Rating: 
Summary: Pound the elder
Review: The ABC of Reading
This book I had wanted to read for a long time, as I am convinced that Ezra Pound had one of the the greatest ears for the music of poetry in history. I started reading, but soon found out that the book was written in 1934 and Pound was becoming crazy. He repeats himself indefinetely, his sub-titles do not say anything of what is coming, he's shooting out a stream of aphorisms, which may be good in themselves, but not more. He gives tests meant for a classroom, which I don't think very highly of, about looking through a text and finding words that obscure the meaning. The best lesson I think, is when he wants one to describe a physical object so that you can't mistake it for any other object. I would add then, try to shorten the multi-page writing as much as possible, till you got the key features of the object, still unmistakly what it is. Pound gave criticque to Eliot, Hemmingway, Joyce, Frost, letting their own way of writing bloom. I don't think this book will account for his mastership of personal guiding. It's a crazy mans work. The best part of this book, then, lies in the texts he's found, searching the whole of english poetry, and gives to us. Some great surprises there.
I think Pound made his best writings before 1925, with his smaller poems collected in Personae. In this time of sanity and good friendships with Yeats, Eliot, Joyce and so on, he wrote an essay called How To Read, and this ABC-book is a review or something - of the essay and criticism of it, and some other essays he'd written in the past. This essays are readily available in T.S. Eliots collection of Pounds essays.
I will read those, and keep the "ABC of writing" with Tolstoy's "What is Art?". To me, there is Pound, and Pound the elder. The young master didn't - I think - have views needing to lead to Pound the elder. Such a change is maybe better explained through chemical changes in the brain. The book is typed in what I think is Pound's favorite font. He used it in most of his releases. It's the greatest and I don't know what it's name is or where to find it.
Rating: 
Summary: An extremely eccentric, yet valuable, book!
Review: This book has been a companion of mine for many years. It offers a good many blazing truths, to wit: "Never pay any attention at all to literary prizes, including the Nobel." That one sentence has saved me enormous time. And Pound was RIGHT (as he would capitalize it in his own book). Literary prizes are political. They have NOTHING to do with literary merit. (Or is Pearl Buck one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century?) But the book is eccentric, even verging on the crackpot. For example, one would expect an "ABC" to be something for beginners, and E.P. says so on the first page, referring to his book as a "gradus ad Parnassum." Yet, somehow, the very first exercise for the reader presents two bits of poetry in Italian, one bit of poetry in French, one bit in English (by Yeats), and one bit in Old English. There is no effort -- not even a hint of an effort -- at translation! So you need to be aware that Ezra Pound's "beginners" could read Italian, French, and Old English. Pound does not actually whomp the reader with Chinese in his book (although he would like to), but he does declare that anyone lacking the elementary vocabulary needed to understand Chaucer "should be excluded from the company of good books forever." So -- brace yourself -- the ante has been raised: Italian, French, English, Old English, and Middle English are now the tools of the beginner! Another eccentricity is something I have recently investigated: Pound's claim that the Arthur Golding translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" was (and I quote) -- "the most beautiful book in English." Since this Renaissance translation is available from Amazon, I ordered it and read it -- at least the first few dozen pages. What could Pound have been thinking? This Golding translation is a LIMPING thing; it is NOT a good translation of Ovid (the modern translation by Melville is MUCH better!). And to call it "the most beautiful book in English???" Well: a. Beowulf
b. The Canterbury Tales
c. Troilus and Criseyde
d. The plays of Kit Marlowe
e. Shakespeare's Sonnets
f. The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet... But I think I'll stop there. There are probably a few hundred books in English which are obviously superior to this Golding thing. And yet, the book stays in my library. It is extremely thought-provoking!
Rating:
Summary: An extremely eccentric, yet valuable, book!
Review: This book has been a companion of mine for many years. It offers a good many blazing truths, to wit: "Never pay any attention at all to literary prizes, including the Nobel." That one sentence has saved me enormous time. And Pound was RIGHT (as he would capitalize it in his own book). Literary prizes are political. They have NOTHING to do with literary merit. (Or is Pearl Buck one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century?) But the book is eccentric, even verging on the crackpot. For example, one would expect an "ABC" to be something for beginners, and E.P. says so on the first page, referring to his book as a "gradus ad Parnassum." Yet, somehow, the very first exercise for the reader presents two bits of poetry in Italian, one bit of poetry in French, one bit in English (by Yeats), and one bit in Old English. There is no effort -- not even a hint of an effort -- at translation! So you need to be aware that Ezra Pound's "beginners" could read Italian, French, and Old English. Pound does not actually whomp the reader with Chinese in his book (although he would like to), but he does declare that anyone lacking the elementary vocabulary needed to understand Chaucer "should be excluded from the company of good books forever." So -- brace yourself -- the ante has been raised: Italian, French, English, Old English, and Middle English are now the tools of the beginner! Another eccentricity is something I have recently investigated: Pound's claim that the Arthur Golding translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" was (and I quote) -- "the most beautiful book in English." Since this Renaissance translation is available from Amazon, I ordered it and read it -- at least the first few dozen pages. What could Pound have been thinking? This Golding translation is a LIMPING thing; it is NOT a good translation of Ovid (the modern translation by Melville is MUCH better!). And to call it "the most beautiful book in English???" Well: a. Beowulf
b. The Canterbury Tales
c. Troilus and Criseyde
d. The plays of Kit Marlowe
e. Shakespeare's Sonnets
f. The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet... But I think I'll stop there. There are probably a few hundred books in English which are obviously superior to this Golding thing. And yet, the book stays in my library. It is extremely thought-provoking!
Rating: 
Summary: Provocative and Incisive
Review: When I first read this book, I was so angered that I scribbled my indignant protests against Pound's arrogance and judgemental elitism all over the margins. I reread it two years later and felt very sheepish. I had been offended because I was as ignorant as the book made me feel and it is only later, having a greater appreciation for the importance of Pound's role as an editor for major C20th writers and pioneer of honest critical writings, that I was able to come to terms with it. Pound is often very pithy and this can lead to an irritating smugness with which he assumes a position of unassailable knowledge, but I am still being surprised by discovering the accuteness of his judgements. Any book composed so much of opinion is going to be wrong occasionally, but Pound's clear attitude that one can learn more from a little excellent writing than loads of rubbish can itself make the challenge he sets to educate tastes feel less intimidating than his initial impression. It is part exercise book and part anthology and takes little time to read compared to the impact which it can have in improving critical habits as well as giving a wider perspective on global culture.
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