Prufrock out loud
Posted by Andy in on August 7th, 2010 | No Comments »OK. Two people I know (and respect very deeply) have now told me that they dislike T.S. Eliot, and, in particular, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock.”
That is unacceptable.
In one case, it is because of a crappy high-school teacher. So there are negative associations. In another, it’s because of being exposed to a recording of Eliot reading the piece himself; and, I agree, he isn’t a good reader, even of his own work. He’s rather monotonic and it all comes out sounding kinda the same.
Back at Cornell, I spent some considerable time preparing for a live reading of Prufrock. It’s been what… 23 years or so… but I thought, in the cause of helping two people get, maybe, a bit closer to enjoying the work, it might be helpful to have an alternate reading available.
So… you know who you are. If this helps, fantastic. If it doesn’t… well, it was fun to revisit the reading.
