TITLE - ELIOT AFTER THE WASTELAND
WRITTEN BY - ROBERT CRAWFORD
PUBLISHED BY - JONATHAN CAPE
PUBLICATION DATE - 2ND JUNE 2022
“The Waste Land” by T. S. Eliot is one of my favourite poems, although anyone who has read it will know that the epithet “poem” barely does it justice. Eliot stands virtually alone in the pantheon of British poetry, creating verse that challenged the conformity and traditions of the time.
I am a devotee of T. S. Eliot and I prepared for this book by reading Robert Crawford’s equally excellent first volume, 2015’s “Young Eliot: From St. Louis to The Waste Land”, in which he charted Eliot’s childhood and education, examining the eclectic (and often esoteric) influences on his burgeoning poetry that led to his epic poem. This second volume, entitled “Eliot After the Wasteland”, takes up Eliot’s life after the publication of that tumultuous, iconoclastic work; a period when he would write some of his most celebrated works, including “Four Quartets” and “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” and several successful plays.
As author Robert Crawford states in the introduction to this second volume of his biography, he proffers a deep dive into the life of T. S. Eliot; not only of the celebrated poet but also to the secret life of “Tom” as his friends and family knew him. Throughout, Crawford refers to Eliot as Tom. With unprecedented access to surviving letters and interviews with people who knew Eliot at the time (indeed, Crawford is the last biographer to interview anyone who knew Eliot when “The Waste Land” was first published). This is very much a book about T. S. Eliot the man. Crawford paints an unvarnished portrait of Eliot, brilliant but human. He does not ignore Eliot’s failings in favour of a hagiography; Tom’s bawdy racist poetry and almost casual anti-Semitism will no doubt shock the modern reader.
It is easy to dive back into Crawford’s work and continue Eliot’s life story, who now feels almost like an old friend thanks to the detail with which the first book brought him to life. The distinguished gentleman gracing the cover is T. S. Eliot as we know him; a world away from the nervous-looking youth from the first volume.
This volume picks up the Eliot’s story from the end of the previous volume with little preamble, so while there is no absolutely pressing need to read that book first, some readers may feel like they should. This is merely an observation, not a criticism: having read the first volume, I can put myself in the shoes of someone picking up this book fresh. And as the second volume of this work, it is to be expected. Crawford offers intelligent analysis of Eliot’s poetry throughout but confesses that this isn’t the main thrust of his biography.
There are many developments in Tom’s life in this book - his continued yet hidden feelings for another woman, Emily Hale; the protracted breakdown of his marriage; the subsequent death of his wife, Vivien; his life-changing involvement with the fledgling publishing company Faber & Gwyer (soon to become Faber & Faber, which publishes his first book of poems), his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism and full British citizenship. Indeed, religion is one of the main driving forces of Eliot’s life; so too is his surprisingly complicated love-life. But above all, the main constant and unwelcome companion of Eliot’s life was Vivien’s and his own ill-health. Sadly, in the latter part of his life this would continue, especially for Vivien. There are unflinching passages about her suffering, and also of Tom’s - one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how often Tom gets struck down by influenza or some such ailment. He agonises over guilt that he may have in some way caused Vivien’s illness, even metaphorically “killing” her.
Obviously, the Second World War looms large in this period of Eliot’s life, and we feel the national tension grow as conflict and even invasion becomes ever more likely. There is a lot of interesting detail about Eliot’s experiences as an ARP warden and it is fascinating to read how the war developed on an almost weekly basis through the prism of his life. By the end of the book, Eliot has become a major celebrity, warranting front page splashes in the Daily Mail when he married his much younger secretary, Valerie Fletcher, and finally finding happiness (and not a little eroticism).
“Eliot After the Wasteland” is a remarkable achievement and I enjoyed it immensely, and will return to both it and its predecessor. However, there are a couple of factors that make this book an often difficult read. Firstly, Crawford frequently mentions that various organisations, collections of writing, even the recipients of books from Tom, contained few or no women. This may warrant a single mention, but continually drawing attention to it as some kind of grievous sin almost a century later is egregious, and can only be due to the author wishing to score a few Brownie points with a progressive modern readership.
Secondly, like its predecessor, this book is a weighty tome that includes a lot of painstaking detail on every aspect of Eliot’s life, both literary and personal, (in the case of Vivien’s illnesses, rather embarrassingly so) and as such the text can be a little longwinded at times: expect to read about every illness, night out and holiday the poet ever had.
Criticisms aside, T. S. Eliot was a very intelligent and complex person, often self-absorbed, and his life-story requires a book of this calibre. Despite many highbrow passages, the book is very readable and there are moments of great poignancy - this is biography done right. “Eliot After the Wasteland” is a superb continuation of a groundbreaking biography of T. S. Eliot that is as close to definitive as we are ever likely to get.
