Babel by J. Redwood Anderson (1927)

The relief engendered by this slender volume is out of all proportion to its size. I have been waiting for Anderson's return to the form of early pieces like The Legend of Eros and Psyche and Flemish Tales, and here it is. He subtitles this A Dramatic Poem, and indeed it is a hammering out of his themes in the mesh of a play, the poetry being that of succinct and sweeping rhythmic statement, rather than rhyme. But what exhilarates about this is the fact that he's recaptured a directness and fire, a naming of names and doing, which seemed lost. This is the fascinating story of Nimrod, Babylon's king, to conventional eyes a maddened fool, lost in his own grandeur. But here he is examined with enormous wisdom, and some sympathy. His mind strains to encompass his own spirit, and to understand himself in relation to God or gods. He comes to some original and challenging conclusions, and sets about trying to put his new philosophy into action. His motives are very human and human-loving, but, just as life incessantly teaches us, the best laid plans....His eight-storey tower is almost complete when the world deserts him. There is a last scene, seen from the point of view of the populace below, as vultures circle the tower-top wisped with cloud, which grimly completes a history of Shakespearean proportions.