According to Paul, the first lie is that iambic pentameter is ‘pre-eminent in English poetry. No it is not. No it is not.’ (Instead, he argues many times, the classic English rhythm is four beats a line.) The second is that pentameter consists of five beats, whereas in reality it’s ‘a slow waltz’. No wonder that, as he puts it with characteristic understatement, ‘that single nonsense word “pentameter” has caused untold confusion, pain, and suffering.’
And the heresies don’t end there. Although Paul likes, and writes, free verse, he regards the abandonment of rhyme in contemporary poetry as not just a mistake, but a betrayal. On seeing a new poem, he confesses, ‘I always secretly want it to rhyme’ — adding the disconcerting challenge, ‘Don’t you?’ He also reminds us that rhyme came under attack as early as 1602 when Thomas Campion decided it was uncouth. Yet, if Campion had won, we’d have ‘four hundred years of pretend Greek and Latin meters … instead of Marvell, and Dryden, and Cole Porter, and Christina Rossetti, and Gilbert and Sullivan’ (continues in this vein for some time).
As the material for a novel, this might all sound a bit whimsical — but it’s far too heartfelt to be that. More importantly, while there’s no denying that one reason for reading The Anthologist is to find out lots of interesting stuff about poetry, it does remain a novel. As obsessives go, Paul proves surprisingly good company — but this is partly because, in Baker’s cunning hands, he can’t prevent his non-reading life from leaking out round the sides in ways that are simultaneously funny and painful.
In other words, as in Flaubert’s Parrot, we gradually realise that the narrator is providing his avalanche of literary information (and sometimes speculation) as a means of both avoiding and exploring his grief — so that the book ends up a sharp, often touching character study as well as a compendium of fascinating facts. The combination of the two duly makes for a richly enjoyable read.
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