THE BOOK OF EPHRAIM – Poetic collection of James Merrill

“The Book of Ephraim” is the first of three books that make up “The Changing Light at Sandover,” the masterpiece of one of the most important American poets of the late twentieth century, James Merrill (1926/1995).

FROM THE BOOK OF EPHRAIM

Admittedly I err by undertaking this is its present form. The baldest prose reportage was called for, that would reach the widest public in the shortest time. Time, it had transpired, was of the essence. Time, the very attar of the Rose, was running out. We, thought, were ancient foes, I and the deadline. Also my subject matter, gave me pause, so intimate, so novel. Best after all to do it as a novel? Looking about me, I found human characters, and otherwise (if the distinction meant anything in fiction). Saw my way to a plot, or as much of one as still allowed for surprise and pleasure in its working-out. Knew my setting; and had, from the start, a theme whose steady light shone back, it seemed, from every least detail exposed to it. I came to see it as an old, exalted one: the incarnation and withdrawal of a god.

(James Merril)

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