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Title: The Enormous Room by E. E. Cummings ISBN: 0-451-52669-4 Publisher: Signet Classics Pub. Date: January, 1999 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: must for cummings fans, but read the poetry first
Comment: The Enormous Room (1922) is the only novel written by e.e.cummings, is autobiographical with surreal interjections,
and relates his experiences during the latersocalled first world war. Other than the title, which happens to be THE
BEST NOVEL TITLE IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANUNKIND (TM) and most probably the universe in general, it
has little to do with his poetry, the bulk of which was written later. The theme of distrusting authority, and the scornful
commentary on humanunkind's constant attempt to disspear into its own asshole (that's Vonnegut, sort of, sorry),
both of which i most admire in his poetry, can be found in the bud here.
This book deserves a 10, but because the poetry is even better, i cdnt! It yo own fault, edward!
Rating: 5
Summary: Phenomenal.
Comment: When I was ten, I read "In Just-" from Cummings' _Chansons Innocentes_. It changed the way I lived, thought and wrote from that moment onward. Since then, I've been a devout fan of Cummings' poetry... yet, until 1996, more than 15 years later, I'd never read any of his prose. Then a friend lent me _The Enormous Room_.
Despite what may have been said by previous critics, this is not a book about or against war. It's not a guilty diatribe of anguish and violence. Although it takes place in a french concentration camp during WW1 where atrocities are committed daily, Cummings doesn't waste words complaining. The focus and subject of this tale is the things he learned, the people he knew, the beauty he finds recollecting his experience in that place.
I read _The Enormous Room_ in one sitting, and when I'd finished it I read it again. Slowly. It's gorgeous, it's funny, it's intelligent, and it's so damned big-hearted that it makes me feel like a gnat. A very happy gnat. And that's about the highest compliment I think I've ever paid a book.
'Nuff said. Read it.
Rating: 4
Summary: Much better than I expected it to be.
Comment: E. E. Cummings, The Enormous Room (Liveright, 1921)
Cummings became famous for his poetry, but before that he wrote a now obscure novel-cum-memoir about his temporary imprisonment during World War I, The Enormous Room. Modeled loosely after Bunyan's magnum opus, Pilgrim's Progress, Cummings gives us the arrest and detention (for he is never sent to prison, only detained awaiting the word of the Commission on whether he is to be imprisoned or freed) of a friend of his and himself. The friend is charged with treason after writing letters home critical of the French government; Cummings is charged with nothing but being his friend.
The book touches all the expected bases; the horrors of war, problems with authority, etc., etc. Nothing here you haven't seen before. What causes it to stand out is Cummings' treatment of the whole thing. Cummings takes an horrific experience and makes it a whimsical way to pass the time, only allowing enough of the horror to show through so that the reader can understand the irony of Cummings' presentation here.
The book is well-written, though a bit jarring in places; it is written rather like you would hear the story from someone sitting next to you at the club smoking a cigar, although all too overeager at times. Cummings' enthusiasm for his subject, though, is a refreshing change from the usual war novel. This is not a book that is easy to digest, but is worth the effort. *** ½
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Title: I : Six Nonlectures by E. E. Cummings ISBN: 0674440102 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: January, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Fairy Tales by E. E. Cummings, John Eaton ISBN: 0156298953 Publisher: Voyager Books Pub. Date: September, 1987 List Price(USD): $7.00 |
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Title: Dreams in the Mirror: A Biography of E.E. Cummings (A Liveright Book) by Richard S. Kennedy ISBN: 087140155X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 1994 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: 100 Selected Poems by E. E. Cummings by E. E. Cummings ISBN: 0802130720 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: April, 1989 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Three Soldiers (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by John Dos Passos, Townsend Ludington, John Roderigo Dos Passos ISBN: 0141180277 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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