James Merrill Books

After checking out Divine Comedies at the library and reading a few chapters of The Book of Ephraim, I knew I was willing to read the entire epic of The Changing Light at Sandover. Nearly six months later, after having read and reread Ephraim, Mirabell, Scripts and the Coda (the four sections of Merrill's magnum opus) I am ready to pass judgement. This epic is great but probably not GREAT. It requires a very heavy investment from the reader, not unlike Dante's Divine Comedy, or Joyce's later work. This investment pays dividends, but not the astronomical sort that one hopes when one is flipping through an opera dictionary, trying to discover Merrill's point.

Sandover is full of allusions, contradictions, and virtoso poetry, the latter being why I highly recommend it. As the other reviews tell you here, Merrill, elitist that he is, has not made the work accessible. Which is fine. So here is my short list of writers to be familiar with before you read it: Dante, Homer, Auden, Pound, Eliot, Proust, Wagner, Merrill's earlier work, Blake and Yeats. I also highly recommend Robert Polito's A Reader's Guide to The Changing Light at Sandover, which is more of a handy index followed by a compilation of reviews (including Bloom's and Vendler's) than say, a line-by-line explication of the sort available for Pound's Cantos. Thankfully, The Changing Light at Sandover does not require that.

The Book of Ephraim stands alone and whether you like it will probably be the best gauge of whether you will like the whole of Sandover. Mirabell I found very difficult going and, in all honesty can probably be skipped, like most people skip Purgatorio. Scripts for the Pageant is much more fun and The Higher Keys is really of a piece with it, tying up the loose threads. For all my pessimism, this really is the best modern epic I've found, a thousand times better than The Waste Land or Blake's prophetic works, or even Milton's Paradise Lost. The poetry and storytelling are so overwhelmingly confident that, once you have assimilated the scattered references, it is easy to get carried away. Large questions of free will, life after death and the nature of love are tackled with wit and sincerity. I'm glad I bought it and have it on my bookshelf. Since I put in the sweat, it is now a treasure-box I can open at any time.

There was a lot of attention given to Merrill when his Collected Poems came out, so I went out and read it. (The fact that I hadn't heard of him before should indicate that I don't read a lot of modern poetry). What was astonishing was how effortlessly the poems read, how thoroughly Merrill had mastered the technical aspects of the craft. The poems read as smoothly as prose, but line after line stayed in the memory - and when you went back you realized what a complex and subtle rhyme scheme many of the poems had.

But for some reason, there was a lot I could admire but very little I could love. They didn't just feel like exercises in style, but there was something too cool and smooth about their surface: there wasn't enough humanity in them.

The same isn't true of The Changing Light at Sandover. Don't be put off by the Ouija stuff: the heart of this poem isn't some sort of half-baked spiritualism, but simply the relationship between two people that love each other - the poet and David Jackson.

Let me quote a line from The Book of Ephraim that I memorized without trying, just from reading it a few times. The same technical mastery is there, but now there's something alive in them. Enough of the other reviews tell you what the poem is about, so here's a sample of how beautiful this strange masterpiece can be in its smallest details:

We take long walks through the turning leaves
And ponder turnings taken by our lives.

Look at each other closely, as friends will
On parting. This is not farewell,

Not now. But something in the sad
End-of-season light remains unsaid.

The Changing Light at Sandover is Merrill's magnum opus. It is also the greatest example of epic poetry in modern literature. Divided into four sections (four being a mystical number [seasons, elements, etc] and possibly alluding also to Eliot's "Four Quartets"), Sandover, is, as far as I am aware, the longest single poem in the modern cannon. Yet length alone is not what qualifies this as an epic poem. Like all true epic poetry, it borrows heavily from its classical predecessors, so Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton and even Tasso are alluded to throughout the poem.

