| Title | : | Glass, Irony and God |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0811213021 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780811213028 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 142 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1995 |
Glass, Irony and God Reviews
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She whached the bars of time, which broke.
She whached the poor core of the world,
wide open. ‘The Glass Essay’
Flesh in after-glow math, reading without the lights. Her mother puts their things in the kitchen with the groceries. They parallel lapping, buzzing and caged birds the talk. I don’t know. I see the mother in flickering tv from before. Father/husband in hospital and doesn’t know who he is. The daughter time travels because an affair is over. Anger wakes up mornings. Emily Bronte, the whacher. Emily is the name of the house. Cleaning her carpets, she knew no pity. Small world, what was her concentration to prison? I was moved by her Emily questions when they were Emily. I was repulsed when they were fire for dead love affair confirmation. When was Emily first cold, when did the past become the reason for a time traveller. Caught in own bird’s-eye, Emily.
Is it a vocation of anger?
Why construe silence
as the Real Presence?
When the lover swerves to the wild in nude visions she believes there is no where else to go. I’m torn. I want no part of her therapist or word altars. Wildness like a thorn in a paw and a cry. Did Emily believe young. She believes now in nude women with thorns in the third-eye. You can’t go where you will, out run cold. How does Emily live in her house where Silence is her Thou. Is that where she is now?
I gave Charlotte the finger in my heart when she said that Emily didn't understand what she created. Did she have to name it? I had a depressing afternoon of googling Charlotte and her sisters the day I read this. I'm sad that Charlotte acted to keep Anne from readers. Charlotte had been my household name. I remember her a lot when being my own best friend is hard. Sometimes I think I'm gonna reread Jane Eyre for reinforcements.
Some people have to fight every moment of their lives
which God has lined with a burning animal-
I think because
God wants that animal kept alive.
‘Teresa of God’
snow shifts and settles on God.
On God’s bouquet.
The trees are white nerve nets.
‘God’s Bouquet of Undying Love’
God’s zipper, their knees. His word their words. I liked the “God” section best when thinking what it would be like with the animal. When they see his face why do some see the right face in the impressionistic painting and another the wrong side of the bed? I’ve no wish for proof or my own. If I could see their signs and know why Emily took her silence…. Something in the family.
Wrong people look good on TV, they are so obviously
a soul divided
‘TV Men: Hektor’
a whole darkness swung against the kind of sleep we
know,
the stumbled-into sleep of lanterns clipped on for a tour of the mine.
TV Men: The Sleeper
Roaches wouldn’t hide from the tv light.
There are laws against vice.
But the shock stays with you.
‘TV Men: Sappho’
TV is another altar to be alone. In conceptuals, when other people are watching. Not up close, to fall asleep to. Rot your rot. Silence/God/Thou/Eyes/Unbelief in humanity circles.
Your peace as an evangelist to me.
Your transformations unknown.
I study your sleeping form
at the bottom of the pool
like a house I could return to,
‘TV Men: The Sleeper’
I wonder if there might not be another idea of human order than repression, another notion of human virtue than self-control, another kind of human self than one based on dissociation of inside and outside. Or indeed, another human essence than self.
'The Gender of Sound'
The ancient Greeks must have invented the are you not entertained box. Probably was their idea to hire those dialect coaches to turn out Danny Kaye's leading ladies. Can't tell them apart. God "the man" society all the way down. I think there is another essence.... I'm just wary it like those written silence things.... -
Sometimes a book find you at exactly the right moment. I was in college and had a very limited knowledge of comtemporary (still living and writing) writers. I was chalk full of PLath and Sexton and Lowell and Whitman and then through a small series of events this book entered my life and I don't think anything I have ever written has been the same since.
There aren't a lot of words I can write that will do the book justice, but I will say on the record that I have yet to find more than a tiny handful of poems about God that are as moving, interesting, and resounding as these. Her essays, her poems, all sublime, all searching and weaving personal history with Greek Legend, the search for ourselves in our language, in our civilizations. I return to this book probably every few months and just flip to a random page and end up reading it for hours. There are a few perfect things in this world and sometimes they show up in the form of a book, Leaves Of Grass, A Hundred Years of Solitude, and in my opinion 2 books by Anne Carson- this one and Autobiography of Red. -
"Who in a nightmare
can help himself? (84) -
Even better than I remember, and I hope I reread it sooner next time.
