Volume 41, Number 6 · March 24, 1994
The Great Perhaps
By Robert M. Adams
Life Work
by Donald Hall
Beacon Press, 123 pp., $15.00
The Museum of Clear Ideas
by Donald Hall
Ticknor and Fields, 120 pp., $9.95 (paper)
How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter
by Sherwin B. Nuland
Knopf, 278 pp., $24.00
Donald Hall's brief memoir, Life Work, is, as he himself declares, a bit of a brag about the amount of work—poems, books, lectures—he has been able to accomplish since giving up an academic job. On this point he can expect widespread corroboration from graybeards scattered around the country. An awful lot of academic activity falls under the head of make-work and routine busyness. By giving up the salary and the schedule one automatically gains four days out of every week for real work, if that's what one happens to prefer. (But 'work' in this context means the very reverse of 'labor.') Mr. Hall in his elected leisure organized himself like a oneman dynamo; few poets can ever have gone about their trade more systematically. What with secretaries and typists, programs and research assistants, lecture tours and grant applications, he kept his corner of New Hampshire awhirl with the doings of the Muses. I think he would be appalled to know he reminded this reader all too often of Arnold Bennett's little self-help book, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day.
Review, 2547 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |