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Rating:  - A review of the edition, not the poem
I am not going to review the famous poem. Such a review, from an Amazon customer, would be unnecessary and preposterous. (It astonishes me so few of my fellow reviewers have realized this). This is a review of the selection of texts this Norton Critical Edition has annexed to the poem.
The editor of this book has (a little lazily, perhaps) simply concertinaed Eliot's sources and a sampling of critical essays into 280 pages. The reader receives little to no editorial guidance from Michael North. But the approach is simple and it works. If you are determined to understand Eliot's poem, then all the pieces of the exegetical puzzle are here, in one convenient volume, to be pieced together. That piecing together, let me emphasize, is not done for you. But then, I wonder if any other approach to Eliot's poem is possible.
I have given the book four stars instead of five for the inclusion and the placement of the rather long-winded essays on the publication history. What passages, words, punctuation marks Pound chose to excise (de-exise and re-excise) and when, and where, and even in what colour pencil does little (I did not say nothing) to enrich our understanding of the poem. There should have been less of this, and it should not have preceded the more illuminating and explanatory critical reviews. The result is that the reader is overwhelmed with the minutiae of Pound's twiddling and tuning before everything has been done to help the reader understand the already sufficiently knotty FINISHED poem.
In conclusion, I found this book to be imperfect, but helpful.
Rating: - EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE WASTELAND
Recently in this space I reviewed Allen Ginsberg's modern 'beat' classic Howl. I have in the past written admiringly of the metaphysical poet John Donne and of my hero revolutionary Cromwellian Commonwealth political activist/poet John Milton of Paradise Lost fame. All poets in their ways different but held together by one common bond-the ability to sense the beauty hidden in the English language and to put it in symbolic form. Eliot is in that company. To a great extent, at least in the modern era, T.S. Eliot's little poem is the one that permits all following poets including Ginsberg to explore and explode the possibilities of the language. No bad for a bank clerk, right?
I remember first reading, halteringly, Wasteland in high school straight up without notes. We spent a lot of time on the arcane references Eliot sprinkled throughout the poem and we collectively had a project to dig out all the unfamilar symbols buried in the lines of the poem. That, my friends, was serious work. In fact one classmate argued that the Arthurian quest for the Holy Grail was child's paly by comparison. We definitely could have used the copious notes provided here to speak nothing of the various critical interpretations presented. Well done. With the availability of this reference work do not, I repeat, do not fly solo with the Wasteland. It is too important a poem of the modern age to lose its meaning for lack of knowledge of some arcane references.
Rating:  - Expand your understanding....
I'm not really qualified to review TS Eliot. First of all, I couldn't be impartial---I made a special trip while in Somerset to visit the man's grave (actually a little plaque). Secondly, the corpus of his work represents one of the greatest pinnacles of the English language. I'll let Oxford dons review Waste Land.
This book of essays, however, was extremely helpful to me as I studied this poem, this monument to our decaying culture. I really think that it was instrumental in allowing me to reach a certain level of understanding, a level of comfort, with one of the most dense poems in English. However, it's not cheap, and no easy read in itself. You have to want it!
If you are serious about your Eliot, pull out the VISA and go to town. If you are just passing through, your local library has a copy you could check out before spending the money.
Rating: - Edition Brings More to Wasteland
Norton Critcal did it right with this edition. With enough essays and criticism to help anyone get a deeper understanding of Elliot's poem, this edition is a must have. Rainey's essay on the publishing of the poem is particulary interesting.
Rating: - A Modernist Masterpiece
I read The Waste Land and find that most poetry that comes after it is self-indulgent, limpid nonsense. The Beats? Who are they? Rubbish, all of it. Philip Larkin? Wimpish nonsense. But TSE and Ezra Pound, there you have the meaning and message of modern poetry. Since them and then, poetry has gone downhill into the personal, the confessional, the onanistic. Poetry MUST be difficult, not accessible, not transparent and easily understood after one reading.
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