A 20th century Puritan

I really enjoyed Paul Mariani's biography of John Berryman, Dream Song, so I had high hopes for this book too. Mostly everything I liked about the Berryman bio is missing from here. It is tedious with too much detail and is basically a very matter of fact retelling of Lowell's life. It is reminiscent of Michael Mott's The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton in this respect.
The life of the subject is lost in all the details. Instead of interpreting the details and information through his own critical filter, Mariani just piles it on. It's weird, but Mariani is himself a respected American poet, but as a biographer he seems to lose all that makes poetry worth reading. The vividness, the discriminating use of details, the voice, all these are absent from Mariani's work.
He rarely even tries to read Lowell's poetry critically. He talks of the critical reception of his work, and quotes contemporaries or other critics, but offers too little of his own analysis.
Mariani seems to be in such awe of Lowell that he refuses to consider him critically. It would be a good reference work if you did not know much about Robert Lowell, but not for any insight into him as a poet. If you want a good biography of Robert Lowell, I'd recommend Ian Hamilton's Robert Lowell: A Biography.
Czar