荒原 (艾略特文集)

The first poem of this book, I: The Burial of the Dead took my by surprise. I didn’t know what to expect at all but this dark, gloomy poem that was resonate of death and haunting was such a pleasure to read. There was something about it that wouldn’t let me stop reading until the break for II: A Game of Chess, and I found myself reading it three of four times before I continued on with the book. There is something so entrancing about A that has left me pondering even now, writing this review. II: A Game of Chess was not what I was expecting from the title at all. With that being said, I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, I couldn’t describe that. A tale of love, pained love, something that makes me ache into my core, something I can’t quite discuss. I was hooked on the words, delving into this pain that Eliot felt to write this, feeling my own heartbreak when I’m not even heartbroken. This may be one of the best poems I’ve read so far on heartbreak and pain, love and loss. III: The Fire Sermon is depressing, to say the least. A poem about sexual assault, depressing in its tones, and words, the city that slowly rots away and becomes worse and worse. This poem invoked deep thinking for myself. As a city gets more depressing the people within it get worse, more violent. This poem, not beautiful in its tone but wonderful in its speech, truly speaks to today’s world and has my own heart in my throat. IV: Death by Water is a depressing short poem, reminding people that, no matter what, death will come for them eventually. A beautifully short reminder of the overwhelming cover of Death’s grip on everyone. V: What the Thunder Said is a closing speech, more of deities and death than of anything else. It closes the poem off fully, perfectly, bringing it to a bitter sweet ending. The Waste Land is definitely not what I expected of from a poetry book, at all. It depicts a broken land, one that only gets worse as time goes on, something of the world we know in today’s age. It raises the questions of is it time for this world to change, is today’s society as bad as portrayed in this and what can we do to stop our world from becoming The Waste Land. Eliot has honestly blown me away, and has done such an amazing job with this poem. I was hooked on every single word, and I couldn’t put it down. I turned the pages with such enthusiasm, such delight of devouring every word he wrote, I was finished it in no time whatsoever and was left hungry for more. I can’t wait to read the rest of Eliot’s works and I recommend this to any poetry lover reading this review.