Rating: 
Summary: Was he worth it?
Review: The ultimate in purple passionate prose by a love-sick woman. It might be too purple and passionate for some. A lot of agonizing guilt over the fact that her lover was married (in fact the real life George Barker was married many times so she might have been in doubt which wife to have the agonizing guilt about).
The basic story is of her meeting the British poet George Barker in California (where he was trying to stay to sit out the Second World War) and travelling across America to New York with him. He gets into jail and hospital and eventually has to return to England.
It becomes more coherent if you read Rosemary Sullivan's "By Heart" which is a biography of Elizabeth Smart. It's interesting to read of her later friendly contacts with Barker and his last wife. There's also a biography of George Barker by Robert Fraser which I haven't seen yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Painful
Review: This book is painfully, wretchedly, horribly bad. There's a reason this book is not commonly hailed as a classic by academia. There is a difference between using prose-poetry form as a method to subvert the traditional intentions and expectations of poetic form and writing in such a convoluted manner that one's words and images become a "code," only decipherable by readers who believe they've experienced just as nasty a relationship as the author and can insert whatever necessary information they think they need to. There is absolutely nothing vaguely interesting about the author's intentions or thoughts (so far as one can tell), and there is nothing remotely skillful about the style in which the text is constructed. The only use for this text is as an example to university literature and creative writing students of "what not to do." The highpoint, however, is that the metaphors and images are so over-done, so bad, so downright ludicrous that the whole text becomes really, really funny. That, however, was not Smart's goal, one would suspect. Don't spend your money on this text; go buy prose poetry by an author whose name you've heard before. There's a reason you've heard *that* name and not Elizabeth Smart.
Rating:
Summary: More Than A Feeling
Review: This book takes literaryness to a whole new level. It surpasses impressionism, even expressionism at it's best. It is a whirlwind of emotions. Rather than a mere book to be read, think of it as an experience to be savoured, a black-hole of emotion in which to hurl yourself - enjoy the ride!
Rating:
Summary: "Noise," not Art
Review: This book, as anyone well read enough to catch the link between the title and the line in T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland is made aware, is heavily dependent upon other poets and writers for its content and effect. In short, it's not very original. Indeed, the last page in the book contains two concluding allusions to a poem by Ezra Pound. I suppose Ms. Smart either hoped nobody would notice them; or, if they did, to consider her ever so clever for conjoining her work with Mr. Pound's. -Either way, one doesn't get the feel that one is reading anything moving or original here.In lieu of this derivative and misguided work, I would recommend the masterwork of a novella that Ms. Smart is obviously trying to emulate-Nightwood by Djuna Barnes. This book isn't really a work of art, but as the narrator herself puts is, "The noise of my inside seas."----And don't call her Ishmael.
Rating:
Summary: Depressing? Not quite...
Review: This is a beautifully brilliant book -- more of an extended prose poem than a novella. While we flow along with Smart on the torrents of this not-quite-unrequited relationship with poet Barker, we learn that although love may be wrenching, it is certainly worth it, hence the expression: it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Smart expresses that it worth it to be passionate about love and to live life in love with everything. It may be painful at times, but the pleasure can be excruciatingly beautiful. In Smart's own words are words to live by: "Love all things in all ways, but never less than total." Reading Grand Central is to experience the anguish and the splendor of a love relationship.
Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking prose
Review: This is a book that you need to read several times over. Each sentence and paragraph is beautifully crafted into stunning prose. The story of her affair and her love for a married man comes from deep in her heart. A strong and beutiful woman who never quite got what she wanted but was blessed with the happy progeny of their union. This is truly a leading piece of 20th century prose. Get it and savour every bit.
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