Reviews for Byromania

The average rating for Byromania based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-09-01 00:00:00 Faustino Lopez THIS BOOK IS OFFICIALLY OFF MY "BUY FOR ME THANKS" SHELF BECAUSE JEN FISHER IS AN ABSOLUTE ANGEL OF BIRTHDAY PACKAGES AND OH MY GOD I AM ALL TEARY-EYED. new part of "review": now that i have managed to get this from the old library,i am writing a proper review, so all you folks that voted on what was basically a plea for someone to spend money on me, i hope you still like it. and i still want someone to buy this for me, so save your pennies; get together and pool resources, sell some baked goods - whatever it takes, please. before, i really wanted this book, and i didn't even know what it was. i thought it was going to be about byron the first rock star, and kind of tracing him in a history of fame, frenzy of renown kind of way. it is actually a collection of essays by various people (including the man whose book i just trashed in the internet - oops) discussing various representations and "interpretations" of byron across time and medium. and it's pretty great. even the essays that were not really related to byron as such, like the one on barbara cartland, were enjoyable. the whole book really makes me rethink my fixation on the man. because i am guilty of being enamored of byron as symbol rather than byron as man or byron as poet. i've read the poetry, sure, i've read a play or two, and many of his collections of letters, which are of course, the best of all, but i can't get away from admiring the aura as well as the flesh and blood. the legend is just so damn attractive. there are still cringe-worthy elements of his life, of course - the pet bear and the drinking from skulls, the forced melodrama for the goth kids... but oh, the star-crossed sister love, the burning of shelley's body, the whole caro adventure. the man was a maniac, to be sure, but so fascinating and complicated. on one hand, this hedonistic whirlwind of excess, and on the other, the pleasure-denying anorexic. his self-obsession is understandable when you remember who his self actually was... endlessly changeable, endlessly interpretable. ah, byron, i always will admire thee. oh and the best part: at the end, there are pages and pages of "byron in literature" and "byron in film" etc. now, every byron movie i have ever seen has been terrible (and to be fair, so have most of the books) but i still have a stack here to read, and this list just gives me more to acquire. i will be submerged in byron for a long time to come. ....................................................................... i want this book. but it is so so 'spensive on the internet. if anyone has it, and wants to be nice, i will trade for it, buy it (for less than 100 please), or i can make cookies or sock monsters or... well that's the range of my talents, but i'm open to learning new skills... thanks, bookowners... come to my blog!

Review # 2 was written on 2018-05-22 00:00:00 Ryan Ladouceur If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review. Judgement: "Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and the Story of Birthday Letters" by Erica Wagner (Original Review, 2002) It's interesting that noted feminist Germaine Greer said of both Plath and Hughes that, 'she saw him coming' and that 'most people wouldn't have been taken in by her'. It is very easy to censure especially when you know very little of the background. Sylvia Plath was mentally ill and had already almost succeeded in killing herself before she had left the States for Cambridge. A police search for her failed to find her because she had taken an overdose and laid down underneath the floor of her mother's home. She came round and banged her head and was heard by her brother. Otherwise she would most certainly have died undiscovered.