Synopses & Reviews
"Colm Tóibín's perfectly judged study of Elizabeth Bishop's writing, and especially her mastery of tone, has itself the tonal intimacy of a letter. He explores the places (Nova Scotia, Brazil) and working friendships (Moore, Lowell) central to Bishop's poetry of solitariness and exile; he finds her true companions in this 'restrained but serious ambition' (Wyatt, Herbert, Gunn); he distinguishes the candor of her art from the facts of her life, the emotions of her poetry from its causes. Above all, he honors Bishop's exact ways with language, and his sifting of what is said from what is unsaid in her poetry illuminates his own watchful and patient art as a novelist."
--Saskia Hamilton, coeditor of Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell"This book offers the reader a luminous meditation on Elizabeth Bishop's poetry. It focuses, among other things, on the restraint of her style and the power of the unsaid in her work. But more than that: Colm Tóibín meshes his journey as a writer with hers, showing with unique eloquence how her poems have entered and guided his life. I have no doubt this book will become one of the essential texts on Bishop's work."--Eavan Boland, author of A Woman Without a Country: Poems
"Colm Tóibín--a sensitive critic as well as a novelist--has written an almost ideal introduction to the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. This could become the introduction to Bishop for people who intend to read her for pleasure."--Stephen Burt, author of Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry
Review
"An admiring critical portrait of a great American poet and a master of subtlety. . . . An inspiring appreciation from one writer to another."--Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Novelist Tóibín (Nora Webster) gives an intimate and engaging look at Elizabeth Bishop's poetry and its influence on his own work. . . . Tóibín is also present in the book, and his relationship to Bishop's work and admiration of her style gives the book much of its power. Whether one is familiar with Bishop's life and work or is looking to Tóibín to learn more, this book will appeal to many readers."--Publishers Weekly starred review
Review
"On Elizabeth Bishop, an unusual mixed-genre critical study/personal memoir by the celebrated Irish novelist Colm Tóibin, himself something of a writer's writer, makes a particularly welcome addition to the Princeton University Press Writers on Writers series. . . . Tóibin's sense of identification with Bishop allows not only sympathy with her work but his real insight into it. . . . [F]ew critics have dealt more revealingly than Tóibin with Bishop's habitual illusion of 'spontaneous' self-correction, her process of thinking aloud on the page. . . . [I]n some essential and large way, Tóibin gets Bishop right, and even his quirkiest interpretations illuminate something about both Bishop and himself."--Lloyd Schwartz, Arts Fuse
Review
"How does a writer turn life into art? Novelist, poet and critic Colm Tóibín's brilliant, compelling book On Elizabeth Bishop does not raise or answer this question directly, but it brings us very close to the moment of alchemy, both in Bishop's work and in his own, showing Princeton University Press' wisdom in establishing the series of writers on writers of which this is a part. . . . Tóibín's decision to set the poems in the context of Bishop's life, her friendships and love, and a circle of writers and painters like-minded enough to throw light on her achievement, is an impressive solution to a potentially difficult critical problem."--Elizabeth Greene, Times Higher Education
Review
"[The book's] pull on the reader is almost tidal . . . it's still impossible for a reader to resist getting sucked into the orbit of Robert Lowell, the rapaciously brilliant and royally messed-up literary lion whom Bishop considered her closest friend. The cat-and-mouse dynamic of Bishop and Lowell's correspondence remains, in Mr. Tóibín's telling, as riveting as a series on Netflix or HBO, and probably ought to become one."--Jeff Gordinier, New York Times
Review
Colm Tóibín, Inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame 2015
Review
"[I]n Colm Tóibín's new book, the Irish novelist explores Bishop's remoteness in ways that both open her poems to the everyday reader and season scholars' broth about her eminence. John Ashbery once called Bishop a 'writer's writer's writer,' and Tóibín reveals how this hypothesis has been, in his case, positively true. Though this book is not a biography, it has the uncanny effect of one: In close readings of Bishop's poems and their geographical moorings, Tóibín takes us further inside the poet's (and his own) psyche than, perhaps, the archives ever will."--Heather Treseler, Weekly Standard
Review
"Bishop is a 20th-century U.S. master poet; Tóibín is an Irish fiction writer of today. You might wonder at this pairing. Well, none could pair comfortably with the uneasy, furtive Bishop. Turns out the two have much in common. . . . I just loved this: a writer so open about how his work and life touch another writer's. . . . Little books like this make the world better, teaching us much and inviting more."--John Timpane, Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"In this splendid and perceptive book, Colm Toibin the novelist, has probed the Bishop canon and biography and exquisitely described her work and vision."--Sam Coale, Providence Journal
Review
"Tóibín's treatment is personal but never self-indulgent, and the book is much more than an appreciation of a poet with whom he has affinities. Beautifully written and deeply felt, this is a penetrating examination of Bishop's aesthetic of stylistic restraint and personal reticence."--Choice
Synopsis
A compelling portrait of a beloved poet from one of today's most acclaimed novelists
In this book, novelist Colm T ib n offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of one of his most important literary influences--the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Ranging across her poetry, prose, letters, and biography, T ib n creates a vivid picture of Bishop while also revealing how her work has helped shape his sensibility as a novelist and how her experiences of loss and exile resonate with his own. What emerges is a compelling double portrait that will intrigue readers interested in both Bishop and T ib n.
