This gorgeous novel reflects many of the ideas found in "A Room Of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf, with whom Vita had a famous affair. After the death of her husband, the Earl of Slane, Lady Slane shocks her staid family by asserting her own will, leaving the house she kept with her husband, and settling into a small house in the countryside. Finally after seventy years, Lady Slane is determined to live as she chooses, with a life full of contemplation, dreams, and memories. She reflects on her lost ambition to be a painter, but knows that the life she lived was not without merit or value. She finds passion in the freedom to choose, and this gift she bequeaths to the one member of her family who understands its importance.

I meandered my way to this book through Sarah Ban Breathnach's treasure of self-excavation, Simple Abundance. I had read Anne Morrow Lindbergh because of her recommendation too. AML & Charles Lindbergh were good friends with Vita Sackville-West & her husband, Nigel Nicholson. So I finally got around to Vita Sackville-West & this book. It was so moving, wonderful, unforgettable, that I will reread it. I laughed & cried. I will try to find older copies of this to give away to dear friends, old & new. It's one of those books. I'm 41 & have sacrificed much for the men & children in my life that I nonetheless love so dearly. This book helped me bring those feelings of ambivalence into focus. It also helped me realize I'm relatively young & still have time to live the life I've dreamed of since I was a little girl. Maybe this "child-bearing years" thing was just a detour.

This curiously overlooked novel was revived by a Masterpiece Theater production starring Dame Wendy Hiller, which like this novel was superb. The gentle story of an elderly woman's retirement while her forceful children squabble over unimportant matters is at once comic and poignant. The author has peppered the tale with curious, memorable characters, among them the eccentric art collector who is allowed to eat in portrait galleries because museums hope he will donate to them when he dies; the benign landlord Bucktrout, who sees Lady Slain's desire for peace at home; and the coffin maker who pictures people dead to reveal their true characters. This fine little masterpiece deserves to be read today.

This audio book is pure pleasure to listen to if you're at all interested in gardening. Vita wrote a month by month column in a London paper about gardening, and this contains excerpts from these. It goes through the year, season by season, in her famous garden at Sissinghurst Castle in England, during the years immediately following WWII. She shares planting tips, planting mistakes, and offers her views on the style of gardening she made famous. For example, she recommends planting masses of one plant and one color in a defined area of a garden.

In addition to her dry and witty remarks about gardening in general, she discusses the origins of some of the Latin names of plants, and she indirectly gives us a peek into some of the English culture of the "country house" at that time. The reader is superb! One can actually imagine that, had Vita read it for us herself, she would've used the same tone and inflection. I love this tape. I've given this as a gift to fellow-gardeners, and have listened to it myself over and over. It a real gem!

Vita Sackville-West remains one of the greatest garden writers and downright romantic when it comes to the garden. She always combined wit with realistic approaches. Her gardens at Sissinghurst and a write-up on her life and love of gardening in a magazine I read recently forced me to search fast and furiously for this particular book by Sackville-West. This book is very easy to read. A compilation of some of her London Observer weekly gardening articles (a columnist from 1947-1961), based on her experiences and life in the gardens she created at Sissinghurst Castle, her home. Useful tidbits, optimistic, romantic. A MUST for every gardener.

While five stars may seem somewhat generous for this book, it remains one of the few I've read more than once. I found it in my local library after the PBS aired, to much accompanying controversy, the BBC production of Nigel Nicholson's "Portrait of a Marriage" back in 1992. One of the unfortunate things done by the good people at the PBS was to cut 30 minutes from the dramatization. And this is why, ladies and gentlemen, we turn to books--to get the rest of the story.

Although Diane Souhami's "Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter" gives a more comprehensive picture of Violet Keppel Trefusis' life, Jullian's narrative is charming and picturesque. Trefusis for her part could write the most beautiful love letters imaginable. Is it no wonder hers remain while those of Vita Sackville-West were destroyed (not by Violet herself, but she was so careless about them one wonders if they really mattered after all)?

Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West were ! women of privilege but dominated by mothers who would have died before allowing their daughters a college education. I can only imagine what they as writers would have produced had they had the opportunity to a more formal education. Well, that didn't prevent Virginia Woolf from earning an important place in literature, but I am a big believer in affirmative action. Vita and Violet were robbed!

"The Other Woman" is about a woman who loved the arts and wore her heart on her sleeve--a rare bird these days. Five stars may be generous but three of the five belong entirely to Violet--a woman who knew how to make life lovely.

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.

What a shame that this book is out of print!

Portrait of a Marriage is perhaps the most
eloquent examination of the possibilties and
limitations of marriage as it occurs in our
culture today. The story of Harold Nicolson
and Vita Sackville-West as told by their son,
Nigel, Portrait of a Marriage illuminates the
intimate mechanics of one of the most unusual
of relationships, a marriage in which each
partner has his or her dalliances on the side,
but to which each returns as a ship to its
home port.

