Dear poet friends,
The latest issue of the New York Review of Books includes Brad Leithauser's thoughts on Louis MacNeice. I always learn something from Mr. Leithauser's articles and enjoy reading them very much. I'm interested in his reading of the poem, "The Brandy Glass," as "macabre, irrational, and grotesque," which I found merely sad, but I get his point. You'll have to get his commentary from NYROB but you can have my take right here below.
The Brandy Glass
Louis Mac Neice
Only let it form within his hands once more--
The moment cradled like a brandy glass.
Sitting alone in the empty dining hall...
From the chandeliers the snow begins to fall
Piling around carafes and table legs
And chokes the passage of the revolving door.
The last diner, like a ventriloquist's doll
Left by his master, gazes before him, begs:
'Only let it form within my hands once more.'
To figure out that first line, "Only let it form within his hands once more--," I began with the next, "the
moment cradled like a brandy glass." A man (a person,[a poet?]) sits alone in the empty dining hall wishing to recapture/savor the 'moment' which has gone. The brandy glass is empty (the poet doesn't say glass of brandy); the chandeliers don't emit a glowing light--they're turned off now and the chill descends. The place is closing. The diners have gone home and the 'last diner,' who had been brought to life 'like a
ventriloquist's doll' by the brandy, the food and talk, the warm conviviality of the place, is now alone. He
is only alive in the company of others. That he 'cradles' the glass is the mark of his loneliness. He could
have spun the glass on the bar and jauntily walked out, happy over an evening well spent, but no. We know he is desolate because he 'begs' (Fate? his muse?) for what he no longer has in his hands. Looking into the empty glass all he sees is what he lost.
But anyway, I had a good time reading this.
Carol