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It is very cold
walking into the long scraped April wind.
At this time of the year there is no sunset
just some movements inside the light and then as sinking away.
These are meditations on mercy and the feminine. Issues of the divine struggle for capitalization, imploring Plato to find them as Form. This collection was powerful and I suspect if I had read it earlier in life it would have been devastating. It is as easily at home on the moors with Emily Brontë as it is wandering the Eternal City pondering the distances between tongues, between men and women. I was also mesmerized by Carson's gloss on Artaud.
Guy Davenport in his introduction is apt in his praise: Carson is a Poet, she's a classicist and always a philosopher. I wasn't familiar with her interest in volcanoes, although in light of her digressions on Hemingway against Stein that appears most fitting, though never appropriate. -
Video Review
I wish more people would read Anne Carson.
This is one of Anne Carson's earliest collections (in the UK), it's called Glass, Irony, and God in the US. The Glass Essay accounts for half of this book (Short Talks is at the end, with some smaller works in between). The Glass Essay is going to be in my all-time favourite poems for a very long time, I prefer it even to Nox and Autobiography of Red. -
All talk about God generally bores the hell out of me. It's like listening to bros talk about sports. I don't get it; I don't get the importance; I don't understand the bonding and meaning that sports/God provides. So all the God stuff in this book didn't do much for me (and that includes Carson's frequent mention of soul etc., even if it's predicated with a certain amount of skepticism, it reminds me of my current arty male friends who are secret sports fans – they preface sports talk with an ironic distance, which is fake, facile, and unnecessary). But despite all of that, "Book of Isaiah" is a knock out. It captures the rough-hewn brutality I remember in the earlier parts of the Torah/Old Testament: with God as a petulant child, constantly arguing with his favorites, and losing arguments! Carson's poem "Book of Isaiah" is great in its fear and dependency and resonates as a gender-bending hellish relationship based in power (God's and Isaiah's), responsibility (Isaiah's), and the fear of abandonment (God's). It's more than that, and it's filled with stunning lines, some prosaic and simple that still knocked me out, like
"Everything can collapse.
Houses, bodies
and enemies
collapse
when their rhythm becomes
deranged."
Or quick descriptors, like
"and she has got her smile up
as far as the mouth"
which I've seen and I've done and I remember telling myself while I'm doing it, "without the eyes crinkled, they'll know I'm faking it—you have to feel it; feel it; crinkle those eyes!"
And then filled with constant long complex things that I don't even remember the proper definitions of like simile and metaphor and analogy and crazy turns of phrase and rhythms. Those I can't even type here.
But as good as "Book of Isaiah" is, it's "The Fall of Rome" and even, more, "The Glass Essay" which are the knock outs here. "The Glass Essay," for me, might be one of the most powerful break-up poems I've read. (But again, I'm new to poetry.) The poem revolves around a stand in for Anne Carson who has recently broken up with a great love. She is visiting her mom who lives in the moors. She (Carson) brings along the complete works of Emily Bronte. So we bounce between Anne's reflections on her dead relationship; her current stunted relationship with her mom, the landscape of the moors, and her senile father; and her (and others) relations to and reflections on the unknowable Emily.
Ok... I have more to say, but I've had enough of heartbreak; enough tears; enough disappointment... I have a party to go to, and women to meet, and emotions to access, and heartbreak to come, and past love to repress, so I can rinse and repeat; rinse and repeat; until I can pretend to come out clean and Downy fresh. Or more likely: come home alone and even more despondent and sad, and go back to Anne Carson and Dana Ward and read until I go to sleep; or more realistically, even: read, then try to watch porn but end up lying in bed with a hand in my shorts and an arm over my eyes until I finally, finally drift off to bad dreams about loveless days and a lonely death...
Maybe, and unfortunately, more later. -
"You remember too much, / my mother said to me recently. / Why hold onto all that? And I said / Where can I put it down?" (10).
I found Carson's "The Glass Essay" to be riveting when I first read it in Lyric Essay (one of the Wheaton classes I miss the most), and it continually amazes me how art has an uncanny ability to meet us precisely where we are, taking on new meanings with time as we grow. I was so deeply moved by it all over again, dwelling on different verses this time round. Anne Carson's words, like "On the Sensation of Aeroplane Takeoff," have a way of nestling in and floating back to me in my most unguarded moments, and I think that's a mark of enduring poetry. -
Contains my favourite poem/essay of all time and is pretty much brain-stretching brilliance throughout.
