Asphodel

With _Asphodel_, Hilda Doolittle takes her readers across the Atlantic and introduces them to the literati of the early twentieth century. Her thinly veiled portrayals of Ezra Pound, Dorothy Shakespear, William Carlos Williams, and D.H. Lawrence are insightful and perhaps far more accurate than any biography would dare to be. While it is difficult to believe that she was as naive an ingenue as she attests, it is harder still not to sympathize with the youthful poet determined to succeed abroad even though discarded by the charming but inattentive Pound. This novel is one of H.D.'s best, clearly as strong an example of her writing as _Bid Me to Live_ and _Paint it Today_. While still not consdered a first-rank Modern, Hilda Doolittle is arguably one of the most important literary figures of her day. Her description of the Moderns abroad is flawless and no examination of the Modern era can be complete before reading her prose.