Bright Young Things discussion

Please use this thread to discuss the following poems:

i. The Burial of the Dead
ii. A Game of Chess
iii. The Fire Sermon
iv. Death by Water
v. What the Thunder Said
Notes

which appear in The Waste Land section of

Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot by T.S. Eliot

This poem is famously off-putting. I remember the rejection of Modernism from the late fifties (I'm neither bright nor young)-- the "commonplaces of the Wasteland outlook, the cheap mental stimulants of Alienation" (from a TLS review last week of Saul Bellow's letters)which made sense at the time, but now that we don't feel so fierce about it seems a little unjust. To my surprise, when I looked at the poem in the edition I have, it lacked the notes. Disburdened of the notes and hostile attitude it acquired a whole new intensity, directly accessible. Thanks to this discussion for inducing me to read it again.

I just finished this section. Par for the Eliot course, I have found some parts within my grasp and some parts far beyond me. I think I got the most out of A Game of Chess and The Fire Sermon. I was a bit confused at the refrain of "HURRY UP ITS TIME" in A Game of Chess. Time for what? Who needs to hurry up?

The bar is closing.

Huh. I totally didn't get that they were at a bar. I thought they were at her place and he was afraid her husband was going to come home and find her there with another man.

I think sometime after they first started talking they adjourned to the local pub. I think their talk/language started becoming looser.

I'm not certain I saw it before but reading it the other night it became clear to that is where they were.

Also, that's about the only place I've ever heard any reminders as to the time. "Last call" "It's time" "Final orders ", etc.