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greaty+permanently appreciate the way carson discusses womanhood from the perspective of someone who is both stymied by and disidentifies with it
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Is there a great poet of our lifetimes? I'm not qualified to answer the question, but Anne Carson may be the great poet of my personal, reading lifetime so far, at least.
This work is well-rooted in classical thought and in narrative movement and scene. So when Carson shapes something new, it carries in its new sprigs the massive weight of Western thought. Its innovations, observations, and protests are all worthy of their history.
Glass, Irony and God is a series of poems (I'm tempted to call them "narrative poems" because of the potent sensations of scene, character, and movement) and one essay (the inclusion of which almost knocked it down a star for me, until I began thinking on the overall themes) about the soul under pressure. Its subject is evoked in scene, in literary and historical criticism, in worship, in rebellion, in direct attacks, and in singsong flybys.
What Carson says about her subject is, well, just read the thing and find out for yourself. -
there is something about how anne carson manages the very long poem that i will be pondering and studying for a very long time. obviously, gorgeous, knife-like. relentlessly absurd, which here leads to insight.
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I only really liked the Glass Essay... but man, I really, really liked it.
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This collection, although sometimes wordy and pretentious (a word I hate to associate with a super intelligent female writer, but I mean it in a good way) had one of the best poems I’ve ever read. If you aren’t going to pick up this collection, the glass essay is something worth reading on its own. The final essay in this was also super interesting and related to Greek mythology and women, which I found fun. I would probably appreciate this even more if I were to reread it, as it was honestly just pretty heavy.
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ObSeSsEd with 'The Glass Essay'
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okurken güzelliğine ağladım.
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Rivals my dedication, even, to Autobiography of Red. Now I'm kicking myself for not having read it sooner. I was wary that the book would not be able to keep up its running start from "A Glass Essay," but I was intrigued by "TV Men," and so entranced by "The Fall of Rome" that I started it over again when I read the last installment, before going on to the rest of the book. The essay at the end, "The Gender of Sound" provides clues for you to unravel when reading Plainwater, which would be a smart next step. Peas in a pod, except if peas were like snowflakes. Well, really all of AC's work is like that, snap to fit many ways you like it, always some undiscovered pattern with each reading, but never an exact end in sight. No other writer compares.
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anne carson is a genius. as usual, some of this went over my head (sorry to Book of Isaiah), but i know i'll be revisiting The Glass Essay, TV Men, and the Gender of Sound for years to come. there's just something about anne carson's writing that sticks no matter how far you go.
— "i wonder if there might not be another idea of human order than repression, another notion of human virtue than self-control, another kind of human self than one based on dissociation of inside and outside. or indeed, another human essence than self." -
"As if anger could be a kind of vocation for some women."
"My religion makes no sense / and does not help me / therefore I pursue it." -
thinking. i adore anne carson as always - the glass essay is Impeccable and i absolutely adore The Short Talks. Thinking thinking. It suffers from some of the same pacing problems as men in the off hours, wonderful as a look into the way carson develops as a writer.
much love for you anne, i will be returning to this in time. -
i loved the glass essay and the gender of sound. a lot of the other pieces were hit or miss
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Anne Carson isn't just a god: she's my god.
However: I prefer her on Greek and Roman texts, rather than Biblical ones, perhaps because that's where my own expertise tends. My favorites, easily, from this collection are "The Glass Essay" and "The Gender of Sound." I enjoyed "The Fall of Rome" but not nearly as much as the former two, and felt I barely cracked the rest—especially "TV Men," which read as extremely opaque to me, which is not usually how I read Anne Carson. -
Loved the glass essay, enjoyed the book of Isaiah and reread the gender of sound 3 times because it is so powerful and important. Did not care for the Truth about God but Carson 's style and heart made this book to be one of my favorites. I will buy you all a copy for Christmas.
2023: nog steeds een banger -
3.5. big fan of the first and last pieces
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Brutal, fleshy, austere, the tang on the tongue of metal, or some unknown herb.
"No use telling you what it is.
