The Waste Land and Other Writings (Modern Library Classics)

I have several books of T.S. Eliot's works and I prefer this one over the rest. It is a nice compilation of his oeuvre, with his poetry and prose, and most importantly this book does not clutter up his writings with some other person's reflections on what Eliot is saying. This is a great book for reading The Waste Land, one of his true master works. I ordered another book that had The Waste Land broken down with commentary throughout, and it detracted from reading it. This book does have an introductory section that explains how to read The Waste Land, which is nice, and commendably is not stuck in the middle of the actual work so that it interrupts it. This book has a nice smattering of his poems like Morning At The Window and Whispers of Immortality, then gives you some of his great essays like Tradition And The Individual Talent. I applaud the publisher for putting together this great collection.

T.S. Eliot was a major poet and one I'm never sure I have ever really understood though I have read his poems many times. This is a fine selection of important poems and some major interpretive essays in an easy package to buy and read.

I read this on gloomy days, in the house, in the car before work, whenever I feel in the mood for some poetry. I'm really happy I got this.

I received the book looking beaten up. There are tears and weird marks of black and white smeared all over the cover. The text seems fine. Missed return window, otherwise I would not keep this book.

One of my favorite books of poetry, a must-read.

Nice

I just finished a Modern Library anthology of T.S. Eliot's writings entitled simply "The Waste Land And Other Writings". Beginning with an entertaining if somewhat controversial introduction by Mary Karr, the next 234 pages provide a glimpse into Eliot's creative and critical mind. Being an autodidact, I confess ignorance about where Mr. Eliot stands in the esteem of academia today, but I was able to easily find - thanks to the internet - plenty of current syllabi showing that his works are still being discussed.My interest in Catholic writers during what I consider the New Golden Age of Western Literature (1920 - 1970) led me to this book. I was not disappointed. You may not agree with my designation or its range of years but you will perhaps agree with me that, in a macro sense, this prior era is our nearest peak in literature. It was modernity barely alive after the coronary thrombosis of World War I. American and British education just prior to this gilded age had been at its peak in terms of quality if not quantity, and a high school graduate from 1890 to 1920 would have been a master of English, a worthy apprentice of Latin and Greek, and more than a little acquainted with French. Compared to today's students, most of them would appear to be polyglots.Not only that, but the culture then was fairly stable (no culture is perfect) and uniform, based on the now-tired hyphenate: Judeo-Christian principles. This does not mean that people were more religious then; simply, that they consciously or unconsciously played by the cultural rules. The stigma of "sinner" was greater for both those who believed and those who didn't, but for those who didn't, it didn't mean much outside the public eye. If this seems an oversimplified explanation, I plead innocence by reason of my education, if you'll tolerate the joke. In any event, when World War II came along and finished ole Modernity, up flew the phoenix called Post-Modernism.The old modern may not have worried much about the application of Judeo-Christian principles to his individual life, but he did place some value on the macro effects of that culture. He transgressed, perhaps, but he did not proselytize his sin; he did not want his transgression to become accepted in the culture because he saw the bigger picture. With postmodernism, there is no big picture, "there's only you and I and we just disagree" or so the pop song goes.Keeping the discussion at its current level of abstraction, I would define postmodernism as modernism without the Judeo-Christian framework. Modern man has always transgressed, but with our new era, he can transgress and be accepted at the same time. He can be ignorant of the facts and still be a teacher. He can make vice virtue and virtue vice and the world still turns. There is a love of progress without any clear idea of the destination; there is no accountability because there is no reality to account for; and, after putting the puny human animal in his insignificant place in the universe, most postmodernists then exalt this humanity, especially the individual human, to the center of everything. All of which makes for entertaining ideas but strangely empty minds if by empty we mean to say unable to comprehend the truth.Take, for instance, the essay by Syracuse University's Mary Karr that opens the book. Professor Karr writes with clarity and humor, but there are deficiencies that a critic could not fail to notice. Early on, she praises Eliot for his avant-garde techniques while acknowledging that there are some who, while they admit he's still avant-garde, "eschew actually reading Eliot because he's a dead white guy who represents the old guard." You can't get past the irony here. Her reason for allowing Eliot to be characterized this way becomes apparent when, concerning the semi-explanatory notes that Eliot included with his poem "The Waste Land", she writes: "It's a little-recognized fact that the controversial notes were an afterthought...." Later, "Even knowing the randomness of the notes' insertion, you still can't ignore them wholesale. There they squat in the text. But once you stop cowing in their shadow, you can decipher them as whimsical rather than smug." Still later, they are "capricious and shifting in both purpose and attitude." And there are many more of the same. (Karr is not alone; I read an analysis by Nancy K. Gish in her book "The Waste Land - A Student's Companion to the Poem" that also gave short shrift to Eliot's notes.)By devaluing the notes, Karr fashions her analysis using one of postmodernisms favorite tools: a linguistic theory that places the word on the page above the intent of the author. She makes it clear that, for her, "The Waste Land" is a much better poem without bothering too much with what Eliot was trying to communicate. She does this because Eliot was far more conventional in his personal life than perhaps she and her readers would like to admit, and his later scholarship and the essays that came out of that scholarship lend an authority that works against the postmodern desire to turn "The Waste Land" into a life creed; and because Eliot ultimately rejected the latent nihilistic world view that others found there and renewed his devotion to his Catholic faith. To read a poem as a juxtaposition of words that communicate some inchoate feeling or desire without reference to the author's meaning is to miss the point. Not so, says the postmodernist, there is no point to miss.One final note about Karr's essay: she appears to be aware that many of her reader's will be indoctrinated by postmodern narcissism when she writes "Not to read it [The Waste Land] is to pretend that we of this twenty-first century have drawn ourselves whole (M.C.Escher-like) from our own heads. It's to ignore history, taking on faith that what now seems beautiful or important or right...has no source other than this time, this place." Well said. I would only add that "reading" involves discovering, as much as is possible, the author's intent otherwise we shall still be drawn whole from our own heads.

While I consider the price fair for the selection, and especially for including Mary Karr's essay, the ebook doesn't have any navigation unless you browse from the cover or know the page (Loc 16). Absence of notes or glosses is unfortunate, but I wouldn't hesitate to give the edition at least four stars if they included basic ebook navigation courtesies.Given the profusion of cheap editions of Eliot available, I suggest looking at the previews online, unless you specifically want to read Mary Karr's essay about The Waste Land, as I did.

Someone wrote all over the book and made it very hard for the next reader to enjoy it. I think it was a student.

Used as a reminder of the text and in preparation for a talk on the Waste Land. Ideal for both!

World War I has been called 'the suicide of Europe'. T.S. Eliot is wandering among the ruins, trying to pick up the pieces and revive Europe's glory. The resolution he finds is a prophetic one, announcing the 1970s.

Not for me