Book Description
Vita Sackville-West, novelist, poet, and biographer, is best known as the friend of Virginia Woolf, who transformed her into an androgynous time-traveler in Orlando. The story of Sackville-West's marriage to Harold Nicolson is one of intrigue and bewilderment. In Portrait of a Marriage, their son Nigel combines his mother's memoir with his own explanations and what he learned from their many letters. Even during her various love affairs with women, Vita maintained a loving marriage with Harold. Portrait of a Marriage presents an often misunderstood but always fascinating couple.
"Portrait of a Marriage is as close to a cry from the heart as anybody writing in English in our time has come, and it is a cry that, once heard, is not likely ever to be forgotten. . . . Unexpected and astonishing."--Brendan Gill, New Yorker
"The charm of this book lies in the elegance of its narration, the taste with which their son has managed to convey the real, enduring quality of his parents' love for each other."--Doris Grumbach, New Republic
Customer Reviews:
PORTRAIT OF AN OPEN MARRIAGE AND ONE AFFAIR.......2007-10-03
The centre of the book and its raison d'etre is Vita Sackville-West's own extraordinary memoire about her life so far including her catalytic 3 year affair with Violet Trefusis. The affair came very close to wrecking her life with her husband, Harold Nicolson, who she loved deeply but no longer felt sexual passion for. Harold threatened to leave Vita and it was only under such pressure - on both sides of the affair - that it was ended. The memoire, written in 1920-21, and discovered by Nigel in 1962 begged a narrative and an afterword; Nigel provided this and presented an eloquent, classic book which has never been out of print since it was published in 1973.
Whether this marriage is to be admired as much as Vita, Harold and Nigel felt it should be admired is for the reader to judge. What makes it most extraordinary is the homosexuality of Vita and Harold and the fact that their once discreet open marriage is now in the public domain. They would each be getting on for 120 years old today but they still seem so fresh that readers, whatever their sexual preferences are, might learn lessons (positive and negative) from them even today.
I suppose I can't help feeling that Vita's wild and romantic nature was too penned in by the arrangement leading her to truncate or diminish all her romantic relationships. Towards the end of her life in 1961, she wrote (in a letter to Harold not included in 'Portrait') that she had been 'madly in love' with Violet but the affair was now 'passion completely spent'; she wrote 'the true love that has survived is mine for you, and yours for me.' She also gently rebuked Harold for not explaining his own homosexuality in the first place. 'It would have saved us a lot of trouble and misunderstanding. But I simply didn't know.' Harold's reply, if there was one, is not published.
The intimacy of Vita and Harold's relationship is contained in their voluminous correspondence. Harold's diary, Violet's letters and Vita's mother's diary are also key sources for this book. All these were at Sissinghurst in the early 1970's. Nigel separates Vita's memoire into two chapters, draws from the other sources and adds his own voice and, to a lesser extent, that of his brother Benedict. Vita's relationship with Virginia Woolf is affectionately documented. The book created the legend of Vita and Harold who led compartmentalised lives, had multiple relationships, multiple careers and remained devoted to one another. It is a well written and well crafted tribute.
`Portrait' is, as it would be, slanted in favour of Vita and Harold. This book could not be the whole truth or a detailed portrait of the marriage but it is a portrait of two fascinating and productive people. Because of the scandal it caused, Nigel was excoriated by some for publishing this book and in essays written afterwards he would defend his decision and fill in some of the aps. But the gaps are justified in this labour of love because it is written from such a personal stand-point. This is a wonderful read and is well recommended.
Searing, totally blows you away.......2005-05-27
I recently re-read this book for research on the novel I was working on (having not looked at it in many years). Unlike many things read in youth, it was even more searing and electrifying this time than the first go-round. Perhaps that's because the subject matter has become routine (there are even web sites devoted to polyamory, lesbianism, bisexuality, open marriage, etc.), while the emotions that Vita Sackville-West's affair with Violet Trefusis have not been dealt with by this explosion of sexual variety.
This book is not for the faint-hearted. It's not great writing, as it was meant to be a personal diary of Vita's passage through fire, and is not literary in that sense. But given the weakness of Vita's professional writing (most of which has been forgotten), it's perhaps a good thing she couldn't re-write and mar the freshness and raw emotion of this tale.
The book has been a Bible for some, including the protagonist of my novel. It has that kind of "read me if you dare" emotional dynamite.
The Great Adventure Is Never Over.......2003-04-08
Both those unfamiliar with the extraordinary life of British aristocrat Victoria (Vita) Sackville - West and those who have read Victoria Glendinning's compelling Vita (1983), Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928), or Sackville -West's own multiple published works of fiction, poetry, or nature and travel writing will thoroughly enjoy Portrait Of A Marriage (1973). Composed around a posthumously discovered confessional manuscript Sackville - West wrote and hid away in 1920, the book's chapters alternate between portions of Vita's nuanced, forthright manuscript and son Nigel Nicholson's more objective recounting of the facts in the lives of his parents, Sackville - West and her spouse, author and diplomat Harold Nicholson.
Chiefly remembered today for her garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent and for being the romantic ("Better to gloriously fail than dingily succeed"), daring, and bisexual inspiration for Woolf's historical, gender-addressing novel Orlando, Sackville - West was a temperamental, multifaceted, and deeply emotional woman who followed the dictates of her heart and defied the conventions of her era to what many would think an alarming degree. As her manuscript clearly reveals, Sackville - West was a very human, self - honest individual who was conscious of her moral and ethical weaknesses and who continually struggled with her wayward nature and its debilitating affects on her husband, children, and extended family. Today a hero to some and a somewhat ridiculous figure to others, readers of Portrait Of A Marriage are likely to come away with more than a modicum of sympathy for the not - entirely enigmatic Vita; throughout her life she managed to straddle a great number of seeming paradoxes and today remains potent proof that many Western conventions concerning love, marriage, parenthood, sexuality, and friendship are as not as tightly mapped out as most would generally like to believe. Unlike fellow writers and contemporaries Hilda Doolittle, Djuna Barnes, or Jean Rhys, her excesses, dependencies, and emotional vacillations did not ultimately undo Vita, either psychically, artistically, or socially. Admittedly, Sackville - West was a child of privilege and remained financially comfortable most of her life. However, her managerial skill, expert monetary planning, and her own hard work as an author, radio broadcaster, lecturer, and internationally acclaimed gardener went a long way towards securing that position.
Portrait Of A Marriage and the story of Sackville - West's life may be the ultimate romantic tale of the twentieth century, though one in which the glamour of wealth, palatial family estates (365 - room Knole), creative talent, international fame, and steadfast love were offset by dark episodes of betrayal, spousal abuse, transvestitism, emotional violence, and apparent child abandonment. Remarkably, Vita's story was ultimately a happy one, and the end of her life, relatively serene. Increasingly a loner with age, Sackville - West sequestered herself in her private tower at Sissinghurst, where she continued to write novels and other literature. But men and women continued to fall in love with her and she with them; as Victoria Glendinning wrote, "For Vita the great adventure was never over."
a compelling must-read.......2002-08-01
Despite the fact that Vita Sackville-West was the subject of Virginia Woolf's Orlando as well as her lover, the author of numerous books, and a world famous gardener, she still manages to be a somewhat enigmatic character. This unusual and engrossing portrait, written by her son, contributes a great deal to bring substantial light on Vita's very interesting life and loves. Nicolson is generous in quoting her verbatim from her diaries, the most compelling of which recounts her wild affair with Violet Trefusis, during which the two women fled to Paris pursued by their husbands, where Vita passed as a man by dressing as a wounded soldier. This is one of the most passionate accounts of any love affair I have read.
Nicolson's act of documenting his parents' intimate passions is a great contribution to literary history. He did us a great service by writing this book and in quoting liberally from their own writings, in many ways lets his parents speak for themselves. Any one interested in Bloomsbury, women of the left bank, passing women, feminism, gay/lesbian/bisexual history should make this part of their library.
