The Castle of Indolence: On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters

I love Disch's writing on pretty much any subject. My enjoyment of this volume of his critical writing on poetry was slightly hindered by a few things: 1. I've read almost none of the work he's discussing— although that's also a good thing, because now I have a reading list. 2. It's very much a "here's a collection of reviews I wrote" kind of thing, with no particular structure or through-line as there is in, for instance, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of. That means that some potentially interesting ideas, such as his take on writing workshops, are both repeated and under-explained. (In the case of the workshop thing, most of the repetitions are just drive-by sneers, but when he gets around to clarifying it's a little more nuanced: he show more thinks that even if workshops don't produce good poets, they're still worth doing because practicing any kind of writing and editing is good for people.) 3. I don't so much mind his occasional lapse into personal put-downs, but there's something disingenuous about it when, at the end, he claims not to understand why people took them as put-downs. (It reminded me of when I first became aware of Disch: his hilariously dismissive afterword to Philip K. Dick's The Penultimate Truth, which somehow managed to read like an appreciation and a hatchet job at the same time.)

Anyway, regardless of what you think about those things, this is totally worth reading just for the respectful but playful joy that comes through whenever he's writing about something he really liked. show less

Many great observations. Style is relatively witty, very erudite. A fair amount of repetition as the book is an assemblage primarily of previously published essays on poetry. The overall impact of the book is diminished by this fact.