Word: ackroyd
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...ELIOT: A LIFE by Peter Ackroyd; Simon & Schuster; 400 pages...
...mentioned and thanked by the author for their help. Occasionally, though, these dutiful expressions of gratitude can yield useful information about the works they precede. This first full-length biography of T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) is a case in point. After acknowledging away for nearly two pages, Peter Ackroyd, an English critic and poet, concludes with a terse paragraph: "I am forbidden by the Eliot estate to quote from Eliot's published work, except for purposes of fair comment in a critical context, or to quote from Eliot's unpublished work or correspondence...
This injunction seems insurmountable. How to write the life of one of this century's greatest poets without including more than a handful of his words? To his credit, Ackroyd persisted. He has not produced the definitive biography; Eliot's estate, following the poet's wishes, stands staunchly in the path of any such study. But T.S. Eliot: A Life does more than make the best of a difficult situation; it offers the most detailed portrait yet of an enigmatic and thoroughly peculiar genius...
Behind this austere facade, Ackroyd finds a tormented and divided soul. Eliot shied away from attention while courting it with Machiavellian skills. Ezra Pound, another American expatriate, aptly nicknamed him "Old Possum." Pound had tried and failed to take over literary London through energy and bravado; Eliot succeeded through diffidence and self-denigration. He invited sympathy; friends who knew he was overworked were startled to see him wearing a green face powder that accentuated his cadaverous pallor. Yet he repulsed those who tried to ease his burdens; several plans to raise money that would free Eliot of his bank duties...
Firstborn, like few recent films, offers a happy reminder that acting can make a film. With Ghostbusters. Murray, Ackroyd, and Ramis make a comedy even without a plot. Here, Collect, Weller, and Garr make a storing film into one of the best. Firstborn does not try to make a social statement by inserting treatises into its characters mouths, rattling off stats about divorce or runaway kids, in the style of some cheap television production. Instead Firstborn is a personal statement offering less pat answers than just a painful and powerful reminder to give pause...