September 2014 Books

Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters edited by Linda Gray Sexton and Lois Ames

Published: 1977

Rating: 5

Goodreads

Anne Sexton was a Pulitzer-winning poet who died by suicide at 45.  She was survived by her ex-husband and two girls.   Anne named her oldest, Linda as literary executor which was an extraordinary burden for a 21-year old.

The reading of all her mom's letters was a massive undertaking as Anne was a prolific correspondent who kept carbon copies of everything - how strange it must have been to be reading the thoughts from her vibrant, brilliant, mentally unstable deceased mother.  

Anne's letters were often like streams of consciousness - effusive, open, honest - complete with spelling and grammar errors.  To more accomplished poets, she would send her poems and ask for critiques, favors and references.  She gave few tidbits about her family, rather wishing for more time and less distraction to devote to her art.  Her letters sound as if she were talking on the phone - informal, conversational, almost child-like and immature.

She had a long correspondence with W.D Snodgrass who won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Heart's Needle, a poem that had a profound impact on her.  

...that when I read your poem, that first time....it walked out at me, and grew like a bone inside my heart.

People are afraid of people, especially poets...I read "Heart's Needle" and I changed.  It made me see myself new. In seeing you, in feeling your marvelous restrained sense of immediate loss, I saw my own loss in a new color.

Poetry and poetry alone has saved me.

This type of impact was what she looked for and what she wanted to write:

 I rather like being slugged, to walk away from the poem with old wounds reopened...let the poem bruise me.

Creative people must not avoid the pain they get dealt....hurt must be examined like a plague.

Poetry need not be dull...

About her poetry:

Only in a poem is the emotion intensified, sharpened, made acute and sometimes more than I knew I knew...

You see, I am given to excess.  That's all there is to it.  I have found that I can control it best in a poem....if the poem is good then it will have the excess under control...it is the core of the poem...there, like stunted fruit, but actual.

Words bother me. I think it is why I am a poet. I keep trying to force myself to speak of the things that remain mute inside.  My poems have only come when I have almost lost the ability to utter a word. To speak, in a way, of the unspeakable. To make an object out of the chaos...to say what?  A final cry into the void.

It wasn't until I learned to work my guts out that a true poem came into being...fight for the poem. Put your energy into it. Force discipline upon madness....Push for the stars, or at least go back and push one poem all the way up there.

Inside I feel like a cooked broccoli...the heads that fall apart when you cut them. The only time I'm tough in my own mind is when I'm seized by a poem and then determined to conquer it and let it live it's own peculiar life. All my toughness goes into my writing. 

She does write openly about her depression - this quote was particularly poignant:

...not been able to write, been lonely, been sadder that sad toads would be if they are as sad as their blinking eyes seem to be.

 Four months before she committed suicide, she wrote the following to Erica Jong:

I keep feeling that there isn't one poem being written by any one of us - or a book, or anything like that. The whole life of us writers, the whole product I guess I mean, is the one long poem - a community effort if you will. It's all the same poem. It doesn't belong to any one writer - it's God's poem perhaps. Or God's people's poem....

...and if you can feel you are in touch with experience, if you've (so to speak) stuck your finger into experience and have got it right and can put it down so that others (even other experience tellers) can comprehend their own lives better, can crawl in closer to the truth of it, then you must get on with it! And keep right on.

After finishing, I wrote in by book journal:

WOW - what a woman - complicated.

What a life - tortured.

What an artist - ambitious, driven, obsessed. 

Next I plan to resume reading Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane Middlebrook and Linda Gray Sexton's second memoir, Half in Love: Surviving the Legacy of Suicide.

 The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart

Published as trilogy: 1980

The Crystal Cave (1970)

The Hollow Hills (1973)

The Last Enchantment (1979)

Rating:5

Goodreads

and

 The Wicked Day (Merlin #4) by Mary Stewart

Published: 1983

Rating:5

Goodreads

While on vacation this week, I've been transported back in time to the magical and heroic days of Merlin the sorcerer and Arthur, bastard son of King Uther Pendragon who succeeded him as High King when he took the sword in the stone, the subsequent battles whereby the new King and his Companions subdued the factions and brought peace to his kingdom, his own bastard son Mordred by half-sister Morgause, the barren but much loved Queen Guinevere - the cast of characters are larger-than-life and believable.

