The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
I suppose we might say that the Iron Man is Ted Hughes himself, the strong man who fell off a cliff and broke into pieces, but then painstakingly found the pieces and bolted them back together. Eating tractors and cars and barbed wire, he sought to eat up the modern world and let something more primitive rise on through. Then comes a deeper call to face mankind’s mindless capacity for mayhem and somehow transmute that into poetry, the music of the spheres.
Be that as it may, this is a poet’s prose, a nimble language that keeps the reader on her toes, but still has the thumping insistent forward push of the iron man himself. There’s no let up in this short tale; it shocks the mind. No surprise it became a classic quickly and has stayed a must-read for many.
In the edition I have Andrew Davidson’s wood engravings complement to text well. They remind that there’s a humour lurking in the tale that leavens what might be a tough, though valuable, read.
