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Title: James Dickey: The World As a Lie by Henry Hart ISBN: 0-312-20320-9 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: April, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Controversy as a Container
Comment: Some reviewers have expressed their concern and dissatisfaction with Hart's concern or possible over-concern with the lies that surrounded Dickey's life. The truth is in the poems and in Dickey's own personal statements. Dickey's poems are narratives mixing both autobiographical and fantastical details; some of which Dickey appropriated from other people's lives. Dickey's public life was a collection of stories...lies. Hart puts the focus of his biography on these lies, because they were so bound up with Dickey's actual life. In his 'Self Interviews,' Dickey himself describes his fascination with lying, both in art and in life. He felt that the poet and artist had the right to lie. If Dickey had not made such a big deal about lying throughout his life, then Hart's biography might seem overkill. But, seeing as Dickey was an admitted liar, provacateur and even suggested the title for the book (which serves as a great justification for the focus of the book), I feel the biography paints a wonderful portrait of a wonderful writer. Hart does not set out to smash the image of Dickey, but to illustrate the different perspectives of the poet's life. Aside from this, the work is beautifully written and the drama of Dickey's life provides ample subject matter for the reader looking for adventure.
I would recommend this book to both Dickey's fans and detractors as a substantial work of literature.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Extraordinary Confluence
Comment: In the introduction to "the James Dickey reader," which he edited, Henry Hart states poetically, "Like Fitzgerald's Gatsby, Dickey erected a mansion that will endure in our collective memory, but one made of books rather than expensive stones." And in the introduction to his biography of James Dickey, Hart tells us how the subtitle, "The World as a Lie," was arrived at and of Dickey's rough equating of creative enterprise with lying. This is heady stuff, for certain, and Hart does the job of piercing through the philosophical (or anti-philosophical) haze and into the actual stuff or harder reality of James Dickey's life. Throughout the biography, Hart has the humorist's knack for letting what's funny show itself, while taking seriously what should be taken seriously. Hart's own unpretentious style moves neatly through a complex and at times outlandish subject, namely, Dickey. A worthwhile subject (Dickey) gets the good fortune of an equally gifted biographer and editor (Hart).
Rating: 4
Summary: a hatchet job
Comment: Hart pursues his thesis (that Dickey built his life and work around lies) to the point that the book becomes a tiresome exercise in character deflation. It is as if the author wants us to applaud for each and every minute point or quotation of Dickey's that he manages to dismantle (although sometimes on scant evidence). Are we always to believe friends or associates of Dickey over Dickey himself? The author is like a child who manages to catch an adult in a lie and gleefully embarasses the adult over his mistruth. What Hart only occassionally points out is that the truth of Dickey's life is to be found in the lines of his poetry.
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Title: The Whole Motion: Collected Poems, 1945-1992 (Wesleyan Poetry) by James Dickey ISBN: 0819512184 Publisher: Wesleyan University Press Pub. Date: 15 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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