Product Description

A long-time love, now a crumbling marriage, unfolds in 29 "tangos" of narrative verse, informed by the poet's own sensibility. This is a work that explores the oldest of lyrical subjects - beauty, desire, love, betrayal - with freshness and power.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #576467 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In The Beauty of the Husband, subtitled "A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos", Ann Carson explores her ambiguous feelings toward a difficult but intriguing marriage. Each poem begins with a short quote from John Keats, whose idea that "beauty is truth" is the thread holding together a relationship with a man addicted to lying and philandering. A scoundrel ("He lied when it wasn't even convenient"), the husband is redeemed and forgiven almost everything because of beauty.

For Carson, the truth is "layered and elusive," hidden under the conversations of a thousand nights, nights when the lights were still on at dawn. There is a daring quality to Carson's work, a startling vision and perspective that will not be judged by normal standards. By penetrating to the core of a relationship, Carson stands convention on its head and finds "the light that pain brings". These poems bespeak the brilliance and shade of shape-shifting truth and conjure a freshness of language that shimmers. Somehow it seems fitting that the book itself, as an object to hold and behold, is also beautiful.

Though Anne Carson's poetry is shot through with the myths and images of the classical world, this ancient light helps illuminate contemporary situations and concerns. A classics professor at McGill University in Montreal, Carson has arrived in a surprisingly short time as one of Canada's finest poets. More than that, her exquisite, intelligent, highly original poems put her in the first rank of world poets. --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.com

Review
Is it verse or is it fiction? What a question. The most essential fact is that this is a story, a love story told by poet and novelist Carson ("Men in the Off Hours", 2000, etc.) in 29 brief, lyrical "tangos" (which are kind of like stanzas, only a lot more romantic) that have little quotations from Keats in front of each. Basically, it's Girl-meets-Boy, Girl-gets-Boy, Girl-and-Boy-grow-old-and-get-tired-of-each-other. A marriage, in other words. Narrated mostly by the wife, it becomes quickly lugubrious in a sort of Liv Ullmann/Sylvia Plath - ish kind of way ("I believe / your taxi is here she said. / He looked down at the street. She was right. It stung him, / the pathos of her keen hearing"), but it is a vivid portrait all the same, razor-sharp and as quick as a flea. The lightness of touch is the saving grace - narrated in standard prose, this would be at once unremittingly drab and thoroughly old hat - that makes this doomed marriage different from all other doomed marriages we have read about. It even makes it feel somewhat less doomed..Slight, and slightly weird, but worth a look. . (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

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If you're looking at this book and thinking that you might like to buy it, don't think - just buy it. And buy a copy for anyone you know who loves poetry and beautiful things.

'The Beauty of the Husband' is a genuine treasure, a real work of genius. Moving to read, stunningly beautiful, and unique.

Buy it now!