Love & Guilt & The Meaning of Life Etc. by Judith Viorst (review)

BOOK REVIEWS175 Sister Lois Ann Russell's valuable and carefully written study concludes that Challe's "truly human spirit" clearly represents "the evolving epoch of Enlightenment " (p. 143). OWEN A. WOLLAM, Arizona State University Russian Poetry: The Modern Period. Edited by John Glad and Daniel Weissbort. Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 1978, lxii + 356p. This, the sixth and largest volume in the Iowa Translation Series under the general editorship of Paul and Hualing Nieh Engle, is an undertaking of ambitious scope. Glad and Weissbort's design is nothing less than to give the reader an Englishlanguage exposure to the whole of Russian poetry in the twentieth century, including all three generations of émigré work as well as the work of Russians writing in the Soviet Union. This they have done very well. The selection covers the major figures ofmodern Russian poetry comprehensively with only a fewapparent inequities . The fact that Klyuev has more poems in the section devoted to "Pre-World War II Poets in Russia" than Blok and Mayakovsky combined, and that Vanshenkin has more space among "Post-World War II Poets in Russia" than Yevtushenko, can be attributed to a completely laudable effort by the editors to acquaint the reader with the less-anthologized and less familiar poets whose works are nonetheless of significance. There are seventy-three Russian poets represented here in over 250 poems. These poems are heard through the voices of thirty-one translators, most of whom are familiar to American Russian literature specialists. The editors explain that the "basic criterion in selecting this anthology has been to determine what seemed 'to work' as poetry in English, which we have tried to reconcile with 'fidelity' to the Russian original . . . not falling back on contemporary trends, such as universal rejection of rhyme and meter." This approach is a very pleasing one, serving as well readers of varying degrees of interest in the sound texture of the originals. And the success rate here is very high indeed. Only a couple of the renderings are overtly perceivable as translations rather than as poems in their own right. What makes this comprehensive anthology valuable to the specialist is the wonderfully concise yet insightful introductory essay. It is amazing how the editors are able to pack such a wealth of personal detail into a mere thirty pages and still place each poet well into the total context of Russian poetry and world literature. The "Note on Translation" is very instructive as well. Glad and Weissbort have done modern Russian poetry a real service here. LEE B. CROFT, Arizona Slate University Judith Viorst. Love & Guilt & The Meaning of Life Etc.. New York: Simon & Schuster , 1979. 47p. At first glance, Judith Viorst seems quite more than a widow's peak away from Benjamin Franklin. She is, after all, a contributing editor to Redbook (rather than Saturday Evening Post); she is author of four books of poetry, including the bestselling Hou; Did I Get to Be Forty . ..And Other Atrocities, a book ofessays and eight children's books. But in the literary history ofAmerican humor Franklin and Viorst are at least kissing cousins if one is to judge from her latest book, Love & Guilt & the Meaning of Life, Etc. for, like Silence Dogood, the narrator of this collection of 176ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW humorous homilies is a (if not homespun) modern-day advisor on matters of "love, guilt, and the meaningoflife, etc." What is "Exercise Guilt," for example? "Claiming that you do thirty sit-ups a day when you really do thirty sit-ups twice a week." Or what is "Being in Love"? "Being in love is better than being in jail, a dentist's chair, or a holding pattern over Philadelphia, but not if he doesn't love you back." Or: what does Viorst say about "Suffering"? "Suffering makes you deep. Travel makes you broad. In case I get my pick, I'd rather travel." The last example indicates that Viorst is at least second cousins with another in the long line of American humorists: B.H. Shillaber's Mrs. Partington who express "proper" womanly remorse over her instruction to Ike to drown some kittens by cautioning him not to make the water too cold...