Scan barcode
fbroom's review
3.0
I loved some essays more than others. Essays about old age, life, one's career and more. I loved reading from a perspective of some one who reached this age.
"But there are no happy endings, because if things are happy they have not ended"
"But there are no happy endings, because if things are happy they have not ended"
page_karla's review
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Grief, Alcohol, Death, Medical content, Terminal illness, Death of parent, and Chronic illness
louise56637's review against another edition
5.0
Everyone who intends to enter old age with dignity and aplomb should read this if only to be disillusioned.
nrt43's review
5.0
Often I try to find the last book of prolific authors in the hope of gleaning some of their wisdom. So when Christian Wiman celebrated Donald Hall's Essays After Eighty, I knew I'd have to read it.
Hall was first a poet, and his essays show it. Word choice, cadence, the feelings he evokes, the attention to detail/the moment, and even his humor make explicit that he was a man who loved writing. It was his life-long love, the skill he honed.
In these essays, he focuses on his life and being old. He reminisces on the past and reflects. Overall, it was wonderful, and I hope to read it again. He died in 2018, just a few years after this book was published.
A couple of favorite quotes:
“In newspapers and magazines I read about what’s happening. Apparently Facebook exists to extinguish friendship. E-mail and texting destroy the post office. eBay replaces garage sales. Amazon eviscerates bookstores. Technology speeds, then doubles its speed, then doubles it again. Art takes naps.”
"But there are no happy endings, because if things are happy they have not ended."
Hall was first a poet, and his essays show it. Word choice, cadence, the feelings he evokes, the attention to detail/the moment, and even his humor make explicit that he was a man who loved writing. It was his life-long love, the skill he honed.
In these essays, he focuses on his life and being old. He reminisces on the past and reflects. Overall, it was wonderful, and I hope to read it again. He died in 2018, just a few years after this book was published.
A couple of favorite quotes:
“In newspapers and magazines I read about what’s happening. Apparently Facebook exists to extinguish friendship. E-mail and texting destroy the post office. eBay replaces garage sales. Amazon eviscerates bookstores. Technology speeds, then doubles its speed, then doubles it again. Art takes naps.”
"But there are no happy endings, because if things are happy they have not ended."
tomhill's review against another edition
4.0
The essays aren't as emotionally resonant or as beautifully written as they might be, given the quality of Donald Hall's poetry, and they also lack the deep insight of the personal essays of say, Andre Dubus. They are comforting and clever, and offer a glimpse of Hall's life, both before and after reaching age eighty. The haunting cover image of a close-up Hall, sporting the wild, untrimmed beard that defined his look in old age sets the tone for this collection. The essays deal with a lot of the same themes his poetry does: the past, memory, death, grief, but also like his poetry, they focus on the lighter aspects of life and aging. Hall writes of dogs, and horses and farm life and his grandparents, his wives and children, cigarettes, facial hair, his trips to D.C. The common theme is the steady march of time through all of it. Especially fascinating and tragic and ironic is Hall's battle with both colon and liver cancer when he was in his early sixties and his unlikely longevity, contrasted with his wife Jane Kenyon's quick decline from cancer. I believe he's written about it more in-depth elsewhere, but Jane Kenyon's death and its wrongness seem to creep in at the edges of nearly every essay.
bbshams's review against another edition
5.0
some beautiful insights in this collection of essays from Donald Hall. it’s always powerful to read reflections on life from people reaching their final stages, and i found out about Hall’s recent passing while reading this collection. certainly gave some of his thoughts a haunting weight. certainly an interesting man, a bit sex crazed in a strange sense. beautiful mind though, and a beautiful life to revisit in past tense.
lovegirl30's review against another edition
4.0
Full Review To Come:
I found this to such a beautiful collection of essays. I thought it was like listening to an old man tell his life story, which is something that I always enjoy. I found it quite humorous. I had never heard of him until I picked up the collection. Great stories inside.
I found this to such a beautiful collection of essays. I thought it was like listening to an old man tell his life story, which is something that I always enjoy. I found it quite humorous. I had never heard of him until I picked up the collection. Great stories inside.