Book review: The Anthologist

Published on Friday 14 August 2009 14:12

By Nicholson Baker Simon & Schuster, 243pp, £14.99 Review by ALLAN MASSIE

"THERE'S NO ART TO FIND THE mind's construction in the face" – and physiognomy, if it is a science, is a sadly inexact one. Nevertheless, anyone closely examining the photograph of Nicholson Baker on the inside back flap of this book's jacket might make a good guess at its mood and manner, if not its contents. The balding head and abundant white beard hint at the sage. The eyes look humorous. There is a suggestion of whimsicality and self-indulgence in the expression, a self-conscious charm, but also some uncertainty.

You have only to read a few pages to be ready, perhaps mistakenly, to identify the narrator with the author.

The narrator is a poet, and much of the book is devoted to his opinions about poetry, to his ruminations on what makes a poem, and to his memories and opinions of other poets.

He is quite harsh on some of them: Ezra Pound, for instance. "Pound, who was by nature a blustering bigot – a humourless jokester – a talentless pasticheur – a confidence man – was now supported by the American state." Well, that's one way of describing being shut up in an asylum for the insane.

Incidentally, whether you think Pound a great poet (as I do) or not, the expression "talentless pasticheur" is absurd. It takes talent of some sort to write pastiche, or at least any pastiche that is recognisable as such. Still, this is a good example of the narrator's agreeable throwaway style.

There is a story of sorts. The narrator has compiled an anthology of Poetry in Rhyme. He loves rhyme, he tells us, but his own poems seldom rhyme. He regrets this and deplores the instruction that there is no need to make a poem rhyme, which is given in schools and creative writing classes. Free Verse is another thing he blames Pound for, though he knows that Eliot and Pound themselves knew that no verse is really free for the poet who is doing his job properly.

Meanwhile, he is trying to write the introduction to his anthology and is stuck. He goes to the barn where he writes and finds he can't even begin on it. His girlfriend becomes exasperated and leaves him. He thinks she may return when he has finished the introduction, but though he wants her back he can't get on with it. Instead, he tells us about his neighbours, about his dog and the mouse in the barn, about what he eats and drinks, and so on.

It is all quite agreeable, but not very compelling. There is a narrative line, but it is so faint that you often lose sight of it. It's pleasant to read a few pages, but you think you could read them in any order, and it wouldn't matter much.

A good deal of the book is devoted to his opinions about poetry. Again these are individually interesting, but there is scarcely an argument; merely assertions, with examples. He insists that the natural line of English verse has four beats, and that this is true of the iambic pentameter also, which, by the way, is in his opinion really a waltz.

Well, it is indeed often true that the iambic pentameter, though consisting of ten syllables, will often have only four beats, and that the first of the five feet is often a trochee rather than an iamb: as, for instance (my example, not his):

"Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;/In the first rank of these did Zimri stand". Four beats to the line, yes, though ten syllables. But not always: "You brought me water, boy; I asked for beer", as the 18th-century actress, Mrs Siddons reproved a servant in a perfect line of blank verse.

This then is an engaging book, humorous, whimsical, a bit self-indulgent, but with a pleasant folksy charm and some nice observations; not particularly significant or gripping, but friendly reading.

The narrator does get his introduction written and tells us how long it is, much longer than was asked for, only a few pages shorter than the book itself. Perhaps the book is really the introduction?

Does he get his girl back? That is the one question you might want answered. So you had better read the book to find out.