By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Rating:
Summary: Okay, okay, so it's a bit overwrought,
Review: And some (cynics, prudes, realists; people who like their brilliance consistent & unmarred) may find the prose so purple as to warrant UV-protection. And, of course, they're right -- up to a point. For there's certainly no shortage of examples they can cite to send up its extravagance ("When my eyes float around the room like two ships lost on the sea, I know the exact measurements of my captivity.").

But in this (admittedly) florid little book are moments of such delirious intensity! Here is Love's catalogue, all of its wild oscillations (desire & more desire, plenitude & lack, the ecstasy of self-transcendence and the terror of self-dissolution), and turns of phrase to turn your head around: "I am over-run, jungled in my bed, I am infested with a menagerie of desires..." Or this: "There is no room for pity, of anything. In a bleeding heart I should find only exhilaration in the richness of the red."

"By Grand Central..." reads not like the diary of an affair calmly recollected and retold (intensely autobiographical, the book has its origins in the real-life love affair between Smart and poet George Barker) but rather one howled and sung by nerve-endings still raw from love-rub. And if your ears can withstand the howls, the song -- at times -- rises up into registers of beauty you've never heard before.

And for everyone else? There's always Hemingway.

Rating:
Summary: Okay, okay, so it's a bit overwrought,
Review: And some (cynics, prudes, realists; people who like their brilliance consistent & unmarred) may find the prose so purple as to warrant UV-protection. And, of course, they're right -- up to a point. For there's certainly no shortage of examples they can cite to send up its extravagance ("When my eyes float around the room like two ships lost on the sea, I know the exact measurements of my captivity.").

But in this (admittedly) florid little book are moments of such delirious intensity! Here is Love's catalogue, all of its wild oscillations (desire & more desire, plenitude & lack, the ecstasy of self-transcendence and the terror of self-dissolution), and turns of phrase to turn your head around: "I am over-run, jungled in my bed, I am infested with a menagerie of desires..." Or this: "There is no room for pity, of anything. In a bleeding heart I should find only exhilaration in the richness of the red."

"By Grand Central..." reads not like the diary of an affair calmly recollected and retold (intensely autobiographical, the book has its origins in the real-life love affair between Smart and poet George Barker) but rather one howled and sung by nerve-endings still raw from love-rub. And if your ears can withstand the howls, the song -- at times -- rises up into registers of beauty you've never heard before.

And for everyone else? There's always Hemingway.

Rating:
Summary: Okay, okay, so it's a bit overwrought,
Review: And some (cynics, prudes, realists; people who like their brilliance consistent & unmarred) may find the prose so purple as to warrant UV-protection. And, of course, they're right -- up to a point. For there's certainly no shortage of examples they can cite to send up its extravagance ("When my eyes float around the room like two ships lost on the sea, I know the exact measurements of my captivity.").

But in this (admittedly) florid little book are moments of such delirious intensity! Here is Love's catalogue, all of its wild oscillations (desire & more desire, plenitude & lack, the ecstasy of self-transcendence and the terror of self-dissolution), and turns of phrase to turn your head around: "I am over-run, jungled in my bed, I am infested with a menagerie of desires..." Or this: "There is no room for pity, of anything. In a bleeding heart I should find only exhilaration in the richness of the red."

"By Grand Central..." reads not like the diary of an affair calmly recollected and retold (intensely autobiographical, the book has its origins in the real-life love affair between Smart and poet George Barker) but rather one howled and sung by nerve-endings still raw from love-rub. And if your ears can withstand the howls, the song -- at times -- rises up into registers of beauty you've never heard before.

And for everyone else? There's always Hemingway.

Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars is not enough at all...
Review: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is the
most amazing book I've read this year. Hands Down!!
Its a hymn to unrequited love and passion. It is the
fire burning deep within while it snows outside. It is
the feeling of being lonely and alone...It is a work
of sheer genius.

Ms. Smart recounts and retells her love affair with
the famous poet George Barker and thus gives us this
enchanting piece of art. Poetic prose it is one book
you could die for.

I just started this book today at 3:30 a.m. and
finished it in no time. Why? Because the language, the
plot, the genuineness of the tale enchanted and
enthralled me. The words sinked and seeped into my
existence. For anyone who has ever been in love, this
book is a must!!

