Official Review: The endeavors of the fallen

[RebekaV]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The endeavors of the fallen" by Irene Mavromati.]

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The Endeavours of the Fallen by Irene Mavromati is a collection of short poems that deal with the theme of love and pain. It is only 11 pages long and the poems usually consist of 5-15 lines. There are 14 poems inside the book, but most of them revolve around the theme of being rejected by the one we love or asking why humans have to suffer so much. It could be a fine collection, but the author's writing style is not very original, nor is her way of expressing her feelings. As this book is so short I will give a brief description of some of the poems individually.

Blue Ribbon
The book starts out in a tone of utter hopelessness and states that the author feels powerless to change her life. She arrived at breaking point when she is too exhausted to go on, yet wants to escape from these feelings of nothingness. The theme is interesting and some of the underlying desperate desire for change comes across, but the poem is way too short for us to immerse ourselves in it. It left me hanging in the air a little bit, expecting something more to come.

Compromise
This is one of the better ones in the book. It explores the theme of the differences between a flower and a tree and questions the reader directly which one he/she would choose. The sentence "can you like to smell a flower and give up a tree?" stays with me even after finishing the book. This poem is very symbolic and its meaning is very deep for such a short work. Mavromati says the flower is more approachable, it's on the ground, gentle; whereas the tree is standing proudly, teasing you to climb it. It provides a challenge that might prove to be impossible to do, but should we be content with giving up our dreams and living our life humbly or will we choose to act on our desires, even when we cannot be sure that we'll reach our goals? It was one of my favourite poems.
The sentence structure is very awkward, which ruins it somewhat, but the theme and questions raised are nonetheless very interesting.

Twelfth Day
This poem is about the balance between body and soul and how humans perceive time. Again, this brings an interesting theme and a lot for the reader to think about. Which comes first for us? Can one exist without the other? How does time affect the body and the soul?
This one is again written in a desperate tone and radiates and overall negative mood, but it does it in a way that the reader is sucked into the thoughts and feelings of the author - or would be if the poem would be longer than 12 lines... I also liked the repetition of "Lies, lies" as sentence starters in this piece.

Path
Path is about not finding oneself, realising past mistakes and questioning our own choices. It's the second to last poem, but I think would be more effective at the very end. All the sentences here are questions about life and the past, and are very effective to directing the reader's attention inward and making them look at their own life. This poem has the most interesting theme in the entire book, and is my personal favourite.

Ode to a Poet
The book ends with this short work (8 lines) that is about writing. It has a much more cheerful tone than the one the book started with, showing us that the author finished her journey in higher spirits compared to the start. It is a little bit sentimental and might carry a lot of meaning to the author, but as a reader I felt it was not necessary at all to include it in the book. Path would have made a much better ending to the "story".

Overall, I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. It has some very good themes in there, but out of the 14 poems I only like 3. The rest is about the author being in love, being rejected and being in pain, questioning why it had to happen like that. I feel it's a very cliché theme, which could be excusable if the writing style and language was engaging enough. It is not however. There are a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes and some sentences sound very cheesy, have awkward structuring or don't make sense at all (e.g. "How will dare to utter the name of Claudia, if I don't give in the destruction?"). The poems are also very short, so the reader has virtually no chance to get a feel for what the author is feeling or trying to communicate. I did not really enjoy reading the whole book, but truly liked the 3 poems Compromise, Twelfth Day and Path - however, even they were way too short to be truly enjoyable. If the author would work on lengthening her work and correcting the grammar/spelling mistakes it might just be an enjoyable collection of poetry, but as it is it I think it would fit more neatly into a doctor's waiting room than onto a bookshelf at home.

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[Kappy]

Good review. I think you were quite generous in awarding two stars to an 11-page book with numerous grammatical errors.