But there is no water

So, I really enjoyed listening to the recording of "The Waste Land." Actually hearing the words spoken aloud had a much stronger impact on me than if I had simply read the words on the page. I also thought it was interesting that there were three different readers--the various voices gave character to the different voices in the poem, often jarring against each other in a way that highlighted even more the pieced-together nature of the work.

Following along as I listened, I very much experienced the "bright splinter" effect that I mentioned in my previous post; there are so many broken, disjointed scenes, but they are each so powerful (even if most of the time you don't completely understand what's going on), you feel an emotional connection to the work. As Jessica mentioned, I think this has a lot to do with the repetition, and the uncanny of the "almost familiar." It also has this tendency to pull you in and nearly drown you, such as in the first few stanzas in section five: it is highly repetitious, and there is no punctuation to slow you down. You are caught on this mountain without water, tumbling headlong into rock after rock after rock, and there is no water, but that's all you can think about, because the longing for water is so strong, the imagining of the water is relentless...but there is no water.

Basically. I thought this was a great example of the ways in which we can use the splintered nature of collage to our advantage, through its ability to illicit a strong emotional response without consistent narrative or character.