World's Wife [Paperback]

Carol Ann Duffy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2000 | ISBN-10: 033037222X | ISBN-13: 978-0330372220

That saying? Behind every famous man ...? From Mrs Midas to Queen Kong, from Elvis's twin sister to Pygmalion's bride, they're all here, in Carol Ann Duffy's inspired and inspirational collection The World's Wife. Witty and thought-provoking, this is a tongue-in-cheek, no-holds-barred look at the real movers and shakers across history, myth and legend. If you have ever wondered how, exactly, Darwin came up with his theory of evolution, or what, precisely, Frau Freud thought about her husband, then this is the book for you. 'Inventive, subversive and written with great rhythmical and rhyming dash' Sunday Telegraph 'Carol Ann Duffy reveals the foibles of the great, the ghastly and the ordinary bloke, and the sufferings of those closest to them. The result is a melange of history lesson, fairy-tale and modern-day domestic tragedy, with the occasional joke thrown in for good measure' Scotsman

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The voices of Mrs. Tiresias, Mrs. Faust, Mrs. Quasimodo and other wives wittily recast myth and history from a woman's point of view in the pages of Manchester-based Duffy's fifth collection. Self-contained Penelope is not waiting for her Odysseus; frustrated Mrs. Sisyphus is married to a workaholic; Pygmalion's statue, tired of being pestered by her groping suitor, "changed tack/ grew warm, like candle wax/ kissed back"--and after sex gets dumped. But while Duffy's revisionist dramatic monologues are rife with clever twists, this material has been well mined by such poets as Alta, Margaret Atwood and Alicia Ostriker. Even references to Viagra, sheep-cloning and Monica Lewinsky seem an updating of Transformations (1971), Anne Sexton's deadpan fairy tales studded with cultural references, with the poems trapped in a similarly polarized conception of gender relations. Thus Thetis is brutalized in a new way each time she changes form--man is cross-bow to her albatross, charmer to her snake, fisherman to her mermaid--and to Queen Herod, the Christ child is simply a threat to her infant girl: he's "The Wolf. The Rip. The Rake. The Rat./The Heartbreaker. The Ladykiller. Mr. Right." The luckiest in love is Mrs. Beast, married to a devoted creature that's hung like a mule, and just as hardworking: "And if his snot and trotters fouled/ my damask sheets, why, then, he'd wash them. Twice." The flippant tone elicits chuckles, but one imagines these characters would've come a longer way by now, baby. (Apr.) FYI: Duffy's anthology Time's Tidings: Greeting the 21st Century includes 50 contemporary poets, each of whom is represented by a poem of his or her own on "time," and by a favorite poem on the same subject. (Anvil [Dufour, dist.], $18.95 paper 160p ISBN 0-85646-313-2).
-, $18.95 paper 160p ISBN 0-85646-313-2).
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

" . . . The élan of this volume sets it apart, the characters (and poems) triumphant." --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Picador (September 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 033037222X
• ISBN-13: 978-0330372220
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,990,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rhetorical Questions, September 19, 2000

By 

Tom Adair - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World's Wife (Hardcover)

As volumes of poetry go, The World's Wife is very tightly-themed: each poem is a monologue in the persona of a woman married (or otherwise attached) to a more famous man. The men are more usually from myth or fairy tale (Mrs Sisyphus, Mrs Beast) than from history, although five are biblical and one or two are from history as recent as the 1960s (I think The Devil's Wife may be a portrait of Myra Hindley). Duffy's approach to these monologues is almost absolutely consistent: the women express contempt, irritation, resentment and sorrow for the foolishness and egotism of their partners. Mrs Quasimodo desecrates her husband's beloved bells by fouling them with her own urine; both Penelope and Mrs Lazarus are discomfited by their husbands' return; Mrs Tiresias seeks solace in lesbianism. Only occasionally (as with Anne Hathaway) does the wife feel real love for her husband. The subject-matter, thus paraphrased, looks gloomy and bitter, but in fact these poems are entertaining and very likeable. It is quite important to these pieces that they are funny - and we do laugh because of the constantly-perceived clash between lofty, remote, sacred men and contemporary-sounding, slangy, immediate women. Duffy's language is exactly right for her project. Rhythmically it is strongly pulsing; even more important is the function of rhyme and half-rhyme (the latter perhaps this poet's single-most impressive talent). Reinforcing the wilful, aggressive quality of the rhetoric is Duffy's aptitude for witty puns involving cliches and hackneyed figures of speech (Eurydice is 'out of this world'). At the same time, however, the language is kept aerated and three-dimensional by beautiful off-the-cuff metaphors ('a snapdragon gargling a bee'). I think all this is extremely well-judged poetry; it is rich and confident and if it lacks subtlety, irony or mysteriousness, that is in the nature of its unusually rhetorical mission.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep and original!, May 1, 2009

By 

Joyce Akesson "www.joyceakesson.com" (Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World's Wife: Poems (Paperback)

In "The World's Wife," Duffy takes up her themes from myths, fables, the bible, popular culture, literature and history. I find it very original that Duffy gives a voice to unheard women such as "Pilate's Wife," "Mrs. Darwin, " "Mrs. Sisyphus" and "Anne Hathaway." The more modern ones are "Mrs. Faust" and "Queen Kong".

These women's voices reveal their personal struggles which are sometimes universal ones.

Joyce Akesson, author of Love's Thrilling Dimensions

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New voices, December 15, 2008

By 

Erin J. Kiley (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The World's Wife: Poems (Paperback)

In "The World's Wife," Duffy deftly reworks tales from myths, fables, the bible, popular culture, literature and history. Some popular stories are reexamined through the eyes of a female witness, as with "Pilate's Wife," "Mrs. Darwin, " "Mrs. Sisyphus" and "Anne Hathaway." Others are modernized; In "Mrs. Faust," Faust and his wife are a pair of yuppies collecting degrees, computers and cell phones. A few stories, like "Queen Kong", are reimagined with a female protagonist replacing the male. The poetry is as diverse as the personae, with voices ranging from lingering, dreamy and dramatic to hard, clipped and succinct.

The World's Wife lets previously unheard women speak. Their voices are not always what readers expect from a lyric speaker, for how often is deep emotion examined through rhyming slang for tits, or the nicknames for a penis? Yet when Duffy calls a modern wife frustrated by her husband's discovery of Viagra "Mrs. Rip Van Winkle," or a contemporary-voiced woman whose husband works mindlessly and ceaselessly "Mrs. Sisyphus," Duffy reveals that their personal struggles are not theirs alone. Their troubles have resonance, and echo through history, literature and myth---even though in the past it may have been left unspoken.