Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser - September, 2019

Susan Sontag

January 16, 1933 - New York City

Notes on Camp- 1964

December 28, 2004 - New York City

Susan Sontag's essay Notes on Camp has an important to me only place in my reading life.  I was maybe 19 when I somehow read it, a freshman in college.  I had been an avid reader for maybe 12 years by then but I just saw things as one book at a time, I did not conceive of a giant set of interconnected works with a history.  I had not yet begun to in anyway classify books or see them as part of a larger world.  This was before the internet.  I was raised by very intelligent people who were concerned with the practicalities of making a living.  I had no guidance.  Maybe that was for the best but Notes on Camp changed that.  I saw very smart people were heavily into reading, treated it as almost a sacred activity.  I reread Notes on Camp once more yesterday.  I am far from agreeing with all her remarks but her sheer brilliance shines through.

In September of 2015 I read and posted on Why the World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser, a marvelous biography.  When I saw he had published a biography on Susan Sontag I added it to my Amazon wish list.  The original price was $19.95 but I lucked into a flash sale for $2.95 (it is back up to $19.95).

At 793 pages, this is a very comprehensive biography.  Sontag was most famous toward the end for being the personification of New York City public intellectual.  If you are interested in Sontag you will be fascinated by this biography as I was.  Those who are merely curious will have a hard time finishing.  To get the basic out of the way, she was raised by an alcoholic mother.  Moser spends a lot of time talking about how this combined with the mental issues of her mother, with several marriages, impacted Sontag.

Sontag was bisexual.  I lost count of all the romantic partners mentioned.  Most were in literature and the arts. She had an unsuccessful early marriage to a college professor which produced her only child, David.  It seems she preferred sex with women.  Her relationships were passionate though far from drama free.

Moser details all her books, novels, collections of essays, a work on her trip to Hanoi during the height of America's war there, which she deeply opposed.  She wrote a very influential book on photography and all sorts of articles for publications like Commentary, The Partisian Review, and The New York Review of Books.

Sontag seemed to be searching for security and love she did not receive as a child.  She was incredibly well read, heavily into one of my favourites, Joseph Roth.  Moser described a meeting she had with Thomas Mann, then living in Los Angeles.  Later in life she said she found all European literature in The Magic Mountain.  She loved science fiction movies, opera.  She would sometimes read twenty hours straight.  She did drink quite a bit and used the drugs popular in her circles.

I was fascinated by Sontag's
relationship with the very famous very rich photographer Annie Leibovitz.  Sontag was striking looking, Leibovitz, who Moser says had sex with many of her famous photo subjects, male and female.  She was quite rich and ended up supporting Sontag, spending millions on her.  Sontag abused her verbally in public in an almost sadistic fashion.

There is much more in this book.  To the curious general reader, you might get bored.  For me, it was a deep look at a woman I had long admired.

Mel u

Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux - 2016

Website of Anne Boyd Rioux 

Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux - 2016

March 5, 1840 - Claremont, New Hampshire

1869 - her father dies

1870 - Woolson begins her publishing career

1873 to 1879 - Woolson and her mother live in St. Augustine, Florida. She publishes several short stories set in that area of Florida.  (I have posted on three of the stories.  They are a valuable edition to the early literature of Florida.)

1879 - her mother dies, Woolson is left a modest income.  She moves to Europe, first living in England, then traveling in France, Germany and Switzerland. (She wrote a well received book about her trip down the Nile.) She becomes entranced by Italy, living for a time in Florence before settling in a villa in Venice.

1880 - Anne, her first novel, is published

1880 - She meets Henry James - much of her emotional life will be
 centered on her relationship to James

1881 - Portrait of a Lady by Henry James is published

January 24, 1894 - Venice, Italy -she dies in a three story fall- it is unclear if this was suicide or an accident.

Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux is the first biography of Woolson.  Rioux also published a collection of Woolson's short stories, Miss Grief and other Stories. (I have posted on ten of these Stories.)

