May 10, 2004
Published in England last year to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Anglo-Welsh poet's death at age 39 in New York, London Times
contributor Lycett's new biography has the advantage that Thomas's protective widow, Caitlin, is also recently deceased and his literary estate open. The basic story of the self-styled "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive," told here with thoroughness and impartiality, still revolves around poetry, penury and pub crawling. Leaving Swansea after grammar school (though returning whenever cash ran short), Thomas spent several aimless years on the periphery of London literary circles before finally making good and eventually becoming a cult figure for American audiences. This public poetic persona ultimately detracted from his poetry more than the assorted side projects in radio, film and lecturing he took on for income. Half a century after Thomas's death, Lycett can be frank about the seamier side of the poet's character, such as his inclination for reading what he called "good fucking books" like Tropic of Cancer
, possible drug use and his and Caitlin's extramarital affairs. Thomas's literary reputation, meanwhile, has fluctuated more than his steady popularity, from A Child's Christmas in Wales
to "Do not go gentle into that good night." Lycett, who has written biographies of Rudyard Kipling and Ian Fleming among others, says Dylan fills "the gap between modernism and pop... the written and spoken word... individual and performance art..." and he admires Thomas's lyric gift as an English poet with roots in Wales. Despite its subtitle, Lycett's biography is not so much a new life as a more candid revisiting of the familiar one. 45 b&w photos.
May 15, 2004
Dylan Thomas wrote his first book of poetry by the time he was 20, and within a few years he was renowned in the U.K. not only as a well-paid and celebrated writer but also as a drunkard and a scrounger. After gaining fame for his BBC radio play, Under Milk Wood, Thomas was invited on a tour of the United States, where he died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 39. Lycett, biographer of Rudyard Kipling and Ian Fleming, has written a life study of Thomas that incorporates previously unavailable material released after the deaths of the poet's wife and son. Other biographies, such as Constant Fitzgibbons's lasting Life of Dylan Thomas or Paul Ferris's Dylan Thomas: The Biography, have ably recounted the essential details of Thomas's life, but Lycett here provides a wealth of useful detail, bringing the Welsh poet's life story up to date, just in time for and in honor of the 50th anniversary of his death. For all libraries.-Denise Johnson, Bradley Univ. Lib., Peoria, IL
Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from May 1, 2004
British biographer Lycett takes just the right tone in this vital and penetrating portrait of the quintessential bad boy poet, the passionately brilliant and fatally boozy Welshman Thomas, by eschewing reverent mythologizing for respectful accuracy. He also employs an incisive wit in masterful understatements that provide the perfect counterbalance to the baroque melodrama of Thomas' fast-burning life and throw the lushness and musicality of Thomas' innovative and potent poetry into high relief. Lycett deftly analyzes Thomas' difficult family life, especially his wife Caitlin's capacity for violent behavior, and chronicles the divide between Thomas' poetic gifts and inability to earn a living in spite of working in radio and film. By age 26 Thomas had written 80 percent of his published poems. Tragically, he was also an alcoholic by 21 and dead at 39. "Poet, revolutionary, and buffoon," Thomas wrote earthy, innovative, soulful, and indelible poems and stories that embody a "quest for universal truth" and a struggle for hope in the newly delivered atomic age, while in life he authored one deplorable (albeit wickedly entertaining) tale of debauchery after another. Lycett's engrossing biography illuminates the paradoxes of Thomas' life and recognizes the "indefinable spark of divinity" that drives his vigorous and transcendent writing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)