A reading of Portrait of a Marriage puts to
shame the base, simplistic rhetoric so often
bandied about around marriage, sexuality, and
relationships, and instead allows the reader
clearly to see into the complex and wonderful
world of two unusual people in love. And what
is wonderful about Nicolson's writing is that
he makes telling the truth about relationships
seem so easy and natural, as if all anyone has
to do to tell a good love story is to step out
of the way. Would that those praters debating
the morality of that kind of relationship or
this kind of marriage or such and such kind of
life-style choice could read Portrait of a
Marriage. In its wake, the idea of love being
subject to logic or laws dissolves.

If you are at all interested in the history
of marriage, or if you just like a good
romance, read this book. On the sea of
writing about love and relationships, it's one
of the buoys.

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."

For anyone who loves to travel to strange and distant lands - or wishes they could - this may be the quintessential travel book. Vita Sackville-West was a great friend of Virginia Woolf, and shared her gift for superb storytelling as well as her love of the language.

From the opening page, where she describes and beckons to fellow travelers, through the wild ride across the Yemeni sands and the drive over the mountains of Persia, the reader is enthralled.

She opens the door to travel in the 'teens, when a journey like this was truly arduous - and yet you are quite certain she always looked fabulous and was witty - at least after she'd had her tea.

It is a great regret that this book is out of print, as it is such a treasure.

If you are fascinated by English travelers accounts of exotic journeys undertaken in the Golden age of Travel, then V. Sackville-West's record of her journey by rail and road from London to Iran in the 1920s will delight you. Her sensibility as a novelist and poet enrich this book of impressions and her strong personality shines through every comment on her adventures. Ms. West follows a meandering and leisurely land route to the Near East from England and, later, returns via Mother Russia, using all means available at the time: automobile, train, donkey, camel, and her own two feet. She braves bandits in the mountain passes of Iran; street beggars in Baghdad, English travelers who dismay and bore her at every turn. She conveys the pageantry of Iranian royalty during a Coronation; surveys the ancient landscape and ruins of Persian gardens on her tramps through the mountainsides of Tehran. She takes the reader on as a fellow passenger and you feel at once you are in the company of an exceptional, if eccentric, traveling companion. After reading this book, you would gladly follow her anywhere

Prof. Bonnie Wheeler of the International Joan of Arc Society has labeled this book "dead wrong" (a position which she rarely takes), and other researchers, myself included, tend to agree. More precisely: certain subjects are handled in an entirely fraudulent manner, as the author had a talent for misquoting or selectively citing the evidence, misinterpreting the original language to reflect her theories, and taking things out of context in order to make "hints" about Joan which happen to suit the author's inclinations (some of these will be dealt with in detail below). Even worse, more recent (and less honest) authors have taken some of the above innuendoes and extrapolated claims which Vita herself knew better than to make, and this has further muddled the subject.
In fairness, at least the author genuinely read a wide selection of the documents, and was honest enough to refrain from the more outrageous claims. But the numerous distortions in this book include:
- A persistent effort to remake Joan into a large, masculine, "sexually-unappealing" androgyne (in direct contradiction to eyewitness accounts describing her as "beautiful and shapely", "short", with "beautiful eyes", a "sweet girl's voice", etc). The author often manipulates such testimony until it becomes the opposite of what the eyewitnesses actually said. This is especially true with regards to the comments made by some of the men who had served in her army: what these fellows actually said (in summary) is that although they did find her attractive, they were amazed to find that their normal sexual desire (for all women) was suppressed when she was around. At no point did they say that they found her ugly or unappealing (as the author sometimes claims about this testimony), but precisely the reverse. The author admits that this was the case with the testimony from the Duke of Alencon, but characteristically sensationalizes it into something which the Duke never said, and which would be at odds with the other sources who are all agreed that Joan always slept in full clothing when with the army and never "undressed" in front of the troops, for heaven's sake. Alencon never claimed otherwise.
- Worse, the author cites - sometimes out of context - some of the testimony given by a group of women (namely Charlotte Boucher (who had been only 9 years old when she "slept with" Joan at Orleans), Hauviette de Sionne (apparently under 13 at the time), and Marguerite La Touroulde) who described a common medieval practice whereby whenever Joan and the men in her group were billeted for the night in a house in which there weren't enough beds for everyone, they placed Joan with the little girls of the house or the hostess rather than the men (her male bodyguard, Jean d'Aulon, frequently slept in the same room with her, and so the hostess or a little girl was also placed in the room for propriety's sake, and sometimes in the same bed if there weren't enough to go around). The author admits that this was "the custom", and at least never goes so far as to claim that Joan was having sex with these women (which would contradict their own testimony that she was "chaste"), but nevertheless makes enough innuendoes to prompt a few modern playwrights and others to cite this book as alleged "proof" that such was the case. An author should not make careless comments on such a subject when she knows full well what the facts of the matter were.
- Aside from the above, there are frequent misinterpretations: just to pick one random example, the author claims that Martin Ladvenu testified that Joan was raped, which is false: he said that there