A Remarkable Journey.......2002-07-24
I have had a copy of "Portrait of a Marriage" since it was published in 1973. For me, it has been a revelation on marriage, but it is also a story of two remarkable people: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. Nigel Nicolson relates the story of his mother's Sapphic affair with Violet (whose mother was the mistress of Edward VII) with great detachment, allowing Vita to speak for herself in the form of a secret diary. The non-conformity of this marriage was the reason for its success and that it survived love affairs and differing interests speaks to us of the toleration, forgiveness and understanding that is lacking between so many married people. This book was not put together by Nigel Nicolson as a guide to married life but is a story of the adventure of living.
It was from reading this book that I gained a deep interest in Vita and Harold. I have read many of their books and paid the ultimate pilgrimage of a visit to Sissinghurst. So, I highly recommend "Portrait of a Marriage" for the writing, an enlightening account of two people and a unique experience for the reader.
Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Strega Prize-winning author Melania G. Mazzucco "works family history and documentary material into a vibrant, richly detailed novel about the Italian immigration a century ago"(Elle)
In April 1903, Diamante, age twelve, and Vita, age nine, are sent by their poor families in southern Italy to make a life in America. Theirs is an unforgettable love story, a riveting tale of immigrant survival and hope that takes them from the crime-ridden tenements of Little Italy to the brutal rail yards of the Midwest, on paths that cross with the Black Hand, Caruso, and Chaplin. It is a story that reaches across decades, to the son of Vita, who would travel as far as Italy to find his roots, and the man who could have been his father.
In Vita, Melania G. Mazzucco also tells of how she found Diamante and Vita in old photographs, documents, ship manifests, and the fading memories of her relatives, and from these fragments of the past imagined this gripping epic fiction of her family's history.
Customer Reviews:
Vita.......2007-09-15
Wonderful book ! I could not put it down. A tale written in an unusual manner and especially exciting because my grandparents lived 5 blocks from 18 Prince street. Weaves the characters over a span of 50 years and their relationaship with each other.
One of my favorite books.......2005-12-20
This book caught my eye in a Roman bookstore because of its name. I was named Vita after my grandmother whom I have never met. It is an old name, so the Italians tell me, a name with meaning like Vittoria or Valentina. When I saw the book on display, I bought it mostly out of curiosity.
My Italian is rusty and totally americanized so it took a long time to read this novel. When I finished it, I immediately tried to contact Melania Mazzucco to suggest that she have it translated to English. I was very happy to find out from a friend that the English version was now available. I want my family to read it. I think every Italian-American should read it.
It was romantic and heroic and I knew that there was truth in it because of the stories handed down in my family. Everyone's history can be a novel, but to be a novel and true is rewarding it a very deep way.
Vita: Confusion in writing.......2005-12-11
If one enjoys disconnected dialogue, space and time jumping with widely dispersed segments of Vita's history, and lack of coherent threads to tie the "story lines" together: then this is for you. Otherwise, the writing is highly disjunctive and hard to follow, with characters and history sliding in and out in confusion (one needs a dance card to keep track of who's on stage and what era they represent). Perhaps if one read the book in the original Italian it would make better sense but I double it. At the end can any one answer the who, where, and what becomes of Vita? Give it a pass unless you like illustrations of less than meritorious writing ploys.
An outcome more realistic than triumphant. .......2005-12-02
Considering what a splash this novel has made in Europe, I can only surmise that Italians have not done much probing into their emigrant experience. "Vita" is the story of Vita and Diamante who were sent to New York as very young children to make better lives for themselves.
If Gay Talese's "Unto the Sons" is the rich and nuanced meal of the Italian immigrant experience, "Vita" is something more basic. It is about the struggle to survive on the most fundamental level, both in Italy and in the eastern U.S. No one in the book has much of a dream except to eat. You begin to be drawn in to young Vita and Diamante's tentative first tastes of New York-will they expand their horizons? Will they ever be able to look beyond the next meal? But then the author insinuates herself into the plot, and the linear storyline is abandoned for awkward flash-forwards that completely break the spell.
Melania Mazzucco's describes the squalor of 1903 New York with a kind of breathlessness as if she's just found out about it, which makes you wonder if there are still Europeans who have no idea how grueling life was for turn-of-the-century newcomers. The Italian perspective on the story is something different, but overall, "Vita" lacks spark.
The Darker Side of the Immigrant Experience.......2005-11-10
I have just finshed reading this intriguing book. "Vita" is not the kind of story you read only once. This is a tale told by a descendant of immigrants who were relieved early on of their illusions that in America "the streets were paved with gold". I really can't call it a novel. The only part that is a novel are the chapters in which Mazzucco has fleshed out the bare bones of her genealogical discoveries with her stories of Vita, Diamante, and their friends and relatives. Some of the stories were apparently told to her by her father and grandfather, and at least one of them (the Piedmontese ancestor who was a dowser for water) she discovered was unfounded in fact. Vita the heroine is a vital force, appropriate to her name. She does not allow morality,or even longing for a star-crossed love to divert her from living. Yet she carries that love with her through all of her life. Diamante, the boy with whom she journeyed to America, on the other hand, is hampered by his dreams of someday marrying Vita from living any meaningful kind of life. Everything he does in America, he does in hopes of being reunited with her. Vita wants to go with him when he begins his journeys across America, but he always wants her to wait until he can provide for her according to his notions of propriety and to protect her from the harsh realities of immigrant life as a wanderer. Diamante's dream of Vita carries him through the prejudice, hardships and squalor of the mean streets and railroad gangs, that were often the lot of new immigrants. They mean nothing to him other than a means to the end of returning and marrying Vita. He lives in a sort of extended dream in which she remains forever the girl he told to wait for him. She is his only reality. When Diamante returns to Italy, his inablility to forgive Vita for going on with her life in his absence, cause him to make of the rest of his life an effort to obliterate his memories of America and her. He no longer wants or strives for anything. In his case, love ruins his life; Vita's life continues and she manages to live it on her own terms even though, she, too, lives in hope of a reunion, and really never loves anyone but Diamante. Her existence is hardly less harsh than that of Diamante, yet she makes her peace and her compromises with it and strives toward some kind of better life. Diamante's insistance on being worthy of Vita prevents him from ever truly possessing her. But then, I am not sure anyone could completely possess Vita. She is her own person. At the end of the story, I was struck by the fact that Vita is, like her name, more of a force than a person, and to Diamante, the reader, and Mazzucco, who is unable to find any trace of her in the records of the ancestral village and few traces in America, she is forever elusive.
Other characters such as Geremia the wounded idealist, and Rocco, the thug, and Lena the Circassian woman who lives with Vita's father are brought to life with heartbreaking immediacy.
The squalor of the immigrant ghettos is vividly described. Neverthless, in the stories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries there is yet a hint of romance. The tales of the voyages to America across a cruel and tempestuous sea to the first sight of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor give them the quality of a golden legend. I have told a more recent immigrant friend of mine that there was no romance, no hardships overcome in his story; he came on an airplane.
Like Mazzucco, who is the last of her line, our Italian immigrant father's family line will die out with his grandchildren. I, like her, understand the importance of tracing his story, ("remembering to remember") telling it, and somehow making a permanent record of his existence (His name is on the Wall of Honor at Ellis Island)for others to see when I am gone. I found the juxtaposition of her real story with the re-imagined story of Diamante and Vita haunting, heartrending, and an inspiration.
This is not a quick and easy read, (You have to keep track of storylines that go back and forth in time as well as the author's imposition of her story into the storylines), but one well worth the effort.
Book Description
Aristocrat, novelist, essayist, traveller, and lover of Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West lived a fascinating and daring life at the center of the Bloomsbury circle. She wrote in an astounding variety of genres, including travel narrative, poetry, fiction, and essays, and is probably best known for her novels, The Edwardians and All Passion Spent, and for her incomparable writings about English country gardens. Here, for the first time, is an anthology which truly represents the expanse of her interests and styles. Over half of the works including intimate diaries and a dream notebook, have never been published. Edited by a foremost expert on the Bloomsbury circle, Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings provides the best and most accessible introduction to this unique writer.