The method behind the poem is fairly well known, and is in fact included in the poem's narrative. Merrill and his life-partner, David Jackson, would ritualistically cleanse themselves for a stipulated period, then consult the spirit-world by means of an Ouija Board. Merrill served as a kind of amanuensis, taking dictation from spirits from another dimension and translating the messages into poetry.

Merrill has been branded as an elitist by some, and there is no getting around the fact that he did consider himself and his partner as members of an order higher than that of most of mankind. He believed in a quasi-Gnostic hierarchy, wherein human beings are ranked according to their spiritual development. Unfortunately, the belief system he invokes leans more closely to Third Reich mysticism than to Buddhism or Hinduism. A great many people, according to Merrill's tenets, don't even have souls. They exist only on an animal level. One can see where this sort of thinking can, and has led.

I don`t want to infer, however, that Merrill, or this work, are in any manner political or polemical. This is a true work of art, full of imagination and of ideas. The sheer scope of creativity on display in "Sandhurst" is unsurpassed in the past 100 years of poetry, with the possible exception of "The Waste Land." It should be read and studied (and hopefully, cherished) by all lovers of literature. Whether or not Merrill existed on a higher plane than most of us is certainly debatable, even questionable. Whether or not his excursions into other spiritual realms were "real" or were delusional is also debatable. What is not debatable, is the fact that he produced a remarkable and very important poem in the process.

First of all I felt somewhat intimidated when it came to starting this epic work. I was afraid that my own background might prove inadequate for a product of such ethereal literary heights. It came as a relief when I found that I was well enough read to appreciate the majority of the literary and cultural references (at least I believe that I did.) Part of this was no doubt due to what I brought to the work, but equally part was due to the poet's uncanny ability to draw you in and connect you with the most intimate and obscure reference. I actually felt like I belonged to the circle- that I might be able to hold my own in such august company. This company included not only the poet, his partner, and their friends, but also the supposed spirits of Plato, Pythagoras, Robert Morse, Wallace Stevens, W.B. Yeats, Maya Deven, W.H. Auden, and even more.

So much for the exquisite and impressive poetic and literary aspect of the epic- the metaphysical basis was a another matter. Here I felt more than adequate. It is reported that Merrill and his partner styled themselves as metaphysical adepts. Indeed they drew the old criticism of being "spiritual elitists." Frankly, I do not sense that they were such. Such individuals exist, but they do not naively and uncritically seek out contact with the lower astral plane via ouija board. They do not take at face value the identities and messages of the beings so contacted. True, this may provide "interesting" material for the poet to run with, but it is of dubious value otherwise. In fact, some of the specific information (such as no souls escaping Hiroshima) just sounds plain wrong. As for three billion dead in the immediate future, or Mohammed being the servant of the Adversary and destined to bring about the last holy war, well, I'll let you judge for yourself. There is also something about treating the subject of spiritual patrons and the pattern of the wallpaper with seemingly equal weight in the poem that is somewhat disconcerting...

Just the fact that multiple "characters" reveal in the course of the poem that they are not who they originally said that they were (sometimes for decades) should tell you how much credence you should place in anything that they have revealed.

What irritates me is that some would equate this work with William Blake's. Yes, it is a remarkable work of art, an exquisite poem, but it is not Revelation. You have about an equal amount of gems and dross in a most impressive setting. However, it is up to you to judge which is which. You see, a true poet-prophet (such as Blake or Dante or Milton) rely on their own direct, intuitive connection with the Divine, and not upon a secondary entity to contact the Essence that will impart true immortality to their work. But then again, as far as I know, the poet himself never claimed that this was anything more than a most skilled riff of poetic art. It is indeed that.

The stage adaptation is included in the back of this volume. It is my humble recommendation that you read it first in order to make the main poem a little more accessible.

One furthur note, the "God B" refered to so often here is obviously the Demiurge- Yaltabaoth.


