Sappho's Leap: A Novel
What if the poet Sappho had paused to tell the story of her life in the moment before her legendary leap from the cliff? It's a neat premise, and the grab bag of brilliant bits that is all we know of Sappho's life might, in defter hands, have been fashioned into shimmering whole cloth. Instead, we get a windy, chaotic tale, which owes more to Bob Guccione's "Caligula" than to classical scholarship (sample chapter headings: "Aesop at the Orgy,"&#160;"The Binding of the Babe"). Jong can't resist turning Sappho into a sandal-shod Isadora Wing, careering from one rapt, cartoonish embrace to another while occasionally crooning verses that as an imitation of Sappho's ravishing, elusive poetry are hopelessly inadequate.Copyright © 2005The New Yorker--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.