Friday, May 18, 2007

Hunt And Peck

RISKY BUSINESS Al Alvarez

Al Alvarez is, famously, the person who befriended Sylvia Plath during her last days, going on to write The Savage God, a study of suicide. Of course, there’s a lot more to the man than that: he’s a poet, champion of other poets, poker player, amateur climber and more – as these essays demonstrate.

Many have appeared earlier in the NYRB, among other publications. And though each one is singularly well-crafted and written, to collect all together is to make the whole a mixed bag that flirts with the theme of "risk taking". Profiles of pianist Alfred Grendel, entrepreneur Torquil Norman and Philip Roth sit side-by-side with Alvarez’s views on Andrew Marvell, and John Berryman (among others) which rub shoulders with thoughts on poker and other risk-taking activities.

A hunt and peck approach, then, is called for to locate pieces of interest – some of which are the profile/interview of Philip Roth, meditations on the genteel state of British poetry, an assessment of Alice Munro and his thoughts on Plath’s biographers. It ends with a rather sweet piece on the Grateful Dead – which, ironically, smacks of the same gentility that Alvarez so abhors in poetry.

Worth your while? Find a bookshop with a comfortable place to sit and you ought to be able to read the pieces of interest without having to buy the whole thing.