If Not, Winter
by Anne Carson
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 211)
Read in September, 2007
Anne Carson, poet and Classicist, presents all we have of Sappho in the original Greek and in English translation. Carson indicates with brackets where the papyrus has simply fallen apart or is incomprehensible, which gives a curious flow to most of the fragments. When I read this, I heard some of the lines with pauses; some of the lines overlapped as if multiple voices were speaking, breaking in and over the voice before it.
As you sift through chance lines, half-expressed thoughts, you b...more
As you sift through chance lines, half-expressed thoughts, you b...more
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Read in December, 2003
The book-itself of this collection (in hardback, at least) is intensely covet-able. Its facing page is in one of the more gorgeous Greek typefaces I've seen, and it's off-coloring contributes to the sense of difference and antiquation that seems to be a target of the collection's rhetoric. And the translation is good; I could dip in and out of this book any lazy afternoon. But I leave it wanting to criticize the cat for being a dog: the affect of foregrounding erasure is really very powerful,...more
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Sappho is one of the greatest poets out of ancient Greece. Her poems are beautiful, personal, and well structured. They also come down to us largely in fragments. Anne Carson, a phenomenal poet in her own right, has used the fragmentary nature of Sappho's surviving oeuvre to create a translation that is a work of art in itself. Rather than covering the gaps, or marking them in the same tedious way that is often done with other translations of fragmented works, Carson makes the gaps an important ...more
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To give you an insight into my character (and my sometimes-silliness)... I love this book so much that I copied out some of the best lines in thick sharpie streaks onto a shirt that I wear so much that it's stained and now rather hard to read. An interesting cyclical thing, sort of, given the flimsiness of what remains of Sappho's works.
Also, I once had a writing teacher who said that every word of your writing must be so good that if ...more
Also, I once had a writing teacher who said that every word of your writing must be so good that if ...more
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
ginger, chris, julie
i love almost everything anne carson does, though i have to say that i find her choice of translating sappho so literally curious... the result is at times striking and her use of brackets to communicate loss is dazzling, but there are times when greater creative license was, i feel, called for. but the book itself is stunningly beautiful (i have the hardcover) and it really makes me want to learn ancient greek.
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Read in January, 2004
Oh my. So wonderful. I have four other translations of Sappho's fragments but this is my favorite. Carson grudgingly allows a lesbian interpretation for some of the poems, noting that "[i]t seems that she knew and loved women as deeply as she did music. Can we leave the matter there?" (About an equal number of poems in this collection are about loving men.)
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Read in August, 2007
Love these fragments, which I find all the more moving for their fragmented nature. Sappho has this very quiet, deliberate tone that really appeals to me, and that lets her get away with writing about love without seeming silly. This is the kind of book you can just randomly flip through forever.
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Read in January, 2005
Anne Carson is my favorite contemporary poet, but she's not just a poet. She's a classicist, and this is her translation of the one full remaining poem and the fragments of Sappho. You sort of devour this book a little at a time.
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Read in May, 2008
This is the most thoroughly beautiful and enlightening book of poetry I have read in a long time. Anne Carson's brilliance coupled with her dry, academic humor in the notes to the text top it all off.
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Such a stunning Sappho translation -this book has all the fragments. Really juicy and feels so contemporary even though its from so long ago, like 4th century BCE or something.
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Read in June, 2006
I admit i'm not qualified to read a book of Sapphic fragments in translation, but i love that someone out there is. i don't even think i'm qualified to rate it.
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sappho by a breeder, but whatta breeder! did i mention that everything anne carson writes will improve you as a person? 'cause it's true. it'll embiggen you.
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Read in March, 2007
recommends it for:
all
an anthology of Sappho's fragments newly translated, still true to her poetry, but presented differently, better i think
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buffalo in a swimming pool, or a stethoscope listening to a pear... Was that it, Katie? Thank you.
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Read in January, 2008
Like an ancient Greek ee cummings. Concupiscent and sumptuous.
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
lovers
What one reads to woo a beloved.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in May, 2007
Beautiful new translation
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