Rachel Baack

Summary: This short story is told by an unnamed female narrator, who details the development of her relationship with her eventual husband from their meeting, through their courtship, marriage, and birth of their son, all the way to its end. Throughout the tale, the narrator has a mysterious green ribbon tied around her neck, and, as her relationship with her husband progresses, so does his fascination with the ribbon. This narrative is a feminist take on the urban-legend-turned-children’s-story “The Green Ribbon.”

Summary: In a dystopian future, low-level government worker Winston Smith lives under the authoritarian rule of the Party, which maintains control via constant surveillance of its citizenry and war with other nations, as well as regulation of the information its populous can access and the speech they can use. Winston, having grown dissatisfied with the restrictive life he and his fellow citizens must live, begins taking steps to break free from his oppressive reality.

Summary: The children of rather unconventional performance artists, Annie and Buster had, in their adult lives, succeeded in putting some distance between themselves and their parents. Now, however, they find themselves needing to return to their parents’ home, where they will have to lean on each other to navigate the absurdity of their family dynamics.

I found this book to be a touching portrayal of sibling relationships.

Summary: This novel depicts the slow, steady, inevitable movement of little-known author Kilgore Trout and mentally ill car salesman Dwayne Hoover toward a fateful meeting with one another.

The book is a study in absurdity that invites the reader to consider themes of free will, inequality, and mental health.

Summary: Years after her journey to Neverland, Wendy Darling’s life once again intersects with Peter Pan’s. This time, Peter has taken Wendy’s daughter Jane with him to his enchanted world, a world that Wendy knows is a much darker place than Peter would have anyone believe. This retelling follows two separate timelines, one that depicts the trials Wendy faced upon her return to London from Neverland and another that follows Jane’s trip to Neverland and Wendy’s pursuit of her. The book was compelling, but I was underwhelmed by the climax.

Summary: This dramatization of true events depicts the runaway social experiment conducted by a high school teacher to demonstrate to his students how it could be possible that a group of people would allow atrocities like the Holocaust to happen. Based on the novel by Todd Strasser.

Summary: This poem entreats its readers to exult in the glories of the Earth, seemingly ruined as it may be, and gently leads them to the inevitable conclusion that the Earth has an everlasting beauty that can never truly be ruined.

Summary: After Narcissus dies, the personified pool into which he often gazed at himself turns to a salt pool and makes a surprising revelation to some nymphs.

Summary: An elegy for Abraham Lincoln.

Summary: A short poem describing the movements of a cavalry.

Summary: A call to arms written the same year that the Civil War began.

Questions have been raised as to the attitude toward war that this poem is trying to suggest.

I have not read all of the works in this collection, but those that I have read are listed and rated below:

• “Come Down, O Maid” (from “The Princess”): A shepherd sings to a young lady to come down from the mountains into the valley to find love. Rating: 4/5
• “Crossing the Bar”: Tennyson uses the metaphor of “crossing the bar” to discuss his approaching death. Rating: 2/5
• “The Eagle” (fragment): The speaker describes the mighty eagle and surprises the reader with a turn of mood in the last line. Rating: 3.5/5
• “The Hesperides”: The guardians of a golden apple tree sing a song about their watch over the tree. Rating: 2.5/5
• “The Kraken”: The speaker surveys the mysterious and powerful creature of the deep. Rating: 2.5/5
• “The Lady of Shalott”: a young woman who lives alone in a castle cannot look toward Camelot under threat of a curse. Rating: 4/5
• “Locksley Hall”: The speaker laments a love who left him and contemplates the progress of society. In my personal opinion, the speaker is prejudiced and whiney. Rating: 1.5/5
• “The Lotos-Eaters”: the speaker recounts the effects of the lotus flower on the mental states of Odysseus’s men. Rating: 4/5
• “Lucretius”: Lucretius, an Epicurean philosopher, has been driven to insanity by a love potion given to him by his wife. He experiences troubling dreams and chooses to take his own life. In his final speech, he explains his dissatisfaction with life, his belief that the gods do not care about or interact with the world, and his desire to exert his will by killing himself. Rating: 3.5/5
• “Mariana”: A woman despairs over the absence of her lover. Rating: 3.5/5
• “Merlin and the Gleam”: Tennyson outlines his poetic career by comparing himself to Merlin. Rating: 1.5/5
• “Morte d’Arthur”: After being seriously wounded in battle, King Arthur calls upon the faithfulness of his last knight. Rating: 3/5
• “Saint Simeon Stylites”: Tennyson uses the voice of Simeon Stylites, an ascetic saint who sat atop a pillar for 30 years, to create a fictional discourse in which the saint alternates between professing his sinfulness and expressing his worthiness to be considered a saint while enumerating his sufferings. The poem is something of a satire. Rating: 2.5/5
• “The Splendor Falls” (from “The Princess”): The speaker calls for the bugles to blow, and he draws a connection between their echoes and the “echoes” of people in our lives. Rating: 1.5/5
• “Tears, Idle Tears” (from “The Princess”): The speaker uses powerful metaphors to express the depth of his sorrow over a loss. Rating: 4/5
• “Tithonus”: Tithonus recalls his youth, when he asked the goddess Aurora, who was in love with him, to give him eternal life. She granted his request but did not give him eternal youth, and now, an old man, he begs her to take back her gift. Rating: 3.5/5
• “Ulysses”: This poem shows a different side of Ulysses (a.k.a. Odysseus) than readers see in the Odyssey. It portrays an older Ulysses who has been stuck at home ruling for many years and is longing to experience adventure once more. Rating: 3.5/5
• “To Virgil”: Tennyson praises the ancient poet Virgil. Rating: 1.5/5
• “The Vision of Sin”: A man who lived a hedonistic lifestyle in his youth gives a bitter speech indicating the corruption of humankind and meaninglessness of much human action. Rating: 3/5

Summary: A man goes off in search of transcendence and the vague “ideal.”

Summary: In this poem, the speaker contemplates the interconnectedness of living entities in a tone that is at once reverent and a bit tongue-in-cheek.