ABC of Reading (Paperback)

by Ezra Pound (Author) "We live in an age of science and of abundance..." (more)
Key Phrases: Shepherd's Herse, Henry James, Anatole France

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation; 2nd printing edition (June 1960)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811201511
• ISBN-13: 978-0811201513
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #200,677 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maddeningly Brilliant, September 7, 2005

By	Barnaby Thieme (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A typical sentence: "Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever."

You may use this quote as a meter for predicting your enjoyment of the book. If you find it amusing and arguable, Pound's ABC of Reading will delight you with its erudite gems. If you are repulsed by the presumption, then give the book a wide berth.

Pound sets a standard for basic literacy that few literature scholars can hope to achieve (including mastery of several languages as a pre-requisite to study). Nonetheless, the book is a treasure trove of brilliant and piquant observations, and is itself an exemplar of the crystaline prose Pound extolled. You would be hard-pressed to find an ostentatious or superflous word in the book's entire 200 briskly-moving pages.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book with a pen in your hand, January 21, 2005

By	Michael P Mccullough "moik" (Klamath Falls, Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Read this book with a pen in your hand because you are going to want to underline the dozens of amazing sentences and little paragraphs, as well as scribble complaints and disparaging comments next to the rash and just plain faulty ones.

This book will astonish and anger a thoughtful reader. It is not a coherent essay that moves logically from point to point - it is a jarring, manic kaleidoscope.

Since I am a typical American and only understand one language (English, modern) some of this volume was lost to me - but this book is well worth the time you will spend reading it. Highly recommended for all striving writers and people who would like to read more earnestly.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rantings of Correctness, June 26, 2001

By	Lucas Klein (Beijing) - See all my reviews

Pound was an angry, noisy man whose honesty--and the extent to which the volcano of his personality burns through his prose--is convincing and, when it comes to literature, correct. I can think of no one I'd rather have read anything I've written & say: damn good.

He's dead & that's not going to happen. But we can still get the brash truth about literature, in easy-to-remember pithy comments such as "Literature is news that STAYS news" or comparisons of writing to making a table (don't matter which leg you start with so long as it stands upright when you're done) or to writing a check (the writing of a bad check is a criminal act). He also tells us why, say, Milton was a lousy poet & Homer a great one.

The all-embracing, subjective, if-someone-likes-it-then-it's-good parts of us will reel against some of Pound's fascistic judgements, but the arbiter of taste in each of us, the madman or woman who fumes at how ad. copy is deadening our linguistic nerves, will stand proud at owning, reading, & quoting--often--The ABC of Reading.