Robert Frost Books

I am a patient reader. I love a long book with a clear story. Hall's previous book, "I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company," is one of my favorites.

"Fall of Frost" fails to deliver. The chapters appear helter skelter, the allusions to a wide variety of poetic lines and images do not connect with any central theme or plot point, and in essence, the story goes in circles.

I do know Frost's poetry. I expected enlightenment about this reclusive, brilliant poet. What I got was bored. . .and that's a rarity for me with books. It grieves me that I cannot recommend this book.

I found myself skimming over the distant biographical aspects of this tale and focusing, instead, on the segments dealing with Frost's fictional encounter with Khruschev (and the aftermath of that encounter.) For some reason the rest of this book just didn't grab me.

I'm quite familiar with this work, having read it closely as a manuscript before copyright claims were used to censor a version with which the rights holders did not agree.

You might wonder, "how can one disagree with fiction?" Indeed, how. Fiction is neither true nor false, as it is a product of the writer's imagination. Only a traditionalist would confuse Hall's fascinating work with a biography, and Hall makes it very clear that he is not in any way pretending to present a biographical account of Frost. As a descendant of the poet, I have fond memories of the man, yet Hall's work neither affirms or undermines those memories. It does, however, incite reflection.

Biographers and historians--I was once among the latter--are restricted by their genre to examining almost exclusively the "exterior" or public lives of their subjects, as there is no way to "prove" what might have been going on in another person's head. Over the past generation or more, a newer genre that one might call "fictional biography" has emerged, and Hall's Fall of Frost is a fine exemplar. It examines the "interiority" of Frost, unapologetically working with the facts of Frost's life, Hall's own reading of Frost's poems, and Hall's own splendid imagination. By my reading it works quite well as an enjoyable and often amusing (yet at turns dead serious) riff on Frost-isms. We have Frost-isms today because Frost the poet-as-public-man has, thanks to myriad writings about him, eclipsed Frost the friend, great-grandfather, or rival. His work and life are now an integral part of our American cultural space and as a consequence, he can now become an altogether different type of literary figure--perhaps a post-human one.

Some have criticized this work for being insufficiently linear, that perhaps Hall is playing tricks with time, or worse, that he didn't bother with chronology. Yet as a long philosophical tradition indicates, the interior life of the mind is not linear, nor is the sense of time experienced as a continuity. For decades now, innovative authors and filmmakers (Fassbinder's Berliner Alexanderplatz comes to mind here) discard linearity to capture the disjointed workings of consciousness. While one might not like the exoticism of the technique, it is certainly not on Hall's part a consequence of indifference or inattention. As life itself runs in forward mode and memory runs in reverse, perhaps disjointedness is the only way to capture the experience.

Hall's imaginative work is obviously not for everyone. Those seeking a well-patinated reaffirmation of Frost as a deep, sensitive, yet (of course!) complicated man--and those seeking a straightforward biography--should look elsewhere. Those looking for an imaginative and playful construction of a twentieth-century literary giant through the eyes and imagination of a post-modern twenty-first century novelist will probably be well satisfied.

This book is a difficult read only because one needs an approved version of the poetry to fill in where quotation of the poetry was forbidden; otherwise, it a pleasurable romp. Those troubled by the use of copyright as censorship might do well to read the fine works of Lawrence Lessig. Something is indeed wrong when "classics" in a culture can be privately owned and their use can be policed. The public's enthusiasm for Frost's work now sustains its value, and the public--and writers like Hall--should be free to do with it what they wish.

I know Frost's poetry well and I have read all the major works on him over the past ten years. He is surely the poet I love best. Given the great span of Frost's life, the complexity of his experiences and the many, many people he knew, Hall's "Fall" is written in the worst possible way. It is as if Hall did some homework, wrote an unnumbered set of pages, sent them off to the printer, whereupon someone dropped them on the floor, knew nothing about reassembling them and just scooped them up and bound the hapless mess. The entries are disjointed, fragmented and tedious. The story is presented in a series of spasms that only a Frost expert could follow. And why all the venom? Even Lawrance Thompson's flawed official biography is tame by comparison. The average reader will hardly get through the first fifty pages without wondering, "What IS this?"

