Oxford University Press, New York, 1999.
Most literary writing is either more or less than it appears to be.
This book, edited by Omar Pound and Robert Spoo, with its hefty Introduction and many detailed annotations is entitled Letters in Captivity, 1945-1946, but the scope and meaning of the book reach far beyond the two years given and throw much light on the nature of genius, its psychology, sociology, and tragic destiny. At the same time my review of this book may define and evaluate it, but I know it will also be my last statement on a writer to whom I have been devoted for sixty years, sometimes very critically, and this final statement will to some extent be a revision and a summation. To begin with, the Introduction by Robert Spoo is masterful. Toward Ezra Pound the tone is at times ironic but always aware of his greatness as a poet. Dorothy Pound is something else.