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Title: My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson by Alfred Habegger ISBN: 0679449868 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 16 October, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.29
Rating: 2
Summary: Read this to know something, but be warned not much is new
Comment: While Habegger does provide some original insight into Edward Dickinson, the majority of this book does not present new evidence or new interpretation. The documentation of sources is done terribly (it barely exists), which is not excusable in someone who is a scholar. I realize this book is not written for a scholarly audience, but with the recent problems Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin have had, Habegger should have been much more careful. For the reader new to ED and wanting to know about her, this book will provide all the usual information. What is troubling is that there is a fair amount of speculative commentary provided that isn't well backed up, especially when it comes to ED's relationships with her sister-in-law and her parents. Quite a few assertions are stated as fact but don't have the evidence to back them up. This is the problem with a lot of Dickinson biographies--biographers (most of them scholars) don't seem to feel that it's necessary to explain that a lot of what they say is speculation and not fact; most casual readers won't know this and take everything that's said as not only fact, but fact provided by someone who really knows what they're talking about. Habegger knows more than many, but his material is not presented in a way that is acceptable scholarship because it's mostly his opinion with some quotations taken out of context.
There are also several factual errors, but I'm told these are being corrected for the paperback edition which is due out next month.
Rating: 5
Summary: an inspired look at a mysterious poet
Comment: Beginning with Habegger's inspired choice of the title, from one of Dickinson's poems, this book is a comprehensive, respectful look at an enigmatic woman. Habegger fleshes out well the cast of characters in her self-limited sphere, so that we feel we know well her family members and friends of that Victorian era so different from our own. The poet herself remains somewhat elusive, but I thank Habegger for refusing to reduce her to psychological cliches. His book is refreshingly free of five-cent analyses, however tempting Dickinson's character might be for such dismissive summaries.
There is no doubt that Dickinson ranks as one of the greatest American poets, due to her concise, spare, whimsical, and cerebral approach. Personally, I have never warmed to her poetry as I sense something lacking. She elevates feeling above all, as do all the poets of the romantic period. Unlike her Puritan ancestors, for whom the greatest love was the love of God, her energies and attachments all flow both from, and toward, her own feelings. Like a moonstruck adolescent, she prefers her dreams of love to the actual presence of the loved one. From her decision to withdraw from the necessary order and balance of the outside world, comes this outpouring of intense feeling expressed in the large body of her work.
As a Lay Carmelite whose spiritual life has also been informed by Puritan ancestors, I praise the beauty of Dickinson's poems, but I cannot deny what seems to me their essential, self-referring shallowness. I know many will disagree with me and I do not disallow her position in the American canon.
Rating: 4
Summary: academically valid without being boring
Comment: I began this book with trepidation, for I find myself slightly suspicious of literary biographies finding them to be either too sensationalized or reductive or too academic to be interesting to the average reader. This is a well-researched volume that does not read like a doctoral thesis. But Alfred Habegger manages to discover a delightful balance between scholarly research and public readability.
I adore Dickinson and was impressed with the manner in which Habegger handled his subject. He presents her with the complexity and intellectual approach toward she deserves. Emily Dickinson appears as neither the bizarre recluse nor a misunderstood sexual being of some of her previous biographies. If, as some readers have found, the poet appears a bit unresolved and incomplete, it is only because Mr. Habegger wisely chose NOT to sensationalize his book with unsubstantiated presumptions as to her personal life. I enjoyed the author's scholarly, non-sensationalist approach to Ms. Dickinson and found that it did not prevent me from "knowing her" as a person or subject.
One of Alfred Hebeggar's greatest strengths is his realization that no artist exists in a vacuum. He presents to his readers the complex outer world that inspired the poets rich inner world allowing us to draw many of our own conclusions. Meticulously researched and gently paced, the book is a journey not merely a chronicle of a single life. Instead, it is an insightful look at the entire Dickinsonian world of family, academics, and petty town politics. Habegger introduces the reader to the poet's entire extended family and the emotional movement within it. He allows the reader to truly see the social and political environment in which the poet lived. And that is fascinating in its own right.
Overall, I enjoyed the book very much and appreciate Alfred Hebeggar's unique ability to strike a balance scholarship and authorship. He is never condescending, yet he explains thoroughly. He treats the reader as an intelligent person with a mind eager for historical details and biographical accuracy and he treats his subject with respect and intellectual dignity. His book is academically valid without sacrificing the art of solid writing.
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Title: The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Belknap) by R.W. Franklin, Emily Dickinson ISBN: 0674676246 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Life of Emily Dickinson by Richard Benson Sewall ISBN: 0674530802 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 1994 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson ISBN: 0316184136 Publisher: Little Brown & Co (Pap) Pub. Date: January, 1976 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford ISBN: 0375760814 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 10 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson by Emily Dickinson, Ellen Louise Hart, Martha Nell Smith ISBN: 0963818368 Publisher: Paris Pr Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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