Volume 42, Number 5 · March 23, 1995
A Moment's Truth
By John Bayley
History: The Home Movie
by Craig Raine
Doubleday, 326 pp., $22.00
The title, for a start, seems accurate. This dense and ambitious narrative poem is indeed constructed along the lines of a home movie: jerky, vivid, impenetrably domestic, alive with unanswerable queries. Why was Aunt Jane carrying that sack of tomatoes? Martha's little boy is a terror, isn't he? Is it Windsor Castle they're all visiting? Or somewhere else? So the crazy procession of shots continues until the group gathered in the living room begins to show, however politely, unmistakable signs of fatigue: and if Uncle George is wise he will bring the show to an end so that his wife can circulate the coffee and the beer. Like Mr. Bennet's daughter in Pride and Prejudice, the movie has delighted its home audience for long enough.
Review, 2959 words
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