The Connell Guide To T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland - Seamus Perry

This is the second book on Eliot's Wasteland that I've read over the last month. The objective in selecting and reading this book was, to ensure that I was getting a "real deal" reading Eric Ilayapaarachchi's translation, but more importantly the long essay on the poem. A quick google query showed Seamus Perry's new book as possibly the best book on Eliot's work, and I didn't hesitate to load my Kindle with a copy.

While Ilayapaarachchi's book was a line by line elaboration, Perry doesn't go to the extreme. Perry bases his book on a series of questions. Such as;
"What is wrong with April?'
"What is the waste land?"
What does the German mean?"
What is the Fire Sermon?"
"Who is Phlebas?" etc., in essence 11 such questions. This is

beside the questions he attempts to reply about the whole poem. e.g. "Is The Waste Land a pessimistic poem?" or "Do we need to spot the references?"

Let us come to the that last question. "Do we need to spot the references?". I say "yes" without a doubt, for this whole attempt to read this difficult poem ( It is a difficult poem, make no doubt about it. Perry also answers the question, "Why is The Waste Land difficult?" ). My point about the necessity of the references is accepted by the poet himself, for he himself not only added reference notes, but said of it;

"I gave the references in my notes, in order to make the reader who recognized the allusion, know that I meant him to recognize it, and know that he would have missed the point if he did not recognize it."
[ Perry, Seamus. The Connell Guide to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (Advanced Study Guide) . Connell Guides. Kindle Edition. ]

Eliot expected the reader to go that extra mile, for he has stated that: :
"it is to be expected that the reader of a poem should take at least as much trouble as a barrister reading an important decision on a complicated case."
[ Perry, Seamus. The Connell Guide to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (Advanced Study Guide) . Connell Guides. Kindle Edition. ]

So it was a consolation to know that myself as a reader hasn't been too careful in this whole exercise ( I continue, well pleased with myself);

The form of the poem: One thing wholly amiss in Ilayappaarachchi's poem is the deliberating that Eliot went to with the form -  the line breaks, why he was careful here with the grammar and intentionally casual about it there, the meters used. admittedly, Perry too mentions the metres just in passing and doesn't publish a study of it in the book sadly, but yet takes form quite seriously.

"'When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.'
The small removal of “and” from the second line sends Goldsmith’s line off-kilter by adding an extra foot. It makes a mockery of the lesson so consequentially learned about “men” in the original:"
[Perry, Seamus. The Connell Guide to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (Advanced Study Guide) . Connell Guides. Kindle Edition. ]

The second reason why this book was valuable is because of the idea of the amount of editing that Ezra Pound has done to this poem. Eliot, upon completing the poem, got it edited by Pound, and Pound has taken off quite some fat, and some of the comments which he has made illustrates the level of confidence that he had on what he was doing. Some of the comments that Pound has used when cutting off certain lines illustrates this - "Bulshit". And Eliot, to his credit has largely accepted Pound's last word - although not on every account.

Then, there's this verse, from the poem:

"Unreal City

Under the brown fog of a winter noon

Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant

Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants

C.i.f. London: documents at sight,

Asked me in demotic French

To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel

Followed by a weekend at the Metropole"

There's an understanding, ( which proves to be a misunderstanding) that the invitation here for a weekend here is that of an amorous homosexual nature. It is taken for granted, obviously from other references, by Ilayapaarachchi. However,  Eliot admits his surprise of this plot.

"Plausibly, I think, Eliot reportedly declared himself unconscious of any specific homosexual implication: for the feeling of the lines is genuinely nonplussed, not knowing quite what is going on. (Who is to say the speaker at this point is not a woman?)"
[Perry, Seamus. The Connell Guide to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (Advanced Study Guide) . Connell Guides. Kindle Edition. ]

In conclusion, Perry's book adds so much insight about Eliot's poem, some of it possibly unique to this latest work ( its publication date is September - 2018). Having read just one book ( in English)  on the subject, I will not venture to say it is the best on the subject. Yet, there is some thought that the Oxford University's English teacher's book is the best on the subject. It is very readable, so much so that I often wondered if I am missing some of what Perry said - but it didn't seem to be so, for the presentation is straight forward enough. 

However, I know that I wouldn't have gleaned the most about the poem if I had read only this book, despite the insights it offers. In that sense am glad, that Ilayapaarachchi published his essay ( which is twice the length of  Perry's work), for it was the combination of the two that gave me a wider comprehension of the poem. Essentially, I believe that Perry is an important read, once you are of the comprehension level availed by Ilayapaarachchi ( through his references of course).