days, Everyday Life in Early America and The Reshaping of Everyday Life: 1790-1840 (Everyday Life in America) - so I thought I would read this biographical book and then decide if I wanted to read his novel (which I just ordered and received and will start tonight). I loved this book; it was extremely engaging and I like Donald Hall as a person and I enjoyed his thought patterns. It was fascinating to read about historical accounts of work in this world, his personal day, history of his work life and his daily work life, or Life Work. The second part of the book was more about his family history of work, his father's work and how it affected him and his life on his grandfather's farm which was fascinating and wonderful. When I read the last page last night, I decided to reread the preface because the last sentence was the first sentence and when I read it the first time I didn't understand. This book is a beautiful meditation on work and a reflection on life and history and it is a super choice for your next read.

"Life Work" could be called "Ode to Work". Hall writes lovingly about his work on the family "home" place from his beginning farm work with his grandfather to his own writing work as an adult and inhabitant on the old farm where he now lives with his wife, poet Jane Kenyon. I found his attitude toward work refreshing. I appreciate his reflections on the meaning "work" gives to life. A life well-lived involves work one loves. Work can have a negative connotation in our culture. He upends that view. Not all of us can live his life, but we can find "work" we love be it tending a garden, caring for our family, flying a plane, cooking or something else.