About book The Autobiography Of William Butler Yeats (1986)
Here is why I find this book interesting and valuable: In a prefatory note, Yeats writes, "...I am writing after many years and have consulted neither friend, nor letter, nor old newspaper, and describe what comes oftenest into my memory." This makes for an almost casual structure to the work and is something akin to sitting and listening to Yeats recollect as he pleases and not according to any outline or plan. The ideal reader of the book would be well-read in the history of Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th century. Lacking that, the book is still quite enjoyable and informative, and it contains passages of a singular beauty that one might only expect from a true poet writing in prose. One of the sections near the end of the book deals with Yeats winning the Nobel Prize in 1925, his traveling to Sweden to accept it, etc. I loved it that when he was informed in the middle of the night that he had been awarded the prize, he went to his cellar for a bottle of wine to open in celebration; finding none, he and his wife cooked sausages instead. How can one not appreciate a book where the author, a giant of literature, elects to include this delightful, homely detail?
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