The Song of Lunch
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Product Description
Book Description
Published to tie-in with a major BBC 2 dramatization for National Poetry Day, starring Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson.
Product Description
Lunch in Soho with a former lover - but Zanzotti's is under new management, and as the wine takes effect fond memories give way to something closer to the bone. A mock-elegy for the heady joys of old-time Soho, The Song of Lunch displays the full range of Christopher Reid's wit, craft and human sympathy.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
34 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"The Song of Lunch" is a narrative poem following a middle-aged publisher as he has lunch in a fondly-remembered Italian restaurant in Soho with a former lover.
The excitement of the opening, with the publisher's sense of freedom and excitement at the lunch date, is gradually replaced with disillusionment, regret, and unpleasant truths.
"The Song of Lunch" is readable and entertaining, both in terms of its story and its language. The awkward conversation between the lovers is horribly real, and as the poem progresses more and more is revealed about the main protaganist, so that one feels one knows him to an uncomfortable extent.
All the details of the restaurant and Soho are carefully rendered, for example in the following description of its former waiting staff:
Massimo's pirate crew,
as he privately thought of them;
some of whose names he knew
while knowing nothing of their lives
beyond the act -
grave, flirtatious,
resentful, brisk, droll -
each brought to the table.
Reid also has a beautiful and striking way of describing even ordinary things, such as the concept of travelling on the eye in the following lines, when the publisher's mind starts to wander in the restaurant:
From that thought idly
on a ride of the eye
around the room -
the bustle, the hubbub -
he travels to the next.
The poem doesn't have a rigid rhyme scheme, instead it relies on half rhymes which create a pleasing effect, catching the reader by surprise and making them linger on certain lines.
This is a work I can imagine reading again and again, savouring the descriptions, and shuddering at the pathos (and bathos). From the exhilaration of the opening lines to the shocking final word, this poem is a triumph.
Finally the publisher, CB editions, has produced a beautiful volume, a matt brown paperback with mustard endpapers.
The excitement of the opening, with the publisher's sense of freedom and excitement at the lunch date, is gradually replaced with disillusionment, regret, and unpleasant truths.
"The Song of Lunch" is readable and entertaining, both in terms of its story and its language. The awkward conversation between the lovers is horribly real, and as the poem progresses more and more is revealed about the main protaganist, so that one feels one knows him to an uncomfortable extent.
All the details of the restaurant and Soho are carefully rendered, for example in the following description of its former waiting staff:
Massimo's pirate crew,
as he privately thought of them;
some of whose names he knew
while knowing nothing of their lives
beyond the act -
grave, flirtatious,
resentful, brisk, droll -
each brought to the table.
Reid also has a beautiful and striking way of describing even ordinary things, such as the concept of travelling on the eye in the following lines, when the publisher's mind starts to wander in the restaurant:
From that thought idly
on a ride of the eye
around the room -
the bustle, the hubbub -
he travels to the next.
The poem doesn't have a rigid rhyme scheme, instead it relies on half rhymes which create a pleasing effect, catching the reader by surprise and making them linger on certain lines.
This is a work I can imagine reading again and again, savouring the descriptions, and shuddering at the pathos (and bathos). From the exhilaration of the opening lines to the shocking final word, this poem is a triumph.
Finally the publisher, CB editions, has produced a beautiful volume, a matt brown paperback with mustard endpapers.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I fell in love with this poem when I saw the TV adaptation with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman, but trust me the book (poem) allows one access into the moment that perhaps the TV adaptation doesn't. You are there leaving the office, walking down the street, in the restaurant, tasting the wine, feeling his discomfort and anguish.....it's endless, I love it!!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was shown on TV and received mixed, if not a dismissive response in the Newsnight Literary discussion that followed.
The acting and the poetry,with both humour and pignant insights,are excellent and not to be missed.
The acting and the poetry,with both humour and pignant insights,are excellent and not to be missed.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Out To Lunch At Your Own Lunch
'Song of Lunch' is a short BBC film brought to us by Masterpiece Theatre. It is a film of love lost.
Alan Richman plays 'He', no names mentioned. Read more
Alan Richman plays 'He', no names mentioned. Read more
Published 6 months ago by prisrob
food as life
This narrative poem shows in a none to subtle way how an intellectually and emotionally decaying man can make a total fool of himself before a well-preserved ex-lover. Read more
Published 18 months ago by S. Bloxham
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