"Now the archon (ruler) who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas ("fool"), and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, `I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come."
---Apocryphon of John, circa 200AD

How can I start a review of the book that captured me into poetry? that led me to actually read and enjoy Dante and Milton? that even led me to reading odd epic poems and novels in verse that rarely make it into the top million rank here on Amazon?

How about "Great book - a life-changer in wholly unexpected ways."

I got my copy gratis back when I was doing occasional book reviews of the more traditional sort and not the slightest bit interested in the slender wisps of poetry that crossed my desk. There was something different about this one, though. This was five pounds of poetry ! Five-hundred and sixty pages ? One poem? How could that be? WHAT could that be?

But you've got to decide whether to spend a few bucks here, your situation is different. So the real question is what brought YOU to this page in Amazon. Needless to say, my five-star rating means that I will try to convince all comers to read "Sandover", but you must realize that you are a rather lonely explorer to have come this far. Your path reveals the nature of your search.

Maybe you've read some of Merrill's other work from the recent, rather successful "Collected Poems". Wonderful! While the critics can tell you about commonalties in all those poems, you probably noticed more of the vast range in that collection: from the tiny, surgically incisive "Little Fallacy", to the weirdly evocative "Lost in Translation" (bet you read that one more than once), to the extended, languorous narrative of "The Summer People", to the challenging and often enigmatic mythos in "From the Cupola."

This wholly different last pair, my favorites, were unexpectedly conjoined as the only two poems in the UK-published early book entitled "Two Poems." Together, they hint best at what "Sandover" will deliver: carefully crafted narrative and delight in poetic form along with intellectually challenging and sometimes cryptic layering. Expect some strangeness wrapped in a reassuring pale, cream cape, until the cape is tossed back to reveal a startlingly, spookily omni-dimensional vision. Sounds like fun ? Jump in...

I guess it's possible that you came here after reading Alison Lurie's recent lurid little "literary memoir." If so, congratulations for stepping over that indelicate little pile to consider the man's most epic work, instead of a shrewish listing of his peccadilloes. Of course personality and autobiography inevitably fuel poetry, and Merrill's "Sandover" is no exception. You might even, legitimately wonder, as I did, how the poetry of a rich gay man, who sounds suspiciously like an aesthete of the flightiest sort in Lurie (and apparently had a weird, mystic streak) can do anything more than entertain you. And how is that possible for 560 pages ?

You won't find the glib and thoughtless dilettante of Lurie's portrayal lurking beneath "Sandover." Merrill was not an overtly autobiographical poet, but he collected the pieces and wrote the tale of Sandover through 20-odd years of his life, In doing so he revealed the reality of privilege without arrogance, mysticism within a wry skepticism, and appreciation of love and beauty in all their forms. "Sandover" is actually a fine place for one who is neither gay, nor rich, nor mystical and, perhaps, like me, aesthetically-challenged, to get drawn-in to a world that twines these elements together in an endlessly interesting and attractive way. If you've read Lurie, I think you will find "Sandover" an especial pleasure - a much more graciously framed journey toward much more extraordinary horizons.

I suppose you might be here because you have developed a taste for the long poem: the epic or the novel in verse (maybe from my own `listmania' list of such works right here on Amazon). If so, you face a more interesting challenge. "Sandover" will offer many things that are familiar but probably some quite different. If the story in Vikram Seth's "Golden Gate" captivated you, you will find a quite compelling story here - but not one quite so down-to-earth. If the different cultures circumscribed by Walcott's "Omeros" or even Budbill's "Judevine" intrigued you, you will find other worlds here - otherworldly locales, indeed.. If Merwin's "Folding Cliffs" satisfied while it challenged you as a reader, you will find "Sandover" to be a surprising combination of the eminently readable and the multi-layered and re-readable. If Dante's, Milton's or even Frederick Turner's epic reach inspired you, you can count on "Sandover" to take you to the inner and outer reaches of the universe.