I found this YouTube interview with Mary Stewart who passed away earlier this year. It is interesting that she did not intend to write a series but ended up doing so based on the request of her publishers and fans. I am glad she did. 

In the interview, she is talks about the TV series done by BBC and how she was pleased with the adaptation. I plan to watch as it is available via streaming Netflix. This is good as I found myself wishing that someone like Peter Jackson would make movies out of the books.

For anyone who is interested in the Arthurian legend, I would highly recommend.

"The Lost Years of Merlin" Series by T.A. Barron

#1 The Lost Years of Merlin (1996) Good Reads review
#2 The Seven Songs of Merlin (1997) Good Reads review
#3 The Fires of Merlin (1998) Good Reads review
#4 The Mirror of Merlin (2001) Good Reads review
#5 The Wings of Merlin (2002) Good Reads review

Read: 2011
Genre: Fantasy fiction
Setting: Fincayra- mist shrouded island in between two worlds
Rating: 3
Author's web site

I read this series as the third step in my foray into the numerous books on Merlin and the Arthurian legend.  The first was the classic by T.H. White, The Once and Future King which I loved.  Second was the challenging Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory.

These books focus on Merlin and his boyhood and were recommended by my daughter.  It is "coming-of-age" story whereby a young boy with no memory must piece together who he is, where he came from, how he has the powers of a young wizard and more importantly how can he control and use them.  He learns of his fate or destiny that is related to a King Arthur in a distant land called Britannia. Along his many adventures, he meets and makes unusual friends as well as encounters villainous enemies.  He also falls in love.  Doesn't this sound similar to the storyline of the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling?

In the author's note of the first book, Barron says, " In sum, how did he become the wizard and mentor to King Arthur whom we celebrate today?  Questions such as these are not answered by the traditional lore. Nor do the words attributed to Merlin himself shed much light....My own view is that, during Merlin's lost years, he not only disappeared from the world of story and song.  Rather, I believe that Merlin himself disappeared - from the world as we know it.  This tale, spinning a few volumes, will attempt to bridge the gap.  The story begins when a young boy, without any name and without any memory of his past, washes ashore on the coast of Wales.  It concludes, when that same boy, having gained and lost a great deal, is ready to step into a central role in Arthurian legend."

The books are YA fantasy fiction and are quick reads.  

"The Once and Future King" and "The Book of Merlyn" by T.H. White

Published: 1958 and 1971
Read: 2010
Genre: Fantasy
Setting: England; Boy Arthur to King to death
Rating: 5
List: 1,001 books
Review: Good Reads

Referenced in Writing Fiction for Dummies book.  I’ve always wanted to read stories about King Arthur, Merlin, Gwenever, Camelot, Lancelot, etc and bought the book.  Also one of the 1,001 books.  Absolutely loved it and want to read more.  Agree with the publisher on B&N site:

“The whole world knows and loves this book. It is the magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad. It is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged.”

Five stories

Sword in the Stone - we see the boy Wart in Sir Ector’s castle who is tutored by Merlyn in unconventional ways (turning Wart into various animals to learn from them).  We see that Wart is a good, kind-hearted boy who thinks of others first, as opposed to Sir Ector’s natural son, Kay - a self-centered, arrogant, spoiled boy.  Wart pulls the sword out of the stone and becomes King Arthur of Britain.


Queen of Air and Darkness - we are introduced to Lot, his wife and A’s half sister (unbeknownst to him), Morgause, the mother of four boys who become knights (Gawaine, Agravaine, Gaheris and Gareth).  She also gives birth to Mordred, A’s bastard son.  Mess business.  In this book, we also witness A”s idea of the Knights of the Round Table, as a way to steer “Might into Right.”


