T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, 1888-1922 by James E. Miller, Jr.

Abstract

528 Reviews Assinghams we have 'akind of representation of,and commentary on perspectivalism itself.They constantly put before us questions of reading, interpretation, and indeed the very process of novelistic creation' (p. I86). While James could come to terms, eventually, with Flaubert, he remained ill at ease with the painting he had experienced first in I875-76, and as Brooks notes, 'He was not so visually advanced' (p. 204). A close account of the visual here would have been useful, but the documentation simply is not there. This is a perceptive and well-finessed account of the novelist's growth, enlivened by several lightnesses of touch-the partly resisted pun on Fanny Assingham's name (pp. 96, I72), and the suggestive echo of 'Sleeping Beauty' in The Golden Bowl (p. I99), forexample-and James should feelwell served. UNIVERSITY OF KEELE IAN F. A. BELL T S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, I888-I922. By JAMESE. MILLER, Jr. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2005. xx+468 pp. J29.95. ISBN 978-0-27I-0268 I-7. A fortune-teller once toldEliot he was 'flirtatious' and 'obstinate': he beckons and he baffles (Emily Dickinson's phrase), smilingly interposing nicknames and deliberate disguises. JamesMiller examines the early life with the avowed intentof discovering 'anAmerican poet', but hismore sustained project is theuncovering of a homosexual one; extending his I977 study of The Waste Land (T S. Eliot's Personal Waste Land: Exorcism of the Demons (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977)), he argues that inParis in I9IO Eliot fell in lovewith JeanVerdenal, whose wartime death made all the difference.Miller acknowledges that John Peter originated this idea (suppressed by Eliot in I952), and has drawn encouragement from the 'outing' of Eliot inCarole Seymour-Jones's biography ofVivienne, as well as fromMichael Hastings's play Tom and Viv (treated as reliable evidence). Eliot's characters 'Eeldrop' and 'Appleplex' sojourned in a street exemplifying 'a respectabilitywhich has something toconceal'-phraseology which capturesMiller's approach to his subject: 'What was there to conceal?' (p. xii). His method is one whereby inquisitorial suspicion prompts rhetorical questions, whose implied answers then install themselves as biographical fact:he seizes on Pound's poetic phrase 'Ura nianMuse' (p. 2), and by page 3 I4 isconvinced thatPound applied this adjective to Eliot himself. Inference and innuendo abound; Miller highlights the description of 'muscular' Harold Peters as Eliot's 'verygay companion' (p. 65), wanting to imagine the two boys together clinging on their sailing expeditions. 'I remained in pursuit of him' (p. 2), he assures us; the almost comically obtrusive agenda reminded me of Kinbote, inNabokov's Pale Fire: nowhere more so thanwhen Miller takesVerde nal's evocation-writing by night to Eliot in I9 I2-of their formerlyhaving heard Parisian bells strike ten o'clock to allude to the awful daring of their firstsurrender ('Both were in amanly state andmoaning likedoves', inKinbote's parlance: Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, I962), p. I27). 'Is ittoomuch toventure that the flower metaphor-"radiant blooms are germinating"-has special meaning forboth Verdenal and Eliot?' (p. I31), proposes Miller; but perhaps it is: however affectionate, these correspondents never rose to tutoiement-suggesting pro prieties observed rather than transgressed. Nor should Eliot's marriage be linked to Verdenal's death, for letters toConrad Aiken imply thathe heard about itafterwards. Miller finds significance in Pound's leaving 'Sage Homme' uncollected; but since Eliot's firstimpulse was topublish thispoem alongside The Waste Land, one doubts that its 'Uranian' exposed any deep secrets: thewittiness consisted in describing MLR, 103.2, 2008 529 their collaboration in such fancifully inappropriate terms.Likewise, the playful-if sinister-theatricality of Eliot's 'deviant' behaviour (greenish make-up etc.) hardly suggests furtive concealment. There were evidently some odd angles to his life;but itno longer surprises us that, biographically and poetically, Eliot's diverted erotics produced unusual inflections (whatAuden termed 'thehermit's sensual ecstasy'). It is unclear whom Miller's book will satisfy: scholars may not find enough sig nificantly new, nor does it effectively shape Eliot's life into biographical narrative. Indeed, itsomewhat resembles awork of reference: anyone curious about themutual acquaintance 'Prichard' referred to byVerdenal, or about...