Finally, of course, you might be here just because you've heard that James Merrill was one of the finest poets of the 20th century. He was. In "Sandover" he combined many, many talents - as a formalist and as an experimenter in form and as one of the last poets to show a pure delight in words and their infective enlodgement in the human brain. The atomics of the poem satisfy and surprise no matter what magnification your readerly microscope is set on. Over and over you will find yourself startled at a just plain perfect piece of short verse - as tersely powerful as William's "red wheelbarrow." Then you will find yourself so captured by the narrative of the story, that only part-way through will you realize that you are in the midst of two pages of elegant "terza rima." Even the largest structural elements partition, loop-back and break off in ways that build a magnificent whole that is as captivating in its large-scale structure as in its single word choices.

Sandover is an endlessly captivating work - I've read it, all 560 pages, four times in ten years, and still pick it up and read a section or two every few months.

This book was recommended by my Dutch mother-in-law who loved the story as a young girl. It is a wondeful tale of animal and human, and teaches that we truely need each other to survivie. I enjoyed this more than any other man/wolf stories Ivé ever read.

I read this book as a child and have never forgotten it. Wrapped up snugly in my warm bed in England, having imaginary adventures in far off Canada. I also remember a further book called Son of Kazan. I have searched many times over the years to find either of these books, I am now 56 years old , and I am grateful to Amazon for making them accessable to me, I was beginning to think I would would never find them. I highly recommend Kazan to any child for an exciting and stimulating read.

An exciting and deeply moving story, Kazan is a must-read for anyone who loves and appreciates animals and nature. They story is told mainly through the eyes of Kazan, a dog who is one-quarter wolf, and this point of view truly enhances the sense of adventure. I felt an instant kinship with the author even though the story was originally written in 1914.

I purchased this book about a year ago, and I have now read it pretty-much cover-to-cover. It is an excellent book. What I have found is that there are very few books on the market that cater to the individual who wants to build a microcomputer, starting from square one. This book caters to that market. If you are trying to build a Motorola 68000 system "from scratch", this book is for you. Be aware that there are a few pieces of information in the book that seem to be out of date. For instance, in the "working system" Mr. Antonakos describes how to build, he recommends an easier-to-use version of a UART that was apparently meant for the old Motorola 6800. The serial communications chip he recommends is now obsolete. However, as I have plowed my way through the morass of parts sellers and other charlatans, I have found that MANY parts are obsolete, even ones listed in the current catalogs of some of the biggest, most reputable IC distributors. Antonakos cannot be blamed for that. If you are interested in "building from scratch" with a Motorola 68000, also be aware of another data point : the 68000 seems to have an obituary written on it. My nose tells me Motorola is going to pull the carpet out from under it, maybe soon, or maybe not for another couple of years. In any case, it doesn't seem like the 68000 is going to be around for long. If you want to do it (build your own 68000 system), get this book and do it now !

This is a very good introduction about the 68000 from a pratical point of view,both at the assembly language level and at the hardware level.Only bad point is the accluded diskette which i found very tricky to use.The style of exposition of mr Antonakos is outstanding and very easy to follow.A great introduction to the 68000.

I had this book as one of my college textbooks. It is very user friendly and has a lot of great qualities. The book describes all of the possible factors associated with emotional and behavioral disorders, as well as prevalance, history, models of thinking, screening and classification. The book dexcribes many different disorders by giving definitions, types, prevalance, causes and prevention, and intervention strategies. One of the best things about the book is the abundance of ongoing case studies in the chapters. These are especially great for discussion with others about causes and stratagies for prevention. Every chapter has questions at the beginning to think about as you read, and a summary at the end. There are also personal reflections by different teachers and professionals at the end of every chapter, which relate to experiences these people have had with the various disorders. Overall, this would be a great college textbook, or a great reference book for someone seeking information about emotional and behavioral disorders.

