| 词条 | By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept |
| 释义 |
| name = By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept | title_orig = | translator = | image = By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept Cover.jpg | caption = | author = Elizabeth Smart | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = Canada | language = English | series = | genre = | publisher = Editions Poetry | release_date = 1945 | english_release_date = | media_type = Print | pages = | isbn = 978-0-586-09039-8 | oclc = 26314482 | preceded_by = | followed_by = }} By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is a 1945 novel of prose poetry written by Canadian author Elizabeth Smart (1913–1986), commonly believed to be inspired by the author's passionate affair with the British poet George Barker (1913–1991). Brigid Brophy described it as "one of the half-dozen masterpieces of poetic prose in the world". Genesis and writingSmart discovered Barker's poetry in the late 1930s in a book store in London, and began writing the story several years before she met and started seeing Barker. The affair lasted 18 years, and Smart bore four of his 15 children. In the novel, the multiple pregnancies are reduced to one, other details of the affair are omitted entirely, and the narrator's lover is barely described, as she focusses on her own experience and feelings, which was rare for the male-centric literature of that day. [1] Barker later documented the affair in his 1950 novel The Dead Seagull. In 1941, after becoming pregnant, Smart returned to Canada, settling in Pender Harbour, British Columbia to have their first child Georgina, while continuing to write the book. Barker attempted to visit her, but Smart's family ensured that he was turned back at the border, for "moral turpitude." She moved to Washington D.C. to support herself, her daughter, and her writing as a file clerk for the British embassy. In 1943, in the midst of the Battle of the Atlantic, she sailed to England to join Barker, where she gave birth to their second child, Christopher, and completed the novel while working for the Ministry of Defence, who fired her after its publication. Style and receptionThe title is a foretaste of Smart's poetic techniques. It uses metre (it is largely anapaestic), contains words denoting exalted or intensified states (grandeur, centrality, weeping), and alludes to a canonical work (Psalm 137, "By the waters of Babylon we lay down and wept ...") with metaphorical import for the novel's subject matter. In an essay for Open Letters Monthly, Ingrid Norton stated "the power of emotion to transform one’s perspective on the world is the theme of this wildly poetic novel", calling it "a howl of a book, shot through with vivid imagery and ecstatic language, alternately exasperating and invigorating". When the book was reissued in the late 1960s, novelist Angela Carter praised the novel in a Guardian review as “like Madame Bovary blasted by lightning” but later wrote privately to her friend, critic Lorna Sage, that one of her motivations for founding the feminist Virago Press was "the desire that no daughter of mine should ever be in a position to be able to write BY GRAND CENTRAL STATION I SAT DOWN AND WEPT[sic], exquisite prose though it might contain. (BY GRAND CENTRAL STATION I TORE OFF HIS BALLS would be more like it, I should hope.)"[1] Just 2000 copies of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept were published in 1945, and it did not achieve popularity until much later. Smart's mother Louise led a successful campaign with government officials to have its publication banned in Canada, and bought up as many copies as she could find that made their way into the country and burn them. LegacyReferenced many times by the British singer Morrissey, the title was adapted by Ashley Hutchings for his album By Gloucester Docks I Sat Down and Wept which includes the track "Love, Stuff and Nonsense", credited to Smart's work.[2][3] Additionally, the poem was adapted into an unproduced screenplay by Laura Lamson. [4] Grand Central Station is still in print, and widely regarded as a cult classic (akin to a cult film). Excerpts from the novel, and other of the author's writings, feature in On The Side of the Angels (1991), an hour-long biography of the writer, written and directed by Maya Gallus. The chamber-pop duo, Heavy Bell (Matt Peters and Tom Keenan), loved the book so much that they co-created an album titled By Grand Central Station, released in 2018, which they are calling "a paean to the novel: a song of praise and triumph".[5] See also{{portal|Novels}}
References1. ^1 Ingrid Norton. "Elizabeth Smart, Queen of Sheba", Open Letters Monthly, October 1, 2010. 2. ^https://mainlynorfolk.info/guvnor/records/bygloucesterdocksisatdownandwept.html 3. ^https://www.loudersound.com/reviews/ashley-hutchings-by-gloucester-docks-i-sat-down-and-wept 4. ^{{cite web |last=Schiff |first=Amanda |title=Laura Lamson Obituary |publisher=The Guardian |date=2008-12-02 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/02/obituary-laura-lamson |accessdate=2008-12-03}} 5. ^{{Cite web|url=https://www.heavybellmusic.com/band|title=About|website=Heavy Bell|language=en-US|access-date=2019-03-11}} External links
5 : 1945 Canadian novels|1945 poems|Canadian poems|Censored books|Novels about writers |
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