By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is a 1945 novel of prose poetry written by Canadian author Elizabeth Smart (1913–1986), inspired by the author's passionate affair with the British poet George Barker (1913–1991). Brigid Brophy described it as "one of the half-dozen masterpieces of poetic prose in the world".

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
AuthorElizabeth Smart
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
PublisherEditions Poetry
Publication date
1945
Media typePrint
ISBN978-0-586-09039-8
OCLC26314482

Genesis and writing

Smart discovered Barker's poetry in the late 1930s in a book shop in London, and began writing the story several years before she had even met and started a relationship with Barker. The affair lasted 18 years, and Smart bore four of his 15 children. In the novel, the multiple pregnancies are reduced to one, other details of the affair are omitted entirely, and the narrator's lover is barely described, as she focuses on her own experience and feelings, which was rare for the male-centric literature of that day.[1] Barker later documented the affair as well in his 1950 novel The Dead Seagull.

In 1941, after becoming pregnant, Smart returned to Canada, settling in Pender Harbour, British Columbia to have their first child, Georgina, while continuing to write the book. Barker attempted to visit her, but Smart's family ensured that he was turned back at the border for "moral turpitude." She moved to Washington D.C. to support herself, her daughter, and her writing by working as a file clerk for the British embassy. In 1943, in the midst of the Battle of the Atlantic, she sailed to England to join Barker, where she gave birth to their second child, Christopher. She completed the novel while working for the Ministry of Defence, who fired her after its publication.

Style and reception

The title, as a foretaste of Smart's poetic techniques, uses metre (it is largely anapaestic), contains words denoting exalted or intensified states (grandeur, centrality, weeping), and alludes to Psalm 137 ("By the waters of Babylon we lay down and wept ...") which indicates metaphorical significance for the novel's subject matter.

In an essay for Open Letters Monthly, Ingrid Norton stated "the power of emotion to transform one’s perspective on the world is the theme of this wildly poetic novel", calling it "a howl of a book, shot through with vivid imagery and ecstatic language, alternately exasperating and invigorating".

Just 2000 copies of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept were printed on its initial publication in 1945, and it did not achieve popularity at its initial release. Smart's mother Louise led a successful campaign with government officials to have its publication banned in Canada. She bought up as many copies as she could find of those that made their way into the country, and had them burned.[1] Barker himself, in a letter to Smart, described the novel as "a Catherine wheel of a book."[2]

The book was reissued in 1966 by Panther Books, with an introduction by the critic Brigid Brophy. At that time, the novelist Angela Carter praised the novel in a Guardian review as “like Madame Bovary blasted by lightning” but later wrote privately to her friend the critic Lorna Sage, that it inspired her to found the feminist publisher Virago Press, from "the desire that no daughter of mine should ever be in a position to be able to write BY GRAND CENTRAL STATION I SAT DOWN AND WEPT, exquisite prose though it might contain. (BY GRAND CENTRAL STATION I TORE OFF HIS BALLS would be more like it, I should hope.)"[3]

Legacy

Referenced many times by the British singer Morrissey, the title was adapted by Ashley Hutchings for his album By Gloucester Docks I Sat Down and Wept which includes the track "Love, Stuff and Nonsense", credited to Smart's work.[4][5]

Grand Central Station is still in print, and widely regarded as a cult classic (akin to a cult film). Laura Lamson wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation, but it was never produced.[6]

Excerpts from the novel, and other of the author's writings, feature in the documentary Elizabeth Smart: On The Side of the Angels (1991), an hour-long biography of the writer, written and directed by Maya Gallus.

The chamber-pop duo, Heavy Bell (Matt Peters and Tom Keenan) released an album titled By Grand Central Station (2018), which they called "a paean to the novel: a song of praise and triumph".[7]

See also

References
  1. Ingrid Norton. "Elizabeth Smart, Queen of Sheba", Open Letters Monthly, October 1, 2010.
  2. Barton, Laura (March 6, 2013). "The poems and punch-ups of By Grand Central Station". The Guardian. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
  3. Barton, Laura (2013-03-06). "The poems and punch-ups of By Grand Central Station". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
  4. https://mainlynorfolk.info/guvnor/records/bygloucesterdocksisatdownandwept.html
  5. https://www.loudersound.com/reviews/ashley-hutchings-by-gloucester-docks-i-sat-down-and-wept
  6. Schiff, Amanda (2008-12-02). "Laura Lamson Obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-12-03.
  7. "About". Heavy Bell. Retrieved 2019-03-11.
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