This is an impressive book in its seventh edition since 1977 and used as an introductory text in special education on the subject of children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders. It is also impressive, because the publisher has developed a companion website accompanying the book with resources for the professor and the student (www.prenhall.com/kauffman). The website is divided according to the chapters of the book with focus questions, multiple choice questions and web resources. The user will also find a message board and a chat room for communication with other students and professors. For the professor there is a syllabus manager in order to create and modify an online syllabus for their courses. The book has 18 chapters arranged with the text arranged around basic concepts like the nature, extent and history of the problem and conceptual approaches to it, assessment of the problem, major causal factors, the many facets of disordered emotions and behavior and each chapter ending with personal statement or reflections by someone else that the author, about teaching pupils with these disorders. I especially liked the history chapter of special education for students with emotional and behavioral disorders, because history is so important for how we deal with problems today. Before 1800 most of the children and youth with emotional and behavioral disorders were looked upon as possessed, wicked or idiotic. In the 19th century teaching went from lunatic asylums and institutions for idiots to houses of refuge, detention centers and later to public school classes for truants, troublemakers and backward pupils. In the 20th century the mental hygiene and child study movements led efforts to deal more effectively with the youth at home and in school. In the 1940s psychoanalytic oriented educational programs began, 1960s and 70s saw periods of rapid growth in educational interventions and the 1980s saw new legislation. All in all a recommended book for persons working with emotional and behavioral disorders both in children and youth.

Professor Joav Merrick, MD, DMSc Medical Director, Division for Mental Retardation, Box 1260, IL-91012 Jerusalem, Israel. E-mail: jmerrick@aquanet.co.il

"Director's Monthly," the official newsletter of The National Association of Corporate Directors, Vol. 21, No. 11, November 1997 says ... "CREATING AND SUSTAINING COMPANY GROWTH, by James B. Hangstefer (Waltham, MA: Burton-Merrill, 1997) promises a 'strategy for delivering concurrentgrowth in value to the key stakeholders of any company: customers, employees, and shareholders' --and delivers in spades. The author, who has run companies and served on a variety of company boards, offers a comprehensive set of managementand oversight tools organized around the concept of MOMENTUM. With practical tools such as a boards 'instrument panel,' Hangstefer lays out theresponsibilities of management versus the board, and shows how both can work together to achieve viable growth. Extras include a glossary and detailed case study."

As Dr. Rohsenow, Professor Emeritus, MIT said on book's jacket...if you're in business and have time to read only one book, make it this one. He couldn't have been more on target. Book is a 9 out of 10 on business-book scale and a 10 on capturing a central thesis we in business instinctively know, i.e., the importance momentum plays in a company. Content explores how to measure it, build it, implement strategies to maintanin it, all toward assuring consistent company growth. Book lays out in easy-to-understand terms the important non-financial standards to use as measures to go along with traditional financial standards to produce corporate growth consistently. This book is informative for the business executive who knows his company is doing well and is mandatory for the executive whose company is not doing as well as hoped for. Book shows how to go about bringing constructive change painlessly. A fresh and provocative read.

This is a high-school text, most appropriate for 10th or 11th grades, I would imagine. It does not divide economics into macro and micro. The publisher is Glencoe. The author is Clayton. The latest edition is 2005.

The text itself is finely done, clear, and carefully written. Important terms appear in blue, the sections are very short for attention-span challenged students, and there are plenty of groovy pictures, charts, and graphs. Chapters typically have three sections each.

Should you use this, you'll be able to tell your students: "You're never gonna have economics laid out as easy for you as it is here. If you can't learn it from this book, you simply can't learn it."

There are also many, many supplementary materials available for this text, from quizzes to math worksheets to final exams. Really, instructors love it too, since they don't have to lift a finger.

There is also a section in the back that recaps the major ideas of each chapter in Spanish. In a pinch, you could use this book in a Spanish economics class, provided it was only temporary.

