by Richard Subber | Feb 19, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading, Language
Faulks has so many words that mean “ache”…
Book review:
The Girl at the Lion d’Or
by Sebastian Faulks (b1953)
New York: Vintage International/Vintage Books/A Division of Random House, Inc., 1989.
246 pages
Sebastian Faulks writes about the vagaries of life, the daily choices in our lives, the uncountable futures, and the singularity of the past. We think we remember various pasts, and we may struggle to reconcile them.
In The Girl at the Lion d’Or, Faulks invites us to live in the minds of Hartmann and Anne. Sometimes the reader realizes that confusion is in their minds, usually their failures are clear enough, and their successes of the moments must be cherished for their bounty.
Richly Gallic, redolent of the interwar period in Europe, The Girl at the Lion d’Or is a cumulative revelation of Anne (the girl) and a steadily burdensome understanding of the sad hindrances in her life. She comes to love Hartmann, who is ultimately contemptibly weak and viciously temporizing.
I wanted to read faster near the end so I could learn the outcome, but I resisted the impulse.
Faulks makes it worthwhile to read every word. His prose is tenaciously literate and evocative; he has no mere words—he writes passages that invite the reader to understand deeply and to feel deeply.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Proud Tower
…a lot more than a history book…
by Barbara Tuchman
–
many waters: more poems with 53 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Feb 17, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry, Tidbits
a single tone
Singalong
Bright-eyed, he listens,
he smiles,
he hunches in his seat,
he claps after every song,
he knows them all,
he whistles the words
in pretty good rhythm,
the same flat pitch,
a single tone
that matches meter not melody,
he repeats his note,
embraces the song,
his joy,
his music.
October 21, 2025
…someone was playing clunky piano and a half dozen folks
thronged around the piano singing. The whistler sat off to the side.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: “The Gentle Boy”
The Puritans had a dark side…
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
–
As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Feb 12, 2026 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
does grief ever end?…
“If only the consequences of a deed ended
with the grief it caused, she thought,
then one could bear up until it passed.”
from The Girl at the Lion d’Or by Sebastian Faulks
New York: Vintage International/Vintage Books/A Division of Random House, Inc., 1989.
246 pages
p. 139
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Myths of Tet
How people get killed by lies…
by Edwin E. Moïse
–
My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 52 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Feb 10, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry
Whence the wisps…
riverine
Whither the barren shapes
that rise from the horizon,
and lose their form
as they climb the sky?
Whence the wisps that fill small voids,
the remnants of those banks,
the shapeless swirls
of pink and white and grey?
They don’t stay, defying names,
always shifting to new frames,
making night into day,
drifting as they will,
the vault is a vast current,
the waifs of one-time clouds
fill and roil the channel,
without sound,
such patient change,
a nameless river over all…
November 26, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
A poet is a “maker”
…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…
–
many waters: more poems with 53 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Feb 5, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry
not so very far away
walking along
With heartful eye
I see you walking in beauty.
I walk your garden,
its far wall of flowers
draws my gaze,
I may see you walking there,
I may join you…
The wall of flowers
may be the end
of the garden,
it may be a boundary,
maybe you are
not so very far away,
maybe you can see me…
September 29, 2025
for my dearest one
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
–
Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Feb 3, 2026 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
without a lot of passion
Book review:
A Shropshire Lad
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990
51 pages
reprint of the “Authorized Edition 1924”
Alfred Edward Housman embraced the late 19th poetry style of relentless rhyming,
which limits word choice and the scope of imagery.
His narratives are very simply credible without a lot of passion. It’s too easy to let a singsong rhythm be the main feature of verse after verse after verse. A lot of his poetry is written in iambic tetrameter.
Housman’s A Shropshire Lad does offer some paths to reflections, as in Section II, which is an
acceptance of the reality of the seasons, and acceptance of the reality of the rhythms in our lives,
and a recognition of natural beauty that surrounds us:
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Scarlet Letter
the beating hearts…by Nathaniel Hawthorne
–
Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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