The Ill-Made Knight - we are privy to Sir Lancelot story; the one who becomes one of the most  favored and successful knights and who falls in love with Queen Guenever.  The feeling is mutual and they become lovers.  Arthur is fond of both and deliberately turns a blind eye.  The knights are involved in quests of chivalry but due to the nature of man, become competitive with one another, fraying the whole concept of the Round Table.  Arthur then comes up with ultimate quest that is spiritual in nature - the Quest for the Holy Grail. This distracts the knights for a period of time, but the nature of man, once again shines through.  I

The Candle In the Wind - Mordred, Arthur’s bastard son bides his time and along the enemy of Lancelot,  Agravaine.  They plot against Guenever and Lancelot, using Arthur’s desire for law to settle problems:  if people are guilty of crimes, they must be punished (hanging, burning, etc).
At the end of this story, Arthur is away from England and has left Mordred as Protector.  He seizes power, intending to make himself King and marry Guenever.  When A hears of this, he is broken, tired, disillusioned, weak and feels like “what was the point?  Nothing has worked out as he thought.”

The Book of Meryn - the 5th story and a separate book, Merlyn shows up on the eve of battle and wisks Arthur away to palaver with his old friends, the animals.  They discuss the merits/demerits of man, the reason for war and how to avoid war.  And out of all the species of animals on earth, only man will make deliberate war on each other, a disgusting and abhorrent thought to other animals.

Memorable quotes

Josh’s dream job - 10/18/2010 blog post

“In Sir Ector’s kennel there was a special boy, call the Dog Boy, who lived with the hounds day and night.  He was a sort of head hound, and it was his business to take them out every day for walks, to pull thorns our of their feet, keep cankers out of their ears, bind the smaller bones that got dislocated, dose them for worms, isolate and nurse them in distemper, arbitrate in their quarrels and to sleep curled up among them at night” (43).

Story about a Elijah and the Rabbi.

 “In regard to the poor man who received us so hospitably, it was decreed that his wife was to die that night, but in regard for his goodness, God took the cow instead of his wife  I repaired the wall of the rich miser because a chest of gold was concealed near the place, and if the miser had repaired the wall himself he would have discovered the treasure.  Say not therefore to the Lord; What doest thou?  But say in they heart: Must nor the Lord of all the earth do right? (89).

God moves in mysterious ways - Merlyn’s story to Wart

“The best thing for being sad is to learn something.  That is the only thing that never fails....There is only thing for it then - to learn.  Learn why the world wags and what wags it.  That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.  Learning is the thing for you” (183).

King Arthur’s idea for the Knights of the Round Table:

“My idea is that if we can win this battle in front of us, and get a firm hold of the country, then I will institute a sort of order or chivalry.  We shall have to make it a great honour, you see, and make it fashionable and all that.  Everybody must want to be in.  And then I shall make the oath of the order that Might is only to be used for Right.  The nights in my order will ride all over the world, still dressed in steel and whacking away with their swords - that will give an outlet for wanting to whack you understand, an outlet for what Merlyn calls the foxhunting spirit - but they will be bound to strike only on behalf of what is good, and to restore what has been done wrong in the past and to help the oppressed and so forth.  It will be using the Might instead of fighting against it, and turning a bad thing into a good” (248).

 Lancelot’s deep insecurity - did Josh feel any of this? 10/18/2010 blog post

“The boy thought that there was something wrong with him.  All through his life - even when he was a great man with the world at his feet - he was to feel this gap: something at the bottom of his heart of which he was aware, and ashamed, but which he did not understand” (315). “Finally there was the impediment of his nature.  In the secret parts of his peculiar brain, those unhappy and inextricable tangles which he felt at the roots, the boy was disabled by something we cannot explain.  He could not have explained it either.  He loved Arthur and he loved Guenever and he hated himself.  the best knight in the world: everybody envied the esteem which surely musht be his.  But Lancelot never believed he was good nor nice.  Under the grotesque, magnificent shell with a face like Quasimodo’ s there was shame and self-loathing which had been planted there when he was tiny, by something which is now too late to trace. It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible” (368).
Lancelot

“He felt in his heart cruelty and cowardice, the things which made him brave and kind” (361).

Candle in the wind - idea given to a 13 year old boy by and old King Arthur:

“Thomas, my idea of those knights was a sort of candle.  I have carried it for many years with a hand to shield it from the wind.  It has flickered often.  I am giving you the candle now - you won’t let it out? (637).

Takeways

Read other Arthurian legend books

• Merlyn Trilogy by Mary Stewart
• Taliesin Series by Stephen Lawhead
• The Mists of Avalon Series by Marion Bradley
• Lost Years Merlin Series by T.A. Barrow
• Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory