A Serious Character: The Life of Ezra Pound

by Humphrey Carpenter

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395416787
• ISBN13: 9780395416785
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 1005 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A serious character also proves to be most interesting.

Humphrey Carpenter manages the impossible, that is to bring to life a man who's very life seemingly defied description. Ezra Pound emerges from these pages as a Titan in the early years of the free verse struggle. From his birth in the Idaho Territory to his burial in Venice the struggles, triumphs and defeats of Pound are traced with a compassionate, fair and and devoted hand. It is certainly a "must read" for anyone interested in modern poetry and the man who established it as a respectable and engaging literary form.

What a movie this would be

No you could not make a movie on the life of Pound. This book is far more interesting. It does not go into his early life enough nor does it explain his relationships with his parents very much. It is interesting to read that Pound had an illegitimate son, and his wife had one as well. I would like to read more of the dirt about Pounds life as if Paul Johnson were writing it. This book is very entertaining and informative. Pound was a man of letters if there ever was one. Yes Carpenter does not go into Pounds interest in China with much detail perhaps he didn't value the ideogramic method. This makes me wonder how many people in China have "discovered" Pound. I have not heard anything about that.

A balanced, witty, and hugely enjoyable biography.

A SERIOUS CHARACTER : The Life of Ezra Pound. By Humphrey Carpenter. 1005 pages. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1988. ISBN 0-395-41678-7.No matter what one may think of Ezra Pound as a writer - whether he was a genius or a buffoon or a mixture of both - there can be no doubt that he was one of the most colorful and dynamic characters of the era, and that he led a rich and fascinating life well worthy of an intelligent biography. Pound's poetry, for obvious reasons (some of it being superb while much of it is just plain bad), has always had both admirers and detractors, with the former always taking great care to distance themselves from his 'anti-semitism' and economic theories while the latter seem to have seen little else, but Carpenter has amazingly succeeded in treading, with great diplomacy, the line between these two camps. While doing full justice to Pound's humanity and genius, he has at the same time made no attempt to slur over Pound's seriously flawed character, his disturbed sexuality, and the many occasions throughout his writings when his genius just failed to deliver the goods. He has in short given us, not a partisan's Pound, but an extremely fair-minded and balanced portrait of the whole man, though it's clear that Carpenter's patience with some of Pound's more outrageous eccentricities was sorely tested at times.Besides being balanced, comprehensive, well-researched, well-documented, and extremely well-written, Carpenter's biography is also at times very funny. Pound's idiosyncracies could be quite amusing and they are treated by Carpenter with great wit; one often finds oneself chuckling at the scrapes Pound seemed constantly to be getting into during the course of his hectic career. But there's more, for not only are we given a detailed and blow-by-blow account of the tragi-comedy that was Pound's life, and sympathetic portraits of the many literary and other figures who played a part in it, we are also treated to sensitive and fairly incisive analyses of many of Pound's works. In short, 'A Serious Character' is a fascinating study that both admirers and detractors of Pound will enjoy, though it isn't without certain predictable weaknesses. Carpenter has made no attempt to explain why a man as intelligent as Pound should have become and remained anti-semitic for the greater part of his life. Carpenter seems also a little too ready to accept the standard view that Pound's economic theories were 'crackpot,' although he redeems himself to some extent towards the end of the book by quoting Allen Ginsberg's remark when he met Pound that : "'... your economics are RIGHT. We see it more and more in Vietnam. You showed us who's making a profit out of war . . .'" (page 899, emphasis in original).The third predictable weakness is Carpenter's seeming ignorance of and lack of interest in China. For Pound, Chinese language, thought, and history were important, and he has to be given credit as one of the very few who have realized ho

A Seeerious Karacter

An excellently sculpted biography that provides great insight into the life of one of America's most influential writers. Carpenter does a superb job at using Pound's life to help illuminate his works. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in becoming more aquainted with Ezra Pound, his influence and his work.

Pound explained

The bad-boy of the Paris avant-garde gets his definitive treatment in this fat biography by Humphrey Carpenter. Carpenter provides a literate and extremely detailed account of every period of Pound's long life, from his Idaho beginnings to his POW cage in Pisa to his shadowy senility in Venice. It's too bad this book is out of print, because I think it provides one of the best and most well-written portraits of Pound and the numerous friends and colleagues who derived benefit from his editing and patronage. Carpenter also provides balanced but critical discussion of Pound's unfortunate political leanings and their relation to his art. With some very good photos.