I can certainly see that Mr. Hall read up on his subject, but he is tone deaf in taking Frost as a man or a literary figure. The tone is all wrong. One wonders how the youthful Hall came to the presumption of "speaking for" Robert Frost. What a fractured misrepresentation. This is the "Punch and Judy" version of Frost, written in a spit and drip style of prose. And how about that Betsy Melvin cover? Oh, that's too bad.

UPDATE 4/13/08
In an interview in Boston April 6, Hall said he spent 2-1/2 years on research. He says, "this book is very close to being a biography and . . . I prefer not to depart from the facts." Well, then it is a biography materially. He uses all the correct names (that are usually changed in fiction to protect the innocent ) and even gets the color of the floors and wallpaper right. Then Hall crosses 100 years of generational mentality to "speak the mind" of someone he studied through books for 2-1/2 years. Well, that's quite a leap for a young man of Hall's age.

How did Hall get into bed with Elinor Frost and decide she "didn't like doing it?" Elinor Frost was a Scorpio, and so was Kay Morrison. Analyze that!

Hall can write creatively at times, but that's not the issue. I especially liked his "chapter" on the writing of "An Old Man's Winter Night," and "Chapter" 128, which shows me Mr. Hall is capable of making a literary allusion - well done and interesting. The whole book would have been so much better in that style, rather the niggling accounts of Frost's anxiety, insecurity and neurosis. Hall reveals little that is positive and noble in Frost's character. If one reads the works cited in "Author's Note," thoroughly and thoughtfully, especially Selected Letters, a completely different portrait of Frost emerges for me. Yes, Frost has his foibles; he is human. But the larger picture is a man of grace and charm who is inspiring, generous, and noble; who never allowed tragedies to defeat him and never lost his sense of humor.

Here are two of the most searing examples of Frost's character:

In Elinor's last years, he wrote, "She has been the unspoken half of everything I ever wrote." (Selected Letters, To Untermeyer October 4, 1937)

Toward the end of Frost's life, he knew his official biography was being negatively distorted by Lawrance Thompson. RF told Stanley Burnshaw, editor at Holt, to "protect me from Larry." Burnshaw was astounded; how could he protect Frost from Larry? Burnshaw told Frost to withdraw his permissions and the work would be severely disabled. Frost said, "No, I gave him my word."


Carole Thompson, Director
Robert Frost Stone House Museum
Shaftsbury, VT

How Ms. Thompson can write such a wrong-headed, blind and venomous review of a novel this artful, this carefully researched, this deeply sympathetic and nuanced about a great poet's long and complex life can only come, it seems, from her clutching sense of ownership of the poet and his work. For Hall is not dealing here with marble monuments, as Ms. Thompson would have it. Brian Hall has done nothing less than what all fine novelists do--he has delved deeply into the heart and soul of a character, and has given us a living, breathing man of immense gifts, large flaws, and profound grief. Generous, flinty, funny, thin-skinned, wise and sadly neglectful; a poor man, a rich man; a famous poet, an obscure and largely unpublished poet; and finally a man who suffered losses so horrific they would have served well for Greek tragedy. And at the center of this stunning novel is the poetry and Brian Hall's delicate and deeply intelligent readings of the poems. What we have in the end is not only a magnificent novel, but a deep and balanced portrait of a man. ---- And to attack the novel's gorgeous cover? Wow! That says it all, Ms. T.

This is the conclusion of my rhymed review
published in The ROBERT FROST REVIEW,
Fall 1999, pages 75-80.
Copyright (c) 1999 by John Ridland:

Who's this book good for in the end?
Anyone, whether foe or friend
Of Frost, or neutral, to explore
His "world" (and ours)--an open door,
Just as its press release declares,
Which leads up/down Escherian stairs,
For "poetry lovers, scholars, schools,
Libraries", with the learning tools
Laid in our hands, or CD drawer,
(Which true-blue Luddites will deplore
As treacherous tautology)
By our last century's technology--
Or several doors by which to enter
And search for one who, in the center,
Sits, like his "Secret" I once got
In a fortune cookie, I kid you not!
HIS Secret, which this disk will guard,
Is out: he's still America's Bard.