Constance Fenimore Woolson, grand niece of James Fenimore Cooper (author of Last of the Mochicans), was during her lifetime one of America's most read novelists, travel writers and short story authors.   The literary world, especially those into American literature, owe a significant debt to Anne Boyd Rioux for bring her person and her work back to life.  Without her, most of us, me for sure, would have missed out on her wonderful short stories and novels.  

Rioux structures her superb biography around two connected mysteries.  Woolson died in Venice, in a three story fall from her villa. Some thought  it was an accident, others suicide.  Woolson had acfourteen year relationship with Henry James.  Rioux expertly, using texts by James and Woolson as well as correspondence, to unravel as much as one can the nature of their relationship.  One thing it was not was sexual but it did, for sure on Woolson's side, transcend friendship and that of iterary mentoring.
Woolson did have a romantic attachment before moving to Europe but the man died young.  She never married or had children.  

There is a profound irony in linking the title of the biography to Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.  (It was written prior to them meeting.) Like the lead character in the novel, Woolson went to Europe.  Being a lady in the late 19th century was a mark of class but also a trap.  Ladies were not supposed to need to work but Woolson depended on her income from publishing. ( I was surprised by the large volume of travel writings she published in American journals.). Woolson had friends and relatives in most of her European stops.  A lady socialized only with peers.  Rioux goes into detail on this.  A lady can have friendships with appropriate men but no sex outside of a marriage.  James was an interesting case, Rioux made me feel Woolson  was in love with Henry James and felt deep emotional frustration due to the still a bit mysterious sexual orientation of James which prevented a development of their relationship. Probably the late Victorian inhibitions of Woolson prevented her from falling deeply in love with James.  My conclusion after reading the bio was that Woolson had no sexual experiences.  Rioux tells us she did develop a close relationship with a man thirty years older than her, based on cultural interests.

Rioux shows how the Woolson family moved frequently during the younger days of Woolson.  She was close to her siblings and kept in touch with them while in Europe.  Woolson started her literary career with stories about the great lakes region.  Then, with her move to Saint Augustine in N. E. Florida, set stories in that region.  Rioux shows us Woolson loved Florida and often talked of moving back there but never left Europe.  She also write short stories about the aftermath of the Cival War in the South.  Rioux connects her travels to her stories.  Once she moved to Europe she set stories in England, Switzerland and Italy.  Rioux beautifully details her living conditions as  she moved.  Woolson was taken over by the art and history of Italy.  I was happy she at least got to live in a villa in Venice.

Rioux goes into detail about the economics of her work and her relationships to American publishers.

At the center of Rioux's narrative of Woolson's life is her relationship to Henry James.  Did she commit suicide over the frustrations of this relationship?  We will never know, there was no note.  It is safe to say this relationship hurt her deeply.  There are short stories,his novel The Wing of the Dovd and a novella by James centering on a man who loved a woman but never advanced the relationship.  Some say these stories were inspaired by his  relationship to Woolson.

I like finding connections between the works I read.  Last month I read Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton.  Hamilton married into a very wealthy New York family, headed by Philip Schuyler.  Schuyler, father of Edith Hamilton, was a general during the American Revolution and a United States Senator for New York.

I was intrigued when I came on this from Rioux,

"Unlike earlier in Florence, Woolson was the feted literary lion, with no one else’s shadow to hide in. The American consul Eugene Schuyler visited her daily.... A career diplomat, he was also the author of a series of essays on Russian history and literature for Scribner’s Magazine as well as the first English translator of Turgenev and Tolstoy. He hated Egypt, he told Woolson, but he loved spending time with her and talking about writing. Her literary views were a revelation to him. “She has quite set me up,” he wrote to a correspondent. “She cares not about plot, but only for the way things are done, and she puts my little stories way, way up, next to the French, for facture [workmanship]".

Eugene Schuyler did indeed have Phillip Schuyler as an ancestor.
(He had an interesting life. Wikipedia has a good article.) 

Rioux tells us about the many very cultured people Woolson met. Rioux does not explain how Eugene Schuyler came to meet Woolson, maybe it was through his counselor work.  He introduced her to numerous educated Americans in England and did through this enrich her life.  