Just chew it and rub it on." -
“The Glass Essay” is better than most novels.
“The Fall of Rome: A Traveler’s Guide” is better than most short stories.
“The Gender and Sound” essay is insane.
Anne Carson is so smart. -
um yea it’s perfect and the synchronicity of the date i finished it says so,,,, may 22 2022 xoxo 😘
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"The Glass Essay" is the best piece of break-up literature I've encountered yet. It's a very strange piece. It's subject matter is the common heartbreak; the feelings it expresses are those expressed by all the sad pop songs out there. And yet the way these feelings are expressed -- they take on unprecedented forms. The experience of reading the text is perhaps as overwhelming as undergoing a breakup itself. I can't remember the last time I was this overpowered by emotion in a reading experience. But of course this emotional experience is wholly different than emotions found in real life. The reading experience is beautiful and amazing, in seeing such suffering encapsulated in perfect and uncanny words. One is safe, lifted up into this realm of the imagination, in reading this text, as in comparison to going through the suffering represented in real life.
A powerful tactic Carson takes in this poem is that the speaker compares her bewilderment, grief, anger, and longing, among other components of her breakup, to that which Emily Bronte represents in her character of Catherine in relation to Heathcliffe - as well as to that which Emily Bronte might've experienced herself, as hinted to by her diaries, and what her sister Charlotte has written about her. This made the reading experience of the poem all the more uncanny. We can see the speaker of the poem reading her own grief into the characters of Catherine and Heathcliffe, and the artifacts of Emily Bronte - while we may catch ourselves in the act of reading our own memories of grief into the speaker of this poem. We get to how the speaker of the poem uses lines written by Emily Bronte to express her own thoughts and feelings, and simultaneously, we might use the speaker's lines to express our own thoughts and feelings.
Perhaps this tactic is not uncommon in contemporary literature, but I haven't read much before that does this. I still don't know, fully, what to make of it. It doesn't seem like mere 'meta-fiction' but rather it makes manifest the fact that only art can make fully present our most critical thoughts and feelings - our best attempts in real life, in thinking about and making sense of what's going on, will always fail and pale in comparison. Even our going through these feelings, on the ground, pales in comparison; that is chaotic and numbed, in comparison to what art brings out. We may know this fact in the abstract, but seeing the speaker of the poem do this within the poem - both in her quoting and using of Bronte's work, and the lines that make up the speaker's character themselves - makes this fact really sink in, emotionally and experientially. It makes me all the more grateful for art and literature. I can feel, while reading this, (naively I'm sure) that I do not fear emotional suffering in my life, for it is can be beautiful, as art is capable of revealing; and I may always be able to turn to art, during such times.
The other poems and essays in this collection are amazing as well, although I did not access them equally. For the series of poems about God, I think I lack the relevant background in Biblical references, as well as a basic emotional connection to God and the Judeo-Christian tradition, so that I couldn't quite get into these. The poem "TV Men" was gripping and fascinating though. There, Carson goes through Hector's narrative in terms of if he were a television celebrity - this comparison between Greek mythology, and contemporary 'worshipping' of celebrities and actors, is perhaps intuitively drawn, but this poem deals with it with a level of detail, vividness, and power, which I couldn't have fathomed. This makes us more self-aware of our finitude and neediness for mythological figures, and of our latent desires to be mythologized (or at least to be recognized). This connects up, again, to the topic of the role of art in our real lives.
I also found these poems relatively more accessible. They are all narrative-like, telling stories, from particular characters' points of view. I found that this made them more absorbing and easy to read, than other contemporary poetry that is similarly abstract and startling in style. -
I love reading Carson in one sitting: it’s like a spiritual revelation (“The Truth About God” had some fetching imagery; I read “TV Men: Artaud” in one breath). Littered with anachronisms that were at times witty and at times forced. Wasn’t a big fan of the bookended essays or “The Fall of Rome” unfortunately- veered more academic than poetic.
“eyes stacked with the motions of roses in that other dawn and a torn coolness-“ (67)
“stuffing her shadow into her mouth as she goes” (105)
“The doubling and interchangeability of mouth engenders a creature in whom sex is cancelled out by sound and sound is cancelled out by sex...Baubo’s mouths appropriate each other.” (136, from “The Gender of Sound”)
