A Disappointing Life
The book A Village Life, by Louise Gluk, is about just that, life in a small village. This village, while centered around agricultural pursuits, such as harvest and market, is also centered around something a bit more sinister; oppression. This village has been left alone by the modern-day technology of ipods and netflix, but has never really been released from the oppression of out-of-date values and beliefs. Oppression is also present in the monotony of the villagers’ lives; the repetitive cycle of a life planned by tradition. Oppression lurks in the judgmental eyes of watchful neighbors. This feeling of oppression seem to breed suspicion, guilt, and anxiety in each piece, from the poem about a woman contemplating her failed marriage, to the poem about someone simply trying to enjoy a tomato. No subject is left out between these two extremes.
Glück establishes this feeling of oppression in her book by using both form and voice. Though her poems are essentially free verse, using no rhyme scheme or meter, they do not sound uninhibited. Instead of flowing gently from line to line, guided by lovely adjectives and gentle action, Glück’s words come out matter-of-factly, if not curt. Her verse appears anything but free. Each poem sounds as if the author was being called down to dinner by an impatient mother, a mother who probably does not approve of poetry. Interestingly enough, this tone only adds to her work, emphasizing the poems’ feelings of anxiety and guilt. For example, in the poem, “Primavera,” Glück uses three short lines to describe spring:
“Spring comes quickly: overnight
the plum tree blossoms,
the warm air fills with bird calls.”[1]
The stanza is not verbose, yet effectively creates a beautiful image. In fact, most of her poems are in the form of monologues and narratives, two styles that make the poetry seem as if the reader is thinking it instead of reading it. Though each poem contains a sparse amount of adjectives, they all seem to contain more than an average amount of verbs. However, this does not mean that the lines are not descriptive. In fact, the verbs seem to paint a more vivid picture in a few words than 10 adjectives ever could. It seems as if every line contains an action that builds a setting or a feeling quickly and effectively. Because of this, Glück’s poems do not need to be long or verbose to get their feelings across to an audience and most feelings are established in a single short stanza. For example, in the poem, “A Slip of Paper,” the speaker does not beat around the bush in communicating the mood of the poem:
“Today I went to the doctor-
the doctor said I was dying,
not in those words, but when I said it,
she didn’t deny it-“[2]
In those four lines, written as if they were mortality statistics, Glück establishes a mood of quiet despair and sad acceptance. This minimalistic style prevails throughout the book and fits nicely with the theme of a simple village life.
The book starts out pastoral enough, with a poem called, “Twilight,” in which the speaker contemplates a man coming home from working in a mill, to sit at a window and watch the only part of the day he ever gets to see be slowly taken away from him by the setting sun. The speaker alludes to the man’s guilt caused by this small pleasure, by quoting something the man heard long ago as he sits by his window; “living- living takes you away from sitting.”[3] The man, though he enjoys seeing twilight, knows that it is a waste of time, sitting and desiring something that cannot stay. He feels anxious watching the sun set, knowing that soon he must, like every other night, “let everything go,”[4] and go to sleep. This poem, though beautifully written in my opinion, is also devastatingly sad. To think that a man who works all day cannot enjoy something so simple as twilight without feeling depression or guilt, is a horrible thought. This poem introduces the village as a place controlled too tightly by some values, such as hard work, and too little influenced by other beliefs, like the idea that beauty should be enjoyed. In other words, this poem sets a tone for the rest of the book, warning its readers that though A Village Life may be stunningly beautiful, it cannot be appreciated without sadness.