The recent publication date of this book allows for greater understanding for today's youth. Being part of a summer school class, I was among the first people in my high school to evaluate the book for the regular school year. Key concepts in this book are efficiently shown, and all the basic principles of economics (supply & demand, business types) are outlined very nicely. Although our school did not partake in it, the book also comes with a set of interactive CD's, allowing the instructor to visually show the effects of economics on daily life. There are an amazing number of brightly-colored graphs and pictures to demonstrate the book's main points. This text was extremely successful in helping me gain an appreciation for the backbone of our nation's economic standing.

"Remember," wrote the British art critic John Ruskin in 1853, "that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance." When a peacock unfolds its plumage, the eyespots on its feathers form exact logarithmic spirals, like those in a daisy, a pinecone, and a sunflower. Twenty years later, Ruskin's remark inspired the Aesthetic Movement ("Art for art's sake"), of which the chief proponents were the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde and the American painter James A.M. Whistler. Wilde sometimes wore a sunflower in his lapel; and Whistler, as is documented in this thoroughly researched and richly illustrated volume (with 250 illustrations, nearly half in color), created an opulent dining room for London businessman Frederick Leyland, with peacocks as the main motif. Completed amid controversy in 1877, Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room was dismantled and sold after Leyland's death, and, in 1923, reconstructed in the U.S. at the Freer Gallery of Art, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, where it remains on view. A key event in design history, it was restored physically in 1989 through 1992; and now this book restores it historically, thereby "dispelling some of the myths and misconceptions that had settled over the story like mantles of aging varnish." As a cultural biography, the book's greatest virtue is its breadth of focus: Just as Whistler's interior served as an elaborate setting for Leyland's Chinese porcelain collection, Merrill provides a rich wide factual setting for the Peacock Room. (Copyright © by Roy R. Behrens from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 14 No. 3, Spring 1999.)

This is an erudite investigation into the life styles of both Whistler and his patron Frederick Richards Leyland. Whilst being essentially an art book, it deals with its subject matter in a lively mannner which could well form the basis of a movie script.

I really enjoy to study this book. It is a book that invites pondering. I bought this book orginally to go with my deck of Voyager Tarot cards (which I love) and I have not been disappointed. Some of the side notes to geomancy and chirognomy can get a little confusing, but these are not major parts of the work and are worthwhile to consider. When Wanless invites you to study further the insight that the major and minor arcana can bring you are hooked. He also outlines several different throws that you may enjoy when using his cards that are enlightening. If you have a penchant for Jung and this type of symbology then the book will be a pleasure to be used with the deck.

James Wanless has done a monumental and impressive job of pulling together all the different oracular traditions and showing how they fit into the Tarot mind-space. Astrology, numerolgy, shamanism, and others are clearly explained and carefully related. If you've ever felt like expanding your knowledge and understanding of the Tarot, and how it works as an oracle, this is the book.

"All Possible Worlds" is an excellent source for the history of geography. The authors cover geography as done by the ancient Greeks, Phoenicians, Muslims, Chinese, Medieval scholars. Portuguese, and all the explorers during the Age of Exploration. They excellent cover how hard it was to discard the wrong ideas of the Greeks. After discussing Humboldt, they then go into the development of geography from 1850 to the present day, which to them was originally in the 1970's, although it has been updated up to 1993. in each of the major countries on the Earth.

A definite book for any true geographer to have.

ANOTHER LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS is a monograph of paintings, both finished and in preparatory sketches, each oil on canvas and rather large in size, that are gathered and presented with the titles assigned to each painting by poet friends of the painter. Dorothea Tannning has created twelve elegant and dreamy blossoms and pairs each painting with a poetic response by some of our most gifted poets today - James Merrill, Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery among them. The result is a beautiful little book that speaks quietly to our sense of beauty. Here is a treasure book to not only add to your bedside stand to close the day with sweetness, but here is also that 'book for someone special' that is ever on the list for readers and art lovers alike. Highly recommended.