This is a wonderful biography.  It is a portrait not just of a lady novelist but of her mileu. I highly recommend this book.

I am very much looking forward to this book, forthcoming February 2020.  At 750 pages I'm anticipating it will include all her stories
Constance Fenimore Woolson: Collected Stories (LOA #327) (Library of America) Kindle Edition
by Constance Fenimore Woolson (Author), Anne Boyd Rioux (Editor)

It is available for pre-order and very fairly priced at $12.95

(For bio data on Rioux, see her webpage)

Mel u

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit by Eleanor Fitzsimons- October, 2019

Website of Eleanor Fitzsimons

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit by Eleanor Fitzsimons-2019

"When the Prince was born the Queen said to the King, “My dear, do be very, very careful about the invitations. You know what fairies are. They always come to the christening whether you invite them or not, and if you forget to invite one of them she always makes herself so terribly unpleasant.”. From The Prince, Two Mice, and Some Kitchen Maids

August 15, 1858,  Kennington, England

May 4, 1924, New Romney, England

Edith Nesbit (writing as E. Nesbit) is one of England's most loved authors of fiction aimed at children, while delighting older readers.  She was incredibly productive.  The E book collection of her work I recently acquired has 20 novels and more than 200 short stories.  The estimated reading time is 113 hours and two minutes.  

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit by Eleanor Fitzsimons is a brilliant literary biography.  I was brought to greater understanding of the culture and social background in which she lived, from which her works arose.  

Fitzsimons shows us how Nesbit's unstable childhood was made use of in her many works which show children impacted by problems of their parents.  We see how this theme is developed in one of her most popular works, Railroad Children.  In this work the older daughter must help her mother and siblings when the father is wrongly sent to prison.  

In 1884, Nesbit was one of the nine founders of the Fabian Society.

The purpose of the organization, which still exists, was to advance the principles of democratic socialism, through peaceful evolutionary changes rather than violent revolution.  H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw were among the members.  We learn a good bit about her relationship with Shaw.  There is a good possibility they were lovers.

At age four her father died and the family began moving frequently.  Fitzsimons helps us see how these moves shaped her outlook.

At age 18, she married a 21 year old Bank clerk.  The marriage was unconventional.  Nesbit adopted the children of her husband, from a long running affair.  He also had a child with a very close friend of Nesbit.  There were serious fights but they stayed together.  After his death Nesbit will remsrry.

Nesbit has to write an awfully lot to support the family, she quickly brcomes the main earner in the family.  

Nesbit meets lots of well known English writers.  Nesbit was a strikingly attractive woman and there is at least strong circumstantial evidence of affairs.

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit by Eleanor Fitzsimons a portrait of an era as well as a literary biography.  Aside from her marital issues and probable affairs, Nesbit's life revolved around her children.  Her stories show families that stay close through hard times.  And yes I loved her cat stories.  

I enjoyed all of the stories and novels I read.  Nesbit is of significant culture import for her impact on English writers who grew up reading her work.  Her work does not hide from hard times but there is an optimistic spirit in her work, a curiosity and a joy about growing up.

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit should be read by all who enjoy a first rate literary biography.  From the book I learned what among her huge body of work I should read first.  There are lots of fun stories about fairies.  

From website of The author

“Welcome. My name is Eleanor Fitzsimons. I’m a researcher, writer, journalist and occasional broadcaster. I’m represented by www.andrewlownie.co.ukand I’ve just published my first book Wilde’s Women: how Oscar Wilde was shaped by the women he knew. My writing has been published in a variety of newspapers and journals includingthe Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Irish Times, Irish Tatler, the Dubliner Magazine, The Gloss, UCD Connections, Maternity & Infant; History Todayand Woman Mean Business. I have also contributed regularly to Irish radio and television programmes. I was the sole researcher on several primetime television programmes for the Irish national broadcaster, RTE including ‘What Have The Brits Ever Done For Us’, an examination of the historic relationship between Britain and Ireland commissioned to coincide with the landmark visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland, and ‘Bullyproof’, an IFTA winning documentary series on bullying.