Customer Reviews:
FINDING EQUILIBRIUM : VITA SACKVILLE-WEST.......2007-08-06
This is an absorbing, meticulous biography of Vita Sackville-West. It is written with objectivity and so Glendinning does not judge or come to any broad conclusions about Vita; she leaves that to the reader. She expects the reader to go elsewhere to learn more about the other actors including Harold Nicolson. I felt there could have been more about the fundamental, crucial change in Vita and her marriage to Harold after her consuming love affair with Violet Trefusis. And more about Harold's story to make the whole a bit more balanced. This is my only criticism - basically I would have welcomed an even longer book. However, Glendinning does include a lot (because there is no major biography of her) about Vita's mother; I found a lot of this very entertaining plus it provides important background to Vita's own passionate nature and also her need for equilibrium and Harold.
The book left me with a sense of Vita as a self-centred (not all in a bad way) woman who lived life as far as she could on her terms. Did what she wanted. And broke hearts and even lives with little apparent remorse. She was also kind, passionate, thoughtful and elegant. Maybe her heart had been broken too. At the end of the book I felt ambiguous about her.
Last week I went to Sissinghurst. The book came to life. I saw the haven of gorgeous large gardens that were wrought, by day, through hard manual work over many years; the haven of the tower room where Vita worked, by night, in solitude writing and reading. There is the surrounding privacy cordon of wonderful Kent countryside gradually bought by Vita and Harold over the years. Not much of Vita's energy or money could have been wasted on the ephemeral or purposeless; it was invested in this perfect un-leavable place. I remembered she gave up her trust fund income to work for her living. She worked hard. She didn't waste time on the unproductive; she cut off unruly lovers that threatened her equilibrium. A visit to Knole this last Sunday made me see Vita in her natural romantic surroundings - just like Woolf's Orlando in his vulnerable youth. Despite her losses, and using her advantages Vita became herself, fused her different dimensions as far as she could; she found a certain freedom and a kind of equilibrium. There were a few signs towards the very end of her life ('No Signposts at Sea'), that she felt she might have got the balance wrong. But there was no guidebook, no signposts for such an individual life. Flaws and all, I've got to appreciate her. She comes from a different planet to me in terms of class and history - but her journey and choices make her fascinating and valid. Victoria Glendinning's biography is excellent but she admits it is not comprehensive. There is more to understand and this book is the most excellent place to start that journey. If you're able to, visit Sissinghurst and Knole - they are where you'll truly find and understand Vita. I enjoyed reading this book and didn't want it to end.
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Edith Wharton and the Art of Fiction
Penelope Vita-Finzi
Manufacturer: Pinter Pub Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1855671646 |
Book Description
Sebastian and Viola are children of the English aristocracy. Handsome and moody, 19-year-old Sebastian is heir to Chevron, a vast country estate. Tying him to his inheritance is a deep sense of tradition and love of the English countryside, but he loathes the cold, extravagant society of which he is a part. At 16, his sister Viola is more independent: an unfashionable beauty who scorns every part of her inheritance—most particularly that of womanhood. It is July 1905, and Chevron is once again the site of a lavish house party. The guests include the great beauty Lady Rochampton and the explorer Leonard Anquetil. It is Lady Rochampton who will initiate Sebastian in the art of love, but it is Anquetil who opens for both brother and sister the gateway to another world.
Customer Reviews:
Great read.......2005-04-05
If Sackville-West wasn't writing about her own childhood and home, and if her life wasn't so interesting, the book's flaws (and it has plenty) might have stood out more. But as it is, the absolute command of the subject overcomes the not especially perspicacious going-over of old ground.
I predict that this is one that will go into my 're-read regularly' pile.
