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A review by whogivesabook
Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
5.0
I was given this book to read many years ago now. Since then, it has been a firm favourite and I read it every now and then in autumn and usually around Halloween specifically. It has a vibe to it. Why, you ask?
Because it is a bunch of dead people chattering to you from beyond the grave! This book is essentially the epitaphs of the residents of Spoon River. The collection includes 212 separate characters, in all providing 244 accounts of their lives, losses, and manner of death. Many of the poems contain cross-references that create an unabashed tapestry of the community.
And it feels so flawlessly honest. The characters are petty, cruel, meek, regretful, pained, mad, thankful... very seldom at peace. They linger, bound to the earth by life's misfortunes and misadventures.
Reading it again, I couldn't help noticing the similarities between this and Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. So I did a bit of checking online and it is pretty well known that it was a major influence. That's the level of skill we're talking about. Masters inspiring other masters.
Apparently this book inspired the idea of the audiolog in video games. Where you pick up something that speaks with an absent character's voice to give you crucial or sometimes just incidental information about the world you're exploring. Which makes sense.
Because it's a spectacular collection. It holds this amazingly powerful veracity that turns each added stitch in the patchwork blanket of voices into a cautionary tale to live by.
Don't live a life you will come to regret. In the end, we only haunt ourselves.
Because it is a bunch of dead people chattering to you from beyond the grave! This book is essentially the epitaphs of the residents of Spoon River. The collection includes 212 separate characters, in all providing 244 accounts of their lives, losses, and manner of death. Many of the poems contain cross-references that create an unabashed tapestry of the community.
And it feels so flawlessly honest. The characters are petty, cruel, meek, regretful, pained, mad, thankful... very seldom at peace. They linger, bound to the earth by life's misfortunes and misadventures.
Reading it again, I couldn't help noticing the similarities between this and Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. So I did a bit of checking online and it is pretty well known that it was a major influence. That's the level of skill we're talking about. Masters inspiring other masters.
Apparently this book inspired the idea of the audiolog in video games. Where you pick up something that speaks with an absent character's voice to give you crucial or sometimes just incidental information about the world you're exploring. Which makes sense.
Because it's a spectacular collection. It holds this amazingly powerful veracity that turns each added stitch in the patchwork blanket of voices into a cautionary tale to live by.
Don't live a life you will come to regret. In the end, we only haunt ourselves.