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Title: ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound ISBN: 0-8112-0151-1 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 June, 1960 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.38 (13 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Provocative and Incisive
Comment: When I first read this book, I was so angered that I scribbled my indignant protests against Pound's arrogance and judgemental elitism all over the margins. I reread it two years later and felt very sheepish. I had been offended because I was as ignorant as the book made me feel and it is only later, having a greater appreciation for the importance of Pound's role as an editor for major C20th writers and pioneer of honest critical writings, that I was able to come to terms with it. Pound is often very pithy and this can lead to an irritating smugness with which he assumes a position of unassailable knowledge, but I am still being surprised by discovering the accuteness of his judgements. Any book composed so much of opinion is going to be wrong occasionally, but Pound's clear attitude that one can learn more from a little excellent writing than loads of rubbish can itself make the challenge he sets to educate tastes feel less intimidating than his initial impression. It is part exercise book and part anthology and takes little time to read compared to the impact which it can have in improving critical habits as well as giving a wider perspective on global culture.
Rating: 5
Summary: Pithy and passionate
Comment: Ezra Pound said what he meant. In this book, he is completely frank about what the state of poetry was when he wrote, and what literature of the past is worth reading. His bluntness is refreshing beyond belief, esp. compared to the sorts of obfuscation one finds in critics today who try to tell us what they like to read.
There are some startling opinions in here, but I highly recommend giving Pound his due. He is in love with literature as an art, as a profession, as a process, and as a way of life, and this book is a beautiful introduction to his passions. For me, he still sets the standard for clarity and candour in writing about literature.
Rating: 3
Summary: An extremely eccentric, yet valuable, book!
Comment: This book has been a companion of mine for many years. It offers a good many blazing truths, to wit:
"Never pay any attention at all to literary prizes, including the Nobel."
That one sentence has saved me enormous time. And Pound was RIGHT (as he would capitalize it in his own book). Literary prizes are political. They have NOTHING to do with literary merit. (Or is Pearl Buck one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century?)
But the book is eccentric, even verging on the crackpot. For example, one would expect an "ABC" to be something for beginners, and E.P. says so on the first page, referring to his book as a "gradus ad Parnassum." Yet, somehow, the very first exercise for the reader presents two bits of poetry in Italian, one bit of poetry in French, one bit in English (by Yeats), and one bit in Old English. There is no effort -- not even a hint of an effort -- at translation! So you need to be aware that Ezra Pound's "beginners" could read Italian, French, and Old English. Pound does not actually whomp the reader with Chinese in his book (although he would like to), but he does declare that anyone lacking the elementary vocabulary needed to understand Chaucer "should be excluded from the company of good books forever." So -- brace yourself -- the ante has been raised: Italian, French, English, Old English, and Middle English are now the tools of the beginner!
Another eccentricity is something I have recently investigated: Pound's claim that the Arthur Golding translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" was (and I quote) -- "the most beautiful book in English." Since this Renaissance translation is available from Amazon, I ordered it and read it -- at least the first few dozen pages.
What could Pound have been thinking? This Golding translation is a LIMPING thing; it is NOT a good translation of Ovid (the modern translation by Melville is MUCH better!). And to call it "the most beautiful book in English???" Well:
a. Beowulf
b. The Canterbury Tales
c. Troilus and Criseyde
d. The plays of Kit Marlowe
e. Shakespeare's Sonnets
f. The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet...
But I think I'll stop there. There are probably a few hundred books in English which are obviously superior to this Golding thing.
And yet, the book stays in my library. It is extremely thought-provoking!
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Title: A Technique for Producing Ideas (Advertising Age Classics Library) by James Young ISBN: 0071410945 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Pub. Date: 21 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: The Cantos of Ezra Pound (New Directions Paperbook) by Ezra Pound ISBN: 0811213269 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Literary Essays of Ezra Pound by Ezra Pound ISBN: 0811201570 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 June, 1968 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos ISBN: 0809058405 Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub. Date: 18 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Paradigms : Business of Discovering the Future, The by Joel A. Barker ISBN: 0887306470 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 26 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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