Matt's Reviews > Don Juan

I've been reading this book for over a year and finally finished it over this break. I was often entertained, often a little bored, and at times astonished by some great poetry. Byron himself points out the flaw with his work:
"Let us ramble on. / I meant to make this poem very short, / But now I can't tell where it may not run. / No doubt if I had wished to pay my court / To critics or to hail the setting sun / Of tyranny of all kinds, my concision / Were more, but I was born for opposition."

So, OK, it's rambly -- as the story goes on, there are large stretches where it's easy to forget that there's a story at all as digression piles upon digression. Yet Byron is a master rhymer, and he's clever and often open-hearted and always interesting -- plus, he's really funny. A favorite, and a famous, example citing Don Juan's martial and amorous accomplishments is: "He'd learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, / And how to scale a fortress - or a nunnery." But check this out, a variation on Tolstoy's "all happy families are alike":

"For no one cares for matrimonial cooings; / There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss. / Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, / He would have written sonnets all his life?"

The occasional anti-war attitudes in the book also resonated with me as I continue to be frustrated by this seemingly ever-more-violent (or, at least, ever-equally-violent) world. Take this couplet: "The drying up a single tear has more / Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore."

All in all, a worthwhile endeavor. Not sure I'd advise people to plunge in and read the whole thing, but I'm glad I took the time to wade through it.