If you're using XP, this CD won't work. The R Frost program requires small fonts, so it says, in order to display properly. On my Windows 2000 Pro, laptop, the Frost CD operates correctly (when I have chosen small fonts). This is done by right clicking on your desktop and chosing properties. (Contrary to what the previous reviewer states, my Frost CD has worked on all my windows operating systems until XP.)

Under Windows XP, the only options for Fonts are Normal, Large and Extra Large. So... even though the Frost CD would *probably* work on an XP system (if one could edit the program) because XP tells the Frost program that it is using the "normal" font size, the Frost CD refuses to boot. This is a real shame because the CD is beautifully done & well worth the money. The fix is probably a simple one for a hacker. Any hackers out there?

This is one of his best poems and also included in his last book, IN THE CLEARING. It goes along well with the Michael York autobiography. I am wondering if his title was 'lifted' from this poem about Darwin and evolution, about love and sorrow.

The Universe is but the Thing of things,
The things but balls all going round in rings.
Some of them mighty huge, some mighty tiny,
All of them radiant and mighty shiny.

They mean to tell us all was rolling blind
Till accidentally it hit on mind
In an albino moneky in a jungle
And even then it had to grope and bungle.

Till Darwin came to earth upon a year
To whow the evolution how to steer.
They mean to tell us, though, the Omnibus
Had no real purpose till it got to us.

Never believe it. At the very worst
It must have had the purpose from the first
Tp produce purpose as the fitter bred:
We were just purpose coming to a head.

Whose purpose was it? His or Hers or Its?
Let's leave that to the scientific wits.
Grant me intention, purpose, and design --
That's near enough for me to the Divine.

And yet for all this help of head and brain
How happily instinctive we remain,
Our best guide upward further to the light,
Passionate preference such as love at (first) sight.

He was the poet of the common people.

This is his last book with new poems. He is regarded as one of America's greatest poets. Among his many honors are four Pulitzer Prizes and an appointment as Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress.

At John F. Kennedy's inauguration on Jan. 20, 1961, he was called the Poet Laurete of U. S. A. to be acknowledged by such an educated president to take part. He was such an old man, he fumbled his papers, as he read "The Gift Outright." This was the first time when a poet had been so honored and marked a high point in his long and distinguished career.

When the English poet W. H. Auden wrote an essay in praise of Robert Frost, he made the observation that he was literally in a class by himself: "the class of nature poets who have worked with the land and actually know how to milk cows and, in general, can life the life of a Yankee farmer. In his elder years, in Florida, he planted orange groves and other fruits.

He was more than a poet and man of letters. He was a public figure and had by the time of his death in 1963 become a nation's symbol. His most famous poems are "Stopping by Wood on a Snowy Evening" and "Mending Wall." In his book, NORTH OF BOSTON, you will find a long poem/fable called "The Generations of Man."

Since I am a bird fancier, I chose "Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter" (as I look for birds year round in this town which hates starlings and pigeons.

The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.

In summer when I passed the place,
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.

No bird is singing in it now.
As gilt to gold that wouldn't show,
A brush had left a crooked stroke
Of what was either cloud or smoke --
From north to south across the blue.
A fpercing little star was (shining) thru.

In YOU COME, TOO, Noel Perrin write in his foreword, that Frost was determined to use "the ordinary language of ordinary people, and to transmute that plain Yankee speech into shining verse."
President Kennedy is quoted, "...has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding."

NORTH OF BOSTON was written along with all sorts of briefer things in rhyme in a form suggested by the eclogues of Virgil. He'd tried for years to get his poems published in 'Atlantic Monthly who automatically rejected each and every thing he submitted. I used to love poetry but could not write it; Tristan, on the other hand, was such a writer, though his dad Zach was more into prose like his old mom, except for the science fiction and sports. Robert Frost was a true classic.

Mildred Downey Broxon, Lin Carter, Marylois Dunn, George Alec Effinger, Gregory Frost, Joseph Green, Linda Haldeman, R.A. Lafferty, Shariann Lewitt, Brad Linaweaver, A.R. Major, Mary H. Schaub, and Lynn Ward.

