We Dream of Honour: John Berryman's Letters to His Mother

Bys: Kelley, Richard J. and Berryman, John

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393024776
• ISBN13: 9780393024777
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 405 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Oedipus rising

The normal inclination after reading this book is to say, "I can see why he jumped off the Washington Avenue bridge." and that's pretty much the picture it draws for the reader. The constricting relationship between Berryman and his mother from his days at Cambridge to the end of his life was often contentious and demanding, though loving in nature. The seemingly tight-knit love slowly unravels as the young man blossoms into a self-reliant(albeit maniacal) man of letters and esteemed poet. Early on it is evident that the glue sticking this family(brother Robert Jefferson is alluded to often)together was the suicide of John Allyn Smith, Berryman's(his name belonging to his step-father) father. The grief of that incidence, which the poet witnessed, plagued him until his own untimely demise and likely contributed to his alcholism and other physical and psychosomatic maladies which the poet incurred and often brought on himself. As Berryman graduates from college and begins his life as an academic he is often reliant upon his mother for support, both morally and financially. This carries through three marriages and until after many years, when the roles begin to reverse and the pressures of his growing popularity and stature wears him to a thin wire of nerves and anguish. Through it all he always strives to please her and provide for her expectations as much as his own bravado. It is only when the two goals clash, and they often do, that the strain becomes evident and irreversible. As the book wears on and a few of Mrs. Berryman's melodramatic letters are placed alongside his, it becomes obvious where much of his grotesque public theatrics is rooted. I loathed to read any of her syncophantic retchings and felt totally sympathetic with his side of the relations. Berryman's letters are often inciteful and funny, cocksure and self-important all the while being plagued with desperation and suffering. Though he tried to mask much of the reckless behavior (at least in the selections provided)he had engaged in (extra-marital affairs, alcoholism, drug dependency), much of the personal and psychological struggles are discussed exhaustively. Although not as complete as one of the two major available biographies on Berryman, it certainly serves as a good companion piece, providing missing insights and general proclivites of the troubled poet.