A review by thisotherbookaccount
A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety by Donald Hall
3.0
OK, it's more like 3.5.
I generally stay away from prose written by poets. Call me uncivilised, but I am generally not a fan of poetry. But when I heard about this book — A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety by Donald Hall — I just couldn't pass it up. Death and dying are topics that fascinate me as a reader, and descriptions of this essay seem to promise exactly that — from the perspective of a ninety-year-old poet, no less.
An essay collections, like short story collections, collect both hits and misses. And while the chapters that touch on ageing, death, sickness, solitude and isolation are compelling — easily a five-star read — the book also collects a slew of other essays that are somewhat unrelated to the topics at hand. Sometimes Hall writes of a conversation he overhears at a party, or a dinner party he added a long time ago. There's even a large chunk of the book on all the poets, famous and forgotten, he had met over the years. It would make sense for their inclusions if the essays somehow tie back to the topics of death and dying, but they don't always do. While they do feel like they could perhaps make for good materials for a separate book altogether, collecting them here just seems somewhat out of place. It's like serving mash potatoes in the middle of a dessert course.
But the essays on the topics at hand are so good, so well written, that they struck my heart in the deepest, most tender spots. I cannot say I fully recommend this book as a whole, but sections of this are such wonderfully written essays that I feel everyone should read it. After all, we are all dying as we are living.
I generally stay away from prose written by poets. Call me uncivilised, but I am generally not a fan of poetry. But when I heard about this book — A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety by Donald Hall — I just couldn't pass it up. Death and dying are topics that fascinate me as a reader, and descriptions of this essay seem to promise exactly that — from the perspective of a ninety-year-old poet, no less.
An essay collections, like short story collections, collect both hits and misses. And while the chapters that touch on ageing, death, sickness, solitude and isolation are compelling — easily a five-star read — the book also collects a slew of other essays that are somewhat unrelated to the topics at hand. Sometimes Hall writes of a conversation he overhears at a party, or a dinner party he added a long time ago. There's even a large chunk of the book on all the poets, famous and forgotten, he had met over the years. It would make sense for their inclusions if the essays somehow tie back to the topics of death and dying, but they don't always do. While they do feel like they could perhaps make for good materials for a separate book altogether, collecting them here just seems somewhat out of place. It's like serving mash potatoes in the middle of a dessert course.
But the essays on the topics at hand are so good, so well written, that they struck my heart in the deepest, most tender spots. I cannot say I fully recommend this book as a whole, but sections of this are such wonderfully written essays that I feel everyone should read it. After all, we are all dying as we are living.