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The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot
Lyndall Gordon
€ 19.99
€ 14.68
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Description for The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot
Paperback. Exploring Eliot's poetry, drama and essays in relation to his life in America and England, and to four quite different women who offer clues to his guarded character, this book sees his life and work as reciprocal parts of one design, the search for faith. Num Pages: 672 pages, Illustrations. BIC Classification: 2AB; BGL; DSBH; DSC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 198 x 129 x 43. Weight in Grams: 552.
The most authoritative life of Eliot ever written, by acclaimed biographer Lyndall Gordon
T. S. Eliot once spoke of a lifetime burning in every moment. He had the mind to conceive a perfect life, and he also had the honesty to admit he could not meet it.
'He was a man of extremes whose deep flaws and high virtues were interfused,' writes Lyndall Gordon in this perceptive and innovative biography of the great poet. She brilliantly explores his poetry, drama and essays in relationship to the four quite different women in his life and to his time in America and England. The Imperfect Life of T.S. Eliot follows the trials of a searcher whose flaws and doubts speak to all of us whose lives are imperfect.
'The most valuable single book yet published about Eliot' Jonathan Raban, Sunday Times
'Subtle and authoritative' Aida Edemariam, Guardian
'Daring, strong and psychologically brilliant' Cynthia Ozick, New Yorker
'An intellectually demanding, sophisticated and distinguished book... Probing and extremely thoughtful' Richard Bernstein, New York Times
'An awesome achievement' Arminta Wallace, Irish Times
Product Details
Publisher
Little Brown
Number of pages
672
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2012
Condition
New
Number of Pages
688
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9781844088935
SKU
V9781844088935
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
Ref
99-99
About Lyndall Gordon
Lyndall Gordon was born in Cape Town and studied American Literature at Columbia University in New York. She came to England through the Rhodes Trust in 1973. She is the prize-winning author of biographies including The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot; Henry James: His Women and his Art; Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life; Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life; Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft; Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family Feuds and Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World. There are also two memoirs, Shared Lives, A Story of Women's Friendship, and Divided Lives, about her mother, whose spiritual journey opened up Eliot's poetry for her. She has written the 'Life' for the Eliot website: tseliot.com. Lyndall Gordon is a fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in Oxford.
Reviews for The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot
The most valuable single book yet published about Eliot
Sunday Times
Subtle and authoritative
Aida Edamariam
Guardian
A nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection
New Yorker
Daring, strong and psychologically brilliant
Cynthia Ozick
New Yorker
An intellectually demanding, sophisticated and distinguished book . . . Probing and extremely thoughtful
New York Times
With this hugely impressive study...Lyndall Gordon blew the door of T.S. Eliot's domesticity wide open...[H]er willingness to allow the poetry to go on working its magic while she stares, unflinching, into the face of the man who wrote it is an awesome achievement
Arminta Wallace
Irish Times
What would [Eliot] have made of a woman with such profound insight and knowledge as Lyndall Gordon writing his biography, stripping him of his cloak of mysteriousness, and offering credible interpretations of his work?
Observer
A subtle portrait of Eliot as a Jamesian hero torn between memory and desire, worldly happiness and a more rarefied world of the spirit
Michiko Kakutani
New York Times
A fascinating portrait
The Times
Balancing sympathy and judgement...Lyndall Gordon plumbs the gap separating Eliot's vision of an otherworldly Absolute from his decidedly terrestrial social views...No mere abridgement or revision of Lyndall Gordon's earlier two-volume biography, this work offers a wealth of new material and fresh insights
Booklist
This complex spiritual and artistic history is reconstructed with tact, diligence, and subtlety
Boston Globe
Gordon is the rare modern day biographer who can resist the temptation to make clay feet into a synecdoche for a man. "I propose to look flaws in the face without seeing flaws alone," she says, and she succeeds brilliantly
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Gordon manages to be definitive but not dogmatic, sympathetic without taking sides, doorstop thick without seeming too long. It horrifies and fascinates like re-runs of a train wreck
Baltimore Sun
Among the very best of this century's biographers
Buffalo News
A model of its kind: authoritative, meticulously documented, sensitive alike to poetic and spiritual nuances
Times Educational Supplement
The most valuable single book yet published about Eliot
Sunday Times
A nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection
New Yorker
An intellectually demanding, sophisticated and distinguished book . . . Probing and extremely thoughtful
New York Times
Sunday Times
Subtle and authoritative
Aida Edamariam
Guardian
A nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection
New Yorker
Daring, strong and psychologically brilliant
Cynthia Ozick
New Yorker
An intellectually demanding, sophisticated and distinguished book . . . Probing and extremely thoughtful
New York Times
With this hugely impressive study...Lyndall Gordon blew the door of T.S. Eliot's domesticity wide open...[H]er willingness to allow the poetry to go on working its magic while she stares, unflinching, into the face of the man who wrote it is an awesome achievement
Arminta Wallace
Irish Times
What would [Eliot] have made of a woman with such profound insight and knowledge as Lyndall Gordon writing his biography, stripping him of his cloak of mysteriousness, and offering credible interpretations of his work?
Observer
A subtle portrait of Eliot as a Jamesian hero torn between memory and desire, worldly happiness and a more rarefied world of the spirit
Michiko Kakutani
New York Times
A fascinating portrait
The Times
Balancing sympathy and judgement...Lyndall Gordon plumbs the gap separating Eliot's vision of an otherworldly Absolute from his decidedly terrestrial social views...No mere abridgement or revision of Lyndall Gordon's earlier two-volume biography, this work offers a wealth of new material and fresh insights
Booklist
This complex spiritual and artistic history is reconstructed with tact, diligence, and subtlety
Boston Globe
Gordon is the rare modern day biographer who can resist the temptation to make clay feet into a synecdoche for a man. "I propose to look flaws in the face without seeing flaws alone," she says, and she succeeds brilliantly
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Gordon manages to be definitive but not dogmatic, sympathetic without taking sides, doorstop thick without seeming too long. It horrifies and fascinates like re-runs of a train wreck
Baltimore Sun
Among the very best of this century's biographers
Buffalo News
A model of its kind: authoritative, meticulously documented, sensitive alike to poetic and spiritual nuances
Times Educational Supplement
The most valuable single book yet published about Eliot
Sunday Times
A nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection
New Yorker
An intellectually demanding, sophisticated and distinguished book . . . Probing and extremely thoughtful
New York Times