Though oppression plays a large role in this book, it is not the only theme. Another main theme present in A Village Life is a love of the past. Most of the poems are reminiscences, comparing the ways things are to the way things once were. In the poem, “Tributaries,” the speaker discusses her journey through life, starting at the center of everything and, by age or centrifugal force, being pushed to the edge. She describes a fountain in the middle of a village square. In the fountain, children play, occupying the center of attention. Young couples sit on the edge of the fountain, “splashing their sweethearts with fountain water,”[5] while mothers watch their children and “talk to one another, maybe meet a young man, see if there’s anything left of their beauty. When they look down, it’s a sad moment; the water isn’t encouraging.”[6] These women are dreaming about their youth and can get away with it, until, of course, they see their own reflection. Around the fountain are metal tables, the seats taken by the elderly. Though they have spun out to the edge of life, they do not yearn for their youth. Instead, they watch the others, fascinated.
“The mothers are tired constantly, the children are always fighting,
the husbands at work or angry. No young man comes.
The couples are like an image from some faraway time, an echo coming
very faint from the mountains.”[7]
This poem reeks of the oppressing values present in the village. It is assumed that the husbands are either constantly working or in a constant state of anger. The young couples are “like an image from some faraway time,” suggesting that they appear like characters in a fairy tale. One can assume that this means they are not being particularly showy with their feelings, meaning they are oppressed by embarrassment and guilt. Another poem, “At the River,” delves further into this embarrassment. “At the River” is a poem about the speaker’s mother explaining sexual intercourse to her daughter. The poem begins with the speaker saying her mother wanted to tell her about “pleasure.” But daughter soon understands that, to her mother, sex and pleasure are certainly not the same thing. The mother is embarrassed by the whole ordeal and takes her daughters hand “as though somebody in the family had just died.”[8] She tries to explain it unemotionally, but ends up making herself sound like a “speech about mechanical engineering than a conversation about pleasure.”[9] The poem delves deeper into the mother and why she cannot seem to explain sex well. The speaker offers an explanation by saying; “she and my father did not have a language for what they did which, from what I could judge, wasn’t pleasure.”[10] This is obviously a society that cannot feel comfortable with sexuality in any form. This is just further evidence that the village is oppressed by outdated beliefs and social constraints.
Another poem that epitomizes the feeling of oppression in the village is “Harvest.” Though the oppression in this poem does not appear as blatantly as it does in the other poems, it is able to pick up through the anxiety and guilt expressed in word choice. The poem begins with a discussion about tomatoes:
“It’s autumn in the market-
Not wise anymore to buy tomatoes”[11]
The beginning is innocent enough, but the poem then seems to take a turn for the sinister:
“They’re beautiful still on the outside,
Some perfectly round and red, the rare varieties
Misshapen, individual, like human brains covered in red oil cloth-“[12]
The idea of tomatoes as human brains is quite a terrifying image. Sadly, it only gets worse from there.
“Inside, they’re gone. Black, moldy-
you can’t take a bit without anxiety.”[13]
The speaker cannot even observe tomatoes at a market without imagining the worst. This demonstrates the theme of suspicion and anxiety that runs throughout many of the poems.
The book A Village Life is rife with strife! Though its poems are beautiful, emotional works of art, they leak sad feeling all over a reader’s desk. Every poem is created to express grief, oppression, heartbreak, and disappointment through its form, voice, and word choice. There is not one poem in this entire book that is actually happy. Of course, that is not surprising. It is hard to find a revered piece of contemporary poetry that speaks only of happiness or contentment. Of course, there are some poems in this book that speak of enjoyable tasks. However, these tasks are discussed in comparison to other painful, depressing topics. A Village Life may seem lovely, but the village itself is an oppressed community, unable to take joy in life.
[1] Louise Glück. A Village Life. page 46 New York: Farrar, Straus, And Giroux, 2009. Print.
[2] Ibid., 32
[3] Ibid., 3
[4] Ibid., 3
[5] Ibid., 6
[6] Ibid., 6
[7] Ibid., 6
[8] Ibid., 21
[9] Ibid., 21
[10] Ibid., 21
[11] Ibid., 41
[12] Ibid., 41
[13] Ibid., 41
Bibliography:
Glück, Louise. A Village Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, And Giroux, 2009. Print.
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