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May Sarton ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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May Sarton Encore: a Journal of the Eightieth Year
Norton 0704343800 / 9780704343801 PAPERBACK Good
0704343800 From Publishers Weekly nThose who may picture old age as static, retrospective, or restrictive will find a wholesome corrective in poet Sarton's journal of her 80th year. As she did in her previous journal, Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year , Sarton demonstrates that old age can be a vibrant and liberating experience in which one possesses the freedom to be absurd, the freedom to forget things . . . the freedom to be eccentric. Sarton's engrossing daily journal discloses varied octogenarian satisfactions--garden and flowers that bloom in every entry, celebratory lunches with friends and admirers who frequent her Maine home, the heady bouquet of critical recognition, the rebirth of her poetic voice and newly written poems. Though Sarton's tone is positive, it is never naive: old age also means bouts of pain and ill health, wearying domestic disasters, a war against fatigue, and a keen awareness of the perilousness of life on all sides, knowing that at any moment something frightful may happen. Despite these parameters, the dominant note sounded is fearless and triumphant, and Sarton's superb accomplishment in these journals may be in convincing us that old age is an experience not to fear, but to look forward to: we believe her when she affirms, So here I am, a lucky old woman, rejoicing in her life on this great earth. Photos not seen by PW . nCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf?gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels. n nFrom Kirkus Reviews nAs Gloria Steinem might say, this is what 80 looks like: a pale paean to flowers, food, and friends. Sarton's novel As We Are Now (1973)--a brilliant and moving fictional journal of life (and death) in a nursing home--makes this memoir pallid by comparison, and the problems of inconsequential, lackluster writing that appeared in Sarton's earlier journals of infirmity and old age (Endgame, 1992, etc.) crop up here as well. The life cycle of the flowers on the author's Maine estate are documented in detail; lunches, dinners, and flower arrangements provided by friends and ``fans'' are described exquisitely; pain (apparently caused by intestinal blockage), medication, and visits to the holistic doctor who monitors the author's diet are carefully depicted. Sarton's joy in her cat, her many visitors (especially friend Susan, who frequently comes bearing roses but who isn't otherwise identified), and her fan mail is matched by the burden she feels in answering letters, letting in her cat at 1:00 a.m. (and sometimes again at 4:00 a.m.), and checking the weather. But the last handful of entries here reminds us of Sarton the well- regarded novelist and poet. In them, apparently in response to improving health, she switches from dictating into a tape recorder to writing the day's events, and from simple sentences in which ``wonderful'' is the adjective du jour to a richer, more thoughtful prose style. This is her last journal, Sarton says; her next project will be a novella based on a recent trip to England. Sarton's energy and focus are inspiring--but readers looking for analysis or fresh literary gossip won't find them here. (Photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ?1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf?gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
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4.00 EUR
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May Sarton Endgame : A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year
Women's Press, Limited, The 0704343320 / 9780704343320 PAPERBACK Good
0704343320 From Publishers Weekly nIn the latest installment in Sarton's series of journals, the author must struggle with the encroachments of illness and frailty upon independence. nCopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Taschenbuch. n nFrom Kirkus Reviews nSarton resumes the litany of woes she began in Recovering (1980) and continued in At Seventy (1984) and After the Stroke (1988). This new installment, like the earlier ones, is packed with tales of depression, dyspepsia, wearisome diets, and wobbly dentures, among other tribulations. In addition to these Job-like entries, Sarton includes in this yearlong journal comments on such familiar topics as her garden, the harshness of Maine winters, and her past lesbian love affairs; she settles some old literary scores as well (John Ciardi comes in for a bit of bashing here). Self-congratulation permeates the pages: References to Sarton's ``fans'' appear frequently, joined by such boasts as, ``I don't think there are many writers--serious writers--who make as much money as I do.'' If this journal was not so obviously intended for publication but was in fact merely a kind of personal diary, the inclusion of many of the details recorded would be far more explicable. As it is, even the most devoted of Sarton's admirers are unlikely to find the fact that the author ate ``mussels and delicious, chopped-up fresh spinach'' on March 11, 1991, of enormous interest. When she turns her gaze outward, though, Sarton is far more interesting. She draws a gracious if inconclusive portrait of Virginia Woolf, with whom she often had tea in the late 1930's, and she reminisces about Lord David Cecil in several anecdotes that celebrate his erudition and eccentricity. Overall, far too garrulous and far, far too querulous. (Fifty- one photos--not seen.) -- Copyright ?1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf?gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels. n nAlle Produktbeschreibungen
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2.00 EUR
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