For T ib n, the secret of Bishop's emotional power is in what she leaves unsaid. Exploring Bishop's famous attention to detail, T ib n describes how Bishop is able to convey great emotion indirectly, through precise descriptions of particular settings, objects, and events. He examines how Bishop's attachment to the Nova Scotia of her childhood, despite her later life in Key West and Brazil, is related to her early loss of her parents--and how this connection finds echoes in T ib n's life as an Irish writer who has lived in Barcelona, New York, and elsewhere.
Beautifully written and skillfully blending biography, literary appreciation, and descriptions of T ib n's travels to Bishop's Nova Scotia, Key West, and Brazil, On Elizabeth Bishop provides a fresh and memorable look at a beloved poet even as it gives us a window into the mind of one of today's most acclaimed novelists.
Synopsis
In this book, novelist Colm Tóibín offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of one of his most important literary influences--the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Ranging across her poetry, prose, letters, and biography, Tóibín creates a vivid picture of Bishop while also revealing how her work has helped shape his sensibility as a novelist and how her experiences of loss and exile resonate with his own. What emerges is a compelling double portrait that will intrigue readers interested in both Bishop and Tóibín.
For Tóibín, the secret of Bishop's emotional power is in what she leaves unsaid. Exploring Bishop's famous attention to detail, Tóibín describes how Bishop is able to convey great emotion indirectly, through precise descriptions of particular settings, objects, and events. He examines how Bishop's attachment to the Nova Scotia of her childhood, despite her later life in Key West and Brazil, is related to her early loss of her parents--and how this connection finds echoes in Tóibín's life as an Irish writer who has lived in Barcelona, New York, and elsewhere.
Beautifully written and skillfully blending biography, literary appreciation, and descriptions of Tóibín's travels to Bishop's Nova Scotia, Key West, and Brazil, On Elizabeth Bishop provides a fresh and memorable look at a beloved poet even as it gives us a window into the mind of one of today's most acclaimed novelists.
Synopsis
"This book offers the reader a luminous meditation on Elizabeth Bishop's poetry. It focuses, among other things, on the restraint of her style and the power of the unsaid in her work. But more than that: Colm Tóibín meshes his journey as a writer with hers, showing with unique eloquence how her poems have entered and guided his life. I have no doubt this book will become one of the essential texts on Bishop's work."
--Eavan Boland, author of A Woman Without a Country: Poems"Colm Tóibín--a sensitive critic as well as a novelist--has written an almost ideal introduction to the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. This could become the introduction to Bishop for people who intend to read her for pleasure."--Stephen Burt, author of Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry
About the Author
Colm Tóibín is the author of eight novels, three of which have been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize: The Blackwater Lightship, The Master (the Los Angeles Times Novel of the Year), and The Testament of Mary. His other novels include Nora Webster and Brooklyn. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and a contributing editor at the London Review of Books.
Table of Contents
No Detail Too Small 1
One of Me 9
In the Village 15
The Art of Losing 30
Nature Greets Our Eyes 41
Order and Disorder in Key West 62
The Escape from History 77
Grief and Reason 96
The Little That We Get for Free 115
Art Isn't Worth That Much 135
The Bartók Bird 162
Efforts of Affection 174
North Atlantic Light 193
Acknowledgments 201
Bibliography 203