Honestly, the main thing that cost this the star was the fact that Crawford describes T.S. Eliot as "Tom." Constantly. Literally on every pag3.5 stars
Honestly, the main thing that cost this the star was the fact that Crawford describes T.S. Eliot as "Tom." Constantly. Literally on every page. Like, that's how he talks about him on every single page. He has some bullshit reason, like making Eliot seem intimate to us or whatever, but this is bullshit because it just seems creepy, distracting, and weirdly voyeuristic, especially when you consider in this period (up to The Waste Land), even Ezra Pound called him "T.S.E.", and the main people who called him Tom were his family and his wife. It is just so distracting, and I'm not sure if this kind of "cosiness" is really the point of biography. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just saying I'm not sure.
(Incidentally, I saw Eliot's childhood pictures in Kings' archive and it's weird as hell. Baby Eliot looks like a puppet, and his eyes appear - at least to me - to be very out of proportion. He just looks like a very shrunken version of his grownup self and that is weird. Perhaps I shouldn't be lecturing Crawford on overfamiliarity when I got an archivist to show me Eliot's family pictures.)
There's also a tendency towards over-interpretation or clumsy linkings, which would be okay but this book seems somewhat confused as to whether it's a critical book or an autobiography. As an autobiography, it's really very good, but its weird forays into clunking into random bits of young Eliot's poetry often don't flow quite right.
Buuuuut...with all that said -- this book is invaluable to anyone doing an Eliot dissertation/long piece of work, especially if you're focusing on Eliot's early work (as I have this year). If your library doesn't have good resources or whatever, I seriously advise you to invest in this book. You don't necessarily have to listen to some of the stuff Crawford throws into the mix (in fact, I would suggest that you didn't), but the sheer volume of details, fragments, cuttings, and official documentation he's presumably scoured the globe (?) to find is...extraordinary. There's also a fantastic selection of the letters to choose from, if you can't face combing through around 10,000 pages (I'm not even exaggerating that much) of his letters to find the diamonds. So, yeah, do buy, but I would strongly advise you not to listen - but, thanks, Crawford, for the amazing amount of original research and compiling. Saved me this year....more
This is one of the saddest, most harrowing, horrifying books I've ever read. Despite an occasionally dragging plot, I read it in 24 hours and it made This is one of the saddest, most harrowing, horrifying books I've ever read. Despite an occasionally dragging plot, I read it in 24 hours and it made me cry. And, incidentally, it was absolutely the wrong book to read during Storm Frank. The entire house shook for most of it, and I've been cold for 24 hours....more
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