Rating:
Summary: Ardent Passion in it's most Primal Form
Review: I read this wonderful book 4 summers ago, (and still re-read it now and then)while vacationing in the Georgian Bay Islands, north of Toronto, Ontario, not far from where Elizabeth Smart originated from. From the first page, I was entwined with the lyrical prose and the all too real characters. I found myself re-living/remembering a form of love so intense, so passionate and all consuming...but to have it all encapsulated in this little gem of a book, so rich in colorful prose form, only illuminated something so rare and precious, that I for one, was once fortunate to have had in my lifetime. If you are one of the few that has ever experienced this form of love, you will find yourself re-living a part of yourself that you may have forgotten about...Or, if you're one of the many that has yet to experience that degree of powerful, yet uncontrollable, most ardent passion (that many believe only happens in the movies)...then read this unique book and experience first-hand the gut wrenching, heart stopping delirium of love, in it's most sincere, magical, sometimes painful, yet always, primal form.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed but enjoyable (in a depressing kind of way)
Review: I saw this on my dad's bookshelf and fell in love with the title. It wasn't long since I'd been studying Eliot and the bathos (not to mention religious reference) in the title reminded me of him.

The book contains plenty of such moments - the police interview being my favourite. The language is rich and at times almost sickly (if it was much longer it could well become unbearable)

Criticising this book as overwrought and self indulgent is to miss the point. It's about a someone who is comletely distraut and obsessed about the events of there life. Everything in the world becomes her sorrow - literature, religion, history and nature are all made to reflect her state of mind. It's what all bad teenage poetry is aspiring too.

Overall it feels slightly flawed but don't let that put you off reading it; flawed books are often more interesting than near perfect ones. It may be over the top but it's certainly unusual and I enjoyed reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Magically poetic.
Review: In my short life I have read numerous books, some I read with the detachment they deserved and some I perused with interest. This novel had me enthralled from the first sentence. It took three hours to read it and even though it is a book that you need to read over and over, the sheer poetic beauty is recognisable straight away. I strongly believe that this is the most most powerful story I have ever read, and yet it doesn't receive the recognition that it truly deserves. This book of poetic prose tells the story of a woman's love affair with a married man, the joy and despair it brings her, but mainly it delves deeply into the magic of love and how, even for just the short amount of time that it lasts it becomes everything that this young woman lives for. I strongly recommend this book to those who need depth and soul.

Rating:
Summary: An exquisitely written, beautiful book.
Review: It is a shame that this beautiful little book is out of print. Smart's liquid prose moves from bittersweet to ecstatic, but is always achingly lovely. Her love affair is rendered in exquisite language that lifts it to the level of myth or epic poetry.The book deserves to be better recognized.

Rating:
Summary: O I don't know...
Review: My friend who leant me this book was really knocked out by it, and I could see why - there is something great in its extremeness. The novel is devoted to the author's very single-minded and solipsistic obsession/love (for the poet George Barker). For that extremeness and for scattered lines that knocked me out too, I'm glad I read it and give it a few stars.

But overall I agree with the reviewers who found the book painful and unintentionally funny because it is so out-of-control purple. (How bout spelling "O" the regular way, with an "h," now and then? :) The terrific bits of writing get lost in the really overdone passages - less so in the beginning, before so much of the bad stuff accumulates (e.g., "I am more vulnerable than the princess for whom 7 mattresses could not conceal one pea.")

The book has a very insular feel. It is dense with literary allusions woven casually into the prose. Based on the ones I recognized, like the fragment from Blake, I questioned the value of hunting up the others - I guess I just don't trust that the book would bring the active reader anywhere really rewarding - instead I got the feeling that Smart wasn't interested in her effect on readers, at least not any but George Barker. Which isn't necessarily the worst thing, it's sort of interesting, but this book could have been way more powerful if it had been more effectively crafted, if it had exploited its impact on the reader. Instead it's like reading the diary of someone pretty young, very gifted, but self-indulgent in the way young diary-writers are - the novel sort of doesn't seem meant for public consumption.


Rating:
Summary: The Desperation of Love
Review: Never before have I read a book that captures the desperation of love so eloquently. Elizabeth Smart is able to avoke such vivid images of pain that this novel left me breathless. The whole book is one major work of lyrical prose put together so magnificently that I simply had to read the whole thing out loud.