I have a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Master of Business Studies degree from UCD and spent many years working at senior management level in the market information sector in both Ireland and the UK. In 2011, I returned to University College Dublin after a twenty-three years absence and graduated twelve months later with an MA (first class honours) in Women Gender and Society. I tweet at @EleanorFitz”

I am grateful to Eleanor Fitzsimons for this wonderful book.Understanding English children’s literature important in understanding the full literature of era.  

YouTube has Links to Movies Based on her work.

Mel u

Katherine Mansfield: The Story Teller by Kathleen Jones (2010, 524 pages)

Website of Kathleen Jones - Very Informative

The Reading Life Katherine Mansfield Project

Kathleen Jones was born and brought up on a hill farm in Cumbria and now lives on the edge of the Lake District. She has been writing since she was a child and has published seventeen books including nine biographies, two novels and four collections of poetry. She lived for several years in Africa and the Middle East, where she worked for the Qatar Broadcasting Corporation. Since then she has written extensively for BBC radio and contributed to several television documentaries. Her poetry appears regularly in poetry magazines and anthologies in the UK, North America and New Zealand.

Kathleen was appointed as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow in 2007 and is currently also a Fellow of the English Society. Her two most recent biographies are ‘Katherine Mansfield: The Storyteller’ (published by Penguin NZ and Edinburgh University Press) and ‘Norman Nicholson: The Whispering Poet’, (published in 2013 by The Book Mill).

‘Mapping Emily’ won the Iota Shots pamphlet award in 2017 and is published by Templar Poetry. A collection of poetry that began on the remote Pacific islands of Haida Gwaii, ‘The Rainmaker’s Wife’,  was published by Indigo Dreams in September 2017. 

Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller by Kathleen Jones

(2010, 524 pages)

I was very privileged to have been given the opportunity to read shortly after its publication what I am sure will be the definitive biography of Katherine Mansfield,  Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller by Kathleen Jones.    There have been four other major biographies of Katherine Mansfield (the last one was Kathleen Mansfield:   A Secret Life by Claire Tomalin published in 1989.)     Only Kathleen Jones has had full access to the vast correspondence that has been published  since 1989 as well as the full notebooks of Katherine Mansfield.

  Kathleen Jones spent more than ten years working on Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller during which she spent a great deal of time in New Zealand studying archives there and meeting with people who had actually known Katherine Mansfield or her family.     She traveled extensively in England and France visiting the places where Mansfield lived out her life.    She has also written highly regarded biographies of Margaret Cavendish, The Duchess of Newcastle (A Glorious Fame),   Christina Rosetti (Learning Not to Be First); and an account of the lives of women who lived with the English Lake Country Poets (Passionate Sisterhood)..    More information on the background and career of Professor Jones can be found at her web page.)

My history with Mansfield began in May of this 2010 when I read her story "Miss Brill" when it was selected as the classic short story of the day on  a web page I follow.    I confess I had never heard of Katherine Mansfield prior to that day.    I was  very taken by  "Miss Brill".    I thought it was a brilliantly illuminating look into a sad and lonely life.    I did a bit of research and read a few more of her stories.     I like to know something of the lives and import of the writers that matter to me and I soon discovered many consider Katherine Mansfield the best ever female writer of short stories.     She is considered to have radically altered the nature of the short story.    I then decided I wanted to read and post on each of her 85 or so short stories individually.   As I posted on the stories I tried to gradually learn something about Mansfield and her life and background.     Virginia Woolf famously said of Mansfield that she was the only writer that ever made her jealous.    Mansfield has clear ties to Joyce and Woolf but unlike them she is also a writer for lonely people who never quite fit in anywhere, for people who retreat into visions of beauty,  for those happy to sit for hours alone in a cafe watching people walk by with no hope of understanding them.        I think Woolf was also a bit afraid Mansfield saw into the roots of her madness.   Anyway, I thought I should explain a bit why I am interested in Mansfield.   I will talk more on it when I shortly post my The Reading Life Guide to getting into Katherine Mansfield.

