The World's Wife Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The World's Wife Book

Elvis's wimpled sister rocks on in a convent she calls Graceland; Nancy Sinatra gets out her boots made for walking with the Kray Sisters; Mrs Midas misses the touch of her now dangerous golden-handed husband; and Queen Herod decrees the killing of each mother's son to protect her baby daughter in Carol Ann Duffy's startling new collection The World's Wife. Doubling is one of the most common themes--and stylistic ploys--of Western culture and thought, and the concept around which Duffy has ingeniously organised this profoundly playful collection. Mrs Midas, Mrs Aesop, Mrs Darwin, Frau Freud, Anne Hathaway, Mrs Rip Van Winkle, the Kray Sisters; these are some of the wives, and sisters, whose stories are told. These inventive, metaphorically precise poems offer much more, however, than just a recovery of the historical voice of her (supposedly) silenced indoors. Duffy dexterously rewrites Judao-Christian and classical mythologies, subverts fairytale and zestfully reinterprets the more modern myths of Darwin and Freud. Humour is the abundant keynote of this accessible collection. Mrs Rip Van Winkle enjoys the freedom to travel and paint allowed by her husband's permanent slumbers, "Until the day / I came home with pastel of Niagara / and he was sitting up in bed rattling Viagra." Frau Freud analyses her over-exposure to "ding-a-ling, member and jock, / of todger and nudger and percy and cock," and confesses with irony to being, "as au fait with Hunt-the Salami / as Ms M. Lewinsky." Mrs Aesop groans about her husbands unstoppable garrulousness: "By Christ, he could bore for Purgatory," and Mrs Darwin evolves the following summary her husband's research: "7 April 1852 Went to the Zoo. I said to Him-- Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you." The World's Wife throws open the windows on the stuffy annals of historical myth and breezes through some of its highlights with a sense of revelry and laugh-out-loud observation. In this wry take on the historical ubiquity of heterosexual coupledom that permeates so many cultural myths, Duffy has separated vibrant women from the shadows of their more famous husbands and brothers, and divorced them from the distortions of historical silence. --Rachel HolmesRead More

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  • Amazon

    Draws on some weighty emotional experiences: loneliness, jealousy, self-loathing, desire, the fierceness of a mother's love. This book reveals the foibles of the great, the ghastly and the ordinary bloke and the sufferings of those closest to them.

  • Play

    This book is going to be a hit and can only consolidate Duffy's position as one of the most widely read British poets of her generation. - Robert Crawford "Herald". "It sparkes with wit intelligence and an impressive lightness of touch while drawing on some weighty emotional experiences: loneliness jealousy self-loathing desire the fierceness of a mother's love." - Christina Patterson "Independent". "She reveals the foibles of the great the ghastly and the ordinary bloke and the sufferings of those closest to them. The result is a melange of history lesson fairy-tale and modern-day domestic tragedy with the occasional joke thrown in for good measure... Duffy's poetics are flawless - she never misses a beat her pace is exhilarating and her language is original and exciting." - "Scotsman". "These thirty poems vibrate with intense colloquialisms physicality energy freshness and cheek. Many of them are very funny... the best are inventive subversive and written with great rhythmical and rhyming dash." - "Sunday Telegraph".

  • ASDA

    That saying? Behind every famous man ...? From Mrs Midas to Queen Kong from Elvis' twin sister to Pygmalion's bride they're all here in Carol Ann Duffy's inspired and inspirational collection The World's Wife. Witty and thought-provoking this is a tongue-in-cheek no-holds-barred look at the real movers and shakers across history myth and legend. If you have ever wondered how exactly Darwin came up with his theory of evolution or what precisely Frau Freud thought about her husband then this is the book for you.

  • Blackwell

    Poems of famous men -- and the women who married them -- by the Poet Laureate. That saying? Behind every famous man ...? From Mrs Midas to Queen Kong, from Elvis's twin sister to Pygmalion's bride, they're all here, in Carol Ann Duffy's inspired...

  • BookDepository

    The World's Wife : Paperback : Pan Macmillan : 9780330372220 : 033037222X : 24 Mar 2011 : Poems of famous men -- and the women who married them -- by the Poet Laureate.

  • TheBookPeople

    Incredibly funny, this poetry collection gives a hilarious and meaningful voice to some great women of history.

  • Waterstones

    Poems of famous men and the women who married them by the Poet Laureate.

  • 033037222X
  • 9780330372220
  • Carol Ann Duffy
  • 8 September 2000
  • Picador
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 96
  • 3
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