Incarnation & metamorphosis Can literature change us?

Poet Mason (Pacific Light) opines on the transformative power of literature in these thought-provoking essays. "The values of literature--verbal precision, beauty, and the courage to face life in all its variety and ambiguity--are worth holding, and are perhaps even civilizing in the rigor and compassion they demand of us," Mason contends. Positing that literature encourages readers to suspend judgment so as to see the humanity of others, Mason unpacks W.B. Yeats's "Easter, 1916" to show how the narrator moves from irreverence toward respect for Irish rebels over the course of the poem, illustrating how one might exercise compassion toward those with whom one disagrees. A standout chapter on Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney probes how fame turns writers into public symbols that can obscure the nuances of their character. Other selections consider the relationship between politics and literature in the poetry of Claudia Rankine and Kay Ryan, as well as how Pablo Neruda's personal life affects how readers approach his work. Mason's sharp interpretations make a persuasive case that great literature's complexity and ambiguity can, at its best, produce empathy and understanding in readers. Book lovers will find much to ponder. (Mar.)

An ardent cultural observer covers a wide range of topics. As Mason writes early on, this ambitious collection is about "living with literature." A few pages later, the enthusiastic author, an American poet currently living in Tasmania, writes, "we have enough orthodoxy in this world. Let's try to shake it up a little." In "At Home in the Imaginal," Mason combines personal memoir with the magic of storytelling, Irish history, and an insightful analysis of a Yeats poem. In a piece on identity, he argues that "literature invites us into a third dimension where we might meet in our effort to understand not just ourselves but others." Claudia Rankine "seems to have invented her own extra-literary discourse," and Kay Ryan "comes across with transcendent delight." The essay titled "Beloved Immoralist" includes fond memories about his father's love for the artist rebel Gulley Jimson in Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth. Cary, notes Mason, was a "marvelous writer whose career sits uncomfortably among the tastes and demands of our own time." The freethinking Diderot's Rameau's Nephew, which wasn't published until 130 years after it was written, "reads like the love child of Socrates and Samuel Beckett with a dash of Mozartian élan," while Jacquesreminds Mason of both Candideand the work of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Discussing his specialty, the author shows how Neruda's poetry "still has the power to astonish and appall, awaken, and chill us and leave us shaking our heads in bafflement or respect," and he nicely juxtaposes Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney in an essay about fame. Mason is effusive about Hermione Lee's biography of Tom Stoppard, whom he considers a genius, and "Two Poet-Critics" is a delightful appreciation of Clive James and John Burnside. The collection ends with considerations of novelist Robert Stone and poets Dana Gioia and Michael Donaghy. Witty and heartfelt essays, shaken and stirred. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.