When I first received my copy of Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller I was very impressed by the very high production values of the book (published by Penguin/Viking).    It includes a lot of wonderful photographs of Mansfield, her parents and siblings, her husband John Middleton Murry, and others that were close to Mansfield.  

One of the dominant themes of Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller is the acknowledgement of the very deep   impact of the beauty of New Zealand on Mansfield's  mind and sensibility.   As I read Mansfield's stories   I tried to get to know at least a little the person behind them, to see beyond the mask.   I saw a woman caught up in an ugly time in England and France.     I saw a woman used to being taken care of (her father was the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand) reduced to trying on occasion to figure out how to pay for her meals.    I also saw a woman with a very powerful sensuous nature.    She liked beautiful exotic to her women and handsome near fey young men.    Mansfield is considered to have had affairs and brief encounters with both men and women.    As she lived in the days before people felt comfortable disclosing their full sex lives in public on talk shows, the Internet, and in tabloids and tell it all autobiographies we have no precise knowledge of her exact sexual preferences and proclivities.

Jones gives us beautiful descriptions of the natural beauty of New Zealand.    Unlike any other writer I am aware of, Jones talks about the influence of the Maoris on Mansfield.    Mansfield had a relationship with a Maori princess that many felt was a romantic one.    We do not know if this was simply a school girl crush or if it was an intimate relationship.     I confess I did not know much concerning the culture of the Maoris in early 20 century New Zealand and was a bit surprised to learn that one of the cousins of Mansfield's  father  married a rich Maori woman.   Jones writes in a very interesting way about the colonial roots of Mansfield.    She made me see what a backwater New Zealand must have seemed like to people in London and Paris and how much Mansfield felt initially liberated when she moved to London.    Later Jones made us see how Mansfield often seemed to long to return to New Zealand.  

Jones gives us a good look at the day- to- day struggles of Mansfield to feed and house herself.   Mansfield got a  modest allowance from her father that she could have lived on if she lived very modestly.   Jones tells us in a very clear fashion of all the various men and women with  whom Mansfield was linked with romantically.   Jones spends a lot of time talking about D. H. Lawrence's and Frieda Lawrence's relationship to Mansfield and her husband.   Jones also helped us understand  Mansfield's relationship with Virginia Woolf but does not exaggerate it.    The relationship was close but there was no real intimacy and their times together were more like meetings than two friends spending time together.    We learn a bit about various Bloomsbury figures (Mansfield was not for a number of reasons a member of the Bloomsbury set).     The general atmosphere of the set Mansfield moved in can be described as erotically charged.     Mansfield was attracted to guru - like men ranging from her second husband John Middleton Murry to D. H. Lawrence.     Mansfield went through a "Russian phase" also.   Jones deals with the issue of the claim that Mansfield plagiarized a Chekhov story.     Basically Jones says the whole matter is much ado about nothing and I agree completely.

Jones goes into enough details about the terrible effects of tuberculous on Mansfield so that we understand it.   We see how an effort to cure it while at the same time ignoring it dominated the last few years of Mansfield's  short life.

Jones also spend a lot of time helping us understand the role of Ida Baker in Mansfield's life.    I would say I still do not quite understand fully the relationship of Baker and Mansfield but I understand a good bit more than I did before I read Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller.    This relationship shows us an ugly side of  Mansfield where she would use Ida when she needed her and push her away when she did not.

Jones takes two risks in Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller.   One of the risks is a stylistic one.   Most of the book is written in the present tense as if it were happening now.   Some reviewers of the book have not liked this.    To me it is brilliant touch on the part of Jones to let us live in the present with Mansfield, not see her as remote long -dead woman from an era we can barely relate to.    Jones brought Mansfield very much to life for me.     Many of the backgrounds and autobiographical nature of the most important stories are  explicated in a very illuminating fashion by Jones.  

The second risk is her treatment of the life of John Middleton Murry (1889 to 1957) who lived on long after Mansfield died.   Mansfield and Murry had an odd at times difficult relationship.   Mansfield was not nearly as good a husband as Leonard Woolf.    I think Jones has seen that one of the keys to understanding Mansfield may be in trying to understand why Murry meant so much to her.   Jones deals in sort of interlude chapters in Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller with each of Murry's  three post Mansfield marriages.   One of the wives looked very much like Katherine and I admit I got chills when that wife, Violet,   was happy to learn that she had Tuberculous just like Katherine Mansfield did.    Each of the three other women seemed to embody a part of the full psyche of Mansfield.    We can decide for ourselves how we feel about the way Murry handled the literary estate of Mansfield and the wealth it brought him.

Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller will be the definitive  Mansfield biography for a long time, I think.    Jones knows Mansfield well and has read deeply and widely in her work and era.   Katherine Mansfield:  The Story Teller is not just about Mansfield.   It has a lot   to teach us of the historical period it deals with and the  diverse set literary figures  in Mansfield's world.   It tells us a lot about the state of relations between the sexes in the period.   We get  look at life in Edwardian England from the ground up through the eyes of an outsider who never really fit in anywhere.  Jones also lets us understand a lot about how the creative process works by letting us see the struggles of Mansfield.

Mel u

Ambrosia Bousweau 

George Sand by Martine Reid - 2013. Translated and introduced by Gretchen. Van Slyke - 2018

Paris in July 2018

George Sand by Martine Reid 

Paris in July hosted by Thyme for Tea is a great event.  I Focus on literary works and nonfiction but you are invited to share your thoughts and experience on anything Paris related, from a great recipe, a favourite movie set in Paris, mine is Ninotchka, an account of your stay in Paris.  I hope lots of people join in.  Just be sure to  link you post on The event home page.

Already there are lots of very interesting posts from food bloggers, Francophiles, travel bloggers, as well as book bloggers.  Normally I don’t venture far from the international book blog community so for me this event is an excellent way to expand my horizons. 

So far I have posted on

1. “A Yiddish Poet in Paris” by Blume Lempel, 1978
2. Vagabond by Colette, 1904
3. Lost Times - Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp by Józef Czafski -translated and introduced. by Eric Karpeles - 2018
4. “Her Last Dance” by Blume Lempel - 2018
5. Gerorge Sand by Martine Reid

July 1, 1804, Amantine Lacile Aurore Dupin was born into a Nobel family.  She was called “Aurore” by friends and family.

1822 Marries Casmir Dudevant, they have two children, seperate in 1835 and begins a series of affairs with well known men, most famously Frederic Chopin (1837 to 1847)

1831 -published the first of fifty novels

1832 - Published Indiana and begins to use the pen name George Sand under which she will be for ever famous 

George Sand by Martine Reid is a decent informative book on a writer who, i am guessing, is most now known for using her pen name, dressing as a man, smoking cigars and for her ten year affair with Frederic Chopin.

Reid details her childhood and her up formative years.  One of her grandfathers was the illegitimate son of a Polish King.  She was raised in affluence.  Reid for sure helped me understand the childhood of Sand, something many literary biographers often skip over.  

Reid goes into depth about why Aurore, Reid calls her that, assumes a male name and dressed as a man.  In part it was that women writers were assumed to be lacking in depth.  Also as Reid explains dressed as a man Aurore could go about in Paris than an unescorted woman.  We also see gender blending aspects of her psyche.

Reid devotes a good bit of space to the Chopin romance.  We learn a good bit about Chopin also.

Reid places Sand in context of 19th century French literature.  Sand had intellectual relationships with Balzac and Flaubert.  Both admired her talent but neither saw her as a peer.

Reid relies heavily on Sand’s autobiography.

I think anyone interested in 19th century literature will be glad to have this book as am I.

The kindle price (for an under three hundred page book) is $22.95.  I do  not find myself able to recommend this book to anyone but a specialist in the field at that cost unless price is not a concern.