A Wedding in Hell [Paperback]

Charles Simic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 1994

Simic puts chirping birds, sex, and happiness into a world of broken windows, shivering trees, soldiers, lone dogs, the homeless of the city, and a God still making up his mind. “Provocative...a tantalizing, beautiful fusion of visions” (Bloomsbury Review).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The world according to Simic (Hotel Insomnia) has never been an especially nice place, and his new collection of poems registers no signs of improvement. Urban decay, war and the depravities of false priests and corrupt rulers provide the occasions for much of this work, where private desperation is seen to be our lot and any respite momentary, at best. The knack of Simic's poetry is to have found a voice to reflect on such matters without sounding solemn or maudlin-a plainspoken, slightly wary voice that wins our confidence by its apparent modesty and our gratitude by its power to surprise, accommodating cynicism and injured outcries. Still, nothing that Simic says, however humanly concerned, is without the salt of irony, sometimes heavily applied. Even his approach to poetic form has become ironic: surrealist images, used to startling effect in his early books, are now more commonly deployed as near cliches, persuading us there's nothing new under the sun; individual poems have a self-consciously throwaway quality, as if to advise us that they are no better than anything else. And yet Simic's poetry comforts and (ironically) charms us, too, even as it insists that it is only "like the wind/ Between the cold winter stars./ A creaky door/ Way out in the darkness./ Some kind of small bird/ Trapped by a cat/ And calling on heaven to witness."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

What can possibly be said when the burden of experience threatens to shut one down? This challenge, as it occurs in these poems, results in airless, end-stopped lines that act as exercises to memory, much like the boxes of Joseph Cornell (to whom Simic has written the homage Dime-Store Alchemy, Ecco Pr., 1992). Whatever is necessary to the image is left in; whatever serves its aggrandizement is left out. The remains accumulate and strike out in odd directions. "Just thinking about it, I forgot to wind the clock./We woke up in the dark./How quiet the city is, I said./Like the clocks of the dead, my wife replied./Grandmother on the wall,/I heard the snows of your childhood/Begin to fall." The pressure evident here is often alleviated by humor and consummate irony. In this 12th collection, the poet again manages to live up to his well-deserved reputation. Recommended for all poetry collections.
Steven R. Ellis, Brooklyn P.L.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (November 30, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156001292
• ISBN-13: 978-0156001298
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,352,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars His Best, April 4, 2005

By 

Matthew Woodman "another jackalope" (SPRINGVILLE, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Wedding in Hell (Paperback)

Of all Simic's books, this is the strongest. All his themes are here: the search for meaning, religious iconography, and his use of ironic contrasting images. This is the book that should have won the Pulitzer (nothing against his "The World Doesn't End"). Imagine a cross between Blake, Neruda, and Issa, and you'll have a good idea of the places this book will take you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful., March 31, 2004

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Wedding in Hell: Poems (Hardcover)

Charles Simic, A Wedding in Hell (Harcourt Brance Jovanovich, 1994)

Simic is as good as it gets, and in A Wedding in Hell he's in top form. Simultaneously irreverent and spiritual, the bulk of the poems in this book center around themes of higher powers and how odd they are when looked at from our perspective. Simic's usual surreal wit is in play throughout, and almost every poem has an unexpected pleasure waiting for the reader at the end. (I'd jotted down quotes to put here, but it was raining yesterday and the paper got smudged. Since I can't read my own writing, just imagine "Prayer" is inserted here.)

Lovely, on a par with Simic's beat work. Highly recommended. ****

3.0 out of 5 stars Considering Charles Simic, March 13, 2001

By 

Starr Sackstein (Baldwin, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Wedding in Hell (Paperback)

After reading many of Charles Simic's works, I have to say that this book of poems was an easy and inspiring read. I find that reading his work lightens me up even if the content is at times dark. Simic seems to be writing through his darkness in this work and searching for the light at the end of the tunnel. He often uses humor in his darkness as well as obsurdity to reflect on the reality. It's a quick read and they are the kind of poems that you can read over and over again and always learn a deeper insight from them. He is an easy poet to relate to and definitely worth reading.