Robert Frost: A Pictorial Chronicle is the life story of Robert Frost by Kathleen Morrison. The book talks about Robert Frost, starting from his high school years when his first poem was published. The book tells about a magazine Robert Frost had entered one of his now famous poems and also reveals specific dates Robert Frost moved, as well as the address of the house he purchased. The book releases information concerning people he had to meet up with. For example, Robert Frost meets with John F. Kennedy at his inauguration to recite a poem. It allows you to read individual letters written by Robert Frost as well as his last poem written.
This book is a pictorial chronicle, starting from when Robert Frost's first poem. It takes you on a journey through the life of Robert Frost. I found the book somewhat hard to read do to long sentences and how often the righter switched the subject. This book was well written with interesting information released about Robert Frost and his family, but most of all about Robert Frost's personality and feelings expressed.
The book is hard to follow, but the information is amazing. I would rate this book with three stars. The book is written to allow to visualize the settings which makes it a little easier to read, but the book jumps from subject to subject with no warning is witch is why I give it three stars. I would insist that anyone who is interested in poetry read this book, because you see the day to day life of an outstanding poet.

The farm boy from Connecticut could have been the greatest hitter in baseball, but fate and people work against him. Coaches resent his superiority and independence and refuse to support him. Then an accident ends his athletic career. The protagonist succeeds in other areas, though, so his story is not a tragedy. The author is too didactic in trying to prove that there are more important aspects of life than the money and fame to be won in pro sports.

An ego driven report of some obviously superficial relationships with people mostly dead. Self-centered and
pompous. And for this they felled a tree?

Too few Americans know that Frost had his first success as a poet in England, and that the English poet and literary journalist Edward Thomas contributed to that success.
Frost called Thomas "the only brother I ever had." The two had many things in common, and they formed a close friendship from their first meeting in October 1913 until Thomas was killed in battle in France in April 1917. They took long walks together while Frost was living in Gloucestershire in 1914, and both wrote poems about this--Frost's "Iris by Night" and Thomas's "The sun used to shine."
Thomas helped Frost refine his theories of "the sound of sense" and wrote reviews praising his second book, North of Boston. Frost prompted Thomas to discover his own poetic talent, and Thomas wrote over 140 poems in about two years, some of which--like "I Remember Adlestrop"--were loved and learned by generations of English schoolchildren.
So this assembly of the surviving correspondence between the two offers readers some insight into the nature of the friendship, but holds disappointments as well. The editor, Matthew Spencer, offers no explanation for the surprising six-to-one imbalance of the letters in favor of Thomas, though available sources, including some in his bibliography, indicate that Thomas burned most of his correspondence before going to France. Nor does he provide an index, though the letters contain numerous references to well-known writers of the time. Spencer does outline the circumstances that led Frost to England, but he skips over the publication of Frost's first book, A Boy's Will. His account of Thomas's years of freelancing under a cloud of depression and the brief flourishing of his friendship with Frost may be a useful review for readers already acquainted with the story, but will hardly help newcomers understand the fragmented version of it in the letters.
Michael Hofmann's Foreword and Christopher Ricks's Afterword might have provided helpful insight into the friendship, but these two writers choose instead to ride their own hobby-horses. Hofmann takes off on a weird psychosexual interpretation of the friendship, and Ricks entertains himself with a series of rhapsodies on the theme of Anglo-American rivalry, all the while noting that it doesn't apply to Frost and Thomas!
There are much better sources for understanding the Frost-Thomas friendship, including Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years by Eleanor Farjeon and "The Only Begetter," a chapter in John Evangelist Walsh's Into My Own.

This is no Omnibus of Robert E Howard's Conan stories - I found only one story match between this supposed complete collection and my hard copy version of The Conquering Sword of Conan.

And its text is not formatted properly for the Kindle. There are forced line breaks in the middle of nearly every line, resulting in choppy paraghraphs and an astectic that makes reading on an eletronic reader difficult and frustrating. Additionally there are no links for Table of Contents, so finding a start of a specific story is a random walk among similar pages, and only achieved through sheer luck.

Avoid this unless you are willing to "accept what you pay for", instead invest the $7.96 and get the other editions that match with the paperback editions.