The Enormous Room

Anyway I love this book, and 20-year-old matt REALLY loved it. I'd never read a rambly, poetic, tricksy memoir like this. It's the true-ish story of Cummings serving as an ambulance driver in WWI, and being accidentally imprisoned. It's very funny, pretty confusing, and also includes a lot of untranslated French which I can read only a little bit. Recommended.

Noted on May 27, 2025

I know I read this back in my early college years, because the copy I have is ex-St Louis County Library. I discovered that if you kept a book for too long, the library would declare it as 'lost', and charge you a replacement book fee. But if you checked out very old copies of books, they charged you the cost of the book that they paid when they bought it, not the price I would cost them to replace it today. And crucially - they forgave you the late fees! Thus, if the book was old enough, like this one, you could be better off paying the replacement fee instead of your late fees.

I did this several times. Not because I am a late returner (I am very good at returning library books on time), but because I loved the book and wanted to keep it. In this case, I 'bought' it from the library for like two bucks. I've got a handful of modern poets that I acquired this way.

Noted on May 27, 2025