The rich really are different.......2004-04-22
In a sly author's note at the beginning of "The Edwardians", Vita Sackville-West says "No character in this book is wholly fictitous." Oh, really? It's intriguing to wonder who among the British aristocracy was being sent up in this volume. "The Edwardians" is a book of manners and morals during the last years of a decadent, decorative, and very inbred upper class. The characters live a life of total self-indulgence, waste and spiritual emptiness. The story focuses on the dukedom of Chevron and its 19 year old heir Sebastian, attracted to and repelled by the society he was born into and takes for granted; his selfish, predatory mother, Lucy, a legendary hostess who is as shallow and superficial as she is popular; and his sensitive, introspective sister Viola, considered an ugly duckling by her mother at sixteen. Into their lives comes a polar explorer named Leonard Anquetil, temporarily lionized by society, who sees "society" for the fraud it is and tries to open the young people's eyes. But as drawn to Anquetil as Sebastian finds himself, he is also drawn in the opposite direction, heading into his first adult relationship with one of his mother's married friends, Lady Roehampton, of a certain age but still drop-dead gorgeous. Self-knowledge and discovery can wait; Sebastian is launched into society through a clandestine affair with Lady Roehampton, which, as Anquetil predicts, will be the first of many such empty, meaningless liaisons. Is this all there is to a life in which one's every wish is granted? Sebastian realizes how soul-deadening such a life can become eventually and after a few years he wants out; but just as he appears resigned to his gilt-edged fate, Anquetil resurfaces. Who knows where Sebastian's life will go from there? As Anquetil tells him, it's up to Sebastian to decide his own destiny. And decide -- for better or worse -- he does.
Sackville-West has a talent for characterization; we see all the youthful conflict in Sebastian, the heady excitement of Lady Roehampton as she flings herself into what may well be her last affair before age catches up with her; and the shallowness of Sebastian's mother, the duchess, who must surround herself with and endless procession of people and parties to cover the vast chasm of internal emptiness that is her own life. But Sackville-West is herself torn in two directions. On the one hand, she appears to share Anquetil's disgust and the false facade of high society; on the other, she shares that society's contempt of middle-class values and virtues. She can't have it both ways, and it's this very conflict that gives "The Edwardians" so much of its tension and interest. The daughter of a British earl herself, Sackville-West knows the aristocracy inside-out, and she writes with an authority that makes her book all the more compelling to read.
Haunting book.......2003-08-28
This is a beautiful and haunting book tracing the lives of the heir to a Dukedom and his sister during the Edwardian age.
Sackville-West deals gently yet firmly with the social aspects of the age, the double standards, the society, and the arrising reforms.
Sebastian becomes very real, very human and his struggles are believable. Though not one of her finest works, The Edwardians is an excellent book and well worth reading.
a slightly flawed but still very lovely book.......1999-12-05
a pity this is out of print Its an eccentric story about the english aristocracy and esp that of a young duke growing up. VSW, the daughter of an earl and wife herself, knows the problems and glories of English aristocracy from the inside. A charming book to take to the beach or read by the way, if you can find it at a used book store or in a sufficiently old library. Full of good humor.
Book Description
Miyamoto works for the sales division of a major insurance company. He's attracted to his cool and beautiful boss, Himuro. However, his courtship is thwarted by the return of the company president, Takarada. It's now become a three-way parley in a fierce battle for Himuro's affections!
Office love and hijinx from
Publishers Weekly 2006 Top Ten Manga author Akira Honma!
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Letters Vita Sackville-W
V. Sackville-West , and
Vita Sackville-West
Manufacturer: Random House, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1853815055
Release Date: 1992-06-10 |
Books:
- Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia
- Public School Law: Teacher's and Student's Rights, Fifth Edition
- Relentless Pursuit: A True Story of Family, Murder, and the Prosecutor Who Wouldn't Quit
- River's End
- Same Sex in the City: (So Your Prince Charming Is Really a Cinderella)
- Separation of Power
- Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
- Shades of Gray
- Smoke and Mirrors (The Smoke Trilogy, Book 2)
- State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America
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