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the complete review - fiction/art

Still Life with a Bridle

by
Zbigniew Herbert

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : an interesting collection of historical essays and "apocryphas"

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "What Herbert is visiting and repopulating is more modest and circumscribed, but extraordinary in its own way. His subject is the Netherlands in the 17th Century, its time of greatness. (...) Some of what Herbert remarks is familiar, but the key to his writing is not so much what he sees as what he needs. A poet transmutes need into vision. (...) Herbert’s essays, followed by a collection of brief vignettes, explore a variety of particulars, any one of which is apt suddenly to flower into a universal." - Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times
  
  
• "Still Life With a Bridle can be seen as part of a larger project Mr. Herbert has articulated and pursued in his widely acclaimed poetry: an attempt to use the imagination as "an instrument of compassion . . . and so to bring the dead back to life / to preserve the covenant." For Mr. Herbert, neither pure poetry nor pure science can bring about this resurrection; he pursues the past at their intersection, aided by a profound ambivalence about method and an enduring skepticism about both "the exertions of scientists" and the "artificial fires of poetry." (..) It is difficult to tell whether the 10 "apocryphas" that close this volume are a culmination or a giving up, an answer to Mr. Herbert's dilemma about fact and fiction or simply a transcendence of the question altogether." - Matthew Stadler, The New York Times Book Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Known primarily as a poet, Herbert has also published several collections of prose. This volume of essays and apocryphas focusses on the Netherlands when it was at the height of its powers.
       Herbert's analysis of the "tulipmania" that gripped the nation, sending prices skyrocketing (our modern equivalent being the internet stock frenzy) is as good an overview and introduction of that event as any. Herbert's knowledge and appreciation of art, Holland, and the Dutch masters -- and his ability to write about it engagingly -- also serve him well in the other pieces, whether writing about "The Price of Art" or painters such as Gerard Terborch or Torrentius.
       The apocryphas are ten short prose pieces melding fact and fiction. More uneven -- or unsure of what they are meant to be -- they are nevertheless interesting pieces. Herbert's fecund mind and sound mastery of his subjects make the piece worthwhile.

       Focussed on art, and on a specific time of history (basically 17th century) and a specific culture (Dutch) the book might not be of interest to everyone. We recommend it for those who think they might be interested in Herbert's subject.
       

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Links:

• Notting Hill Editions publicity page

• The Los Angeles Times

• The complete review's Zbigniew Herbert page.
• Zbigniew Herbert at the Poetry Foundation
• Fundacja Herberta
• Zbigniew Herbert at Polska 2000

• Elegy for the Departure
• The King of the Ants
• Mr Cogito
• Reconstruction of the Poet
• Report from the Besieged City

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About the Author:

       Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998) was born in Lwow. He earned degrees from the University of Krakow, the University of Warsaw, and the Nicholas Copernicus University of Torun. He began publishing his poetry in 1956, though he continued to have difficulties getting much of it published in his native Poland. One of the foremost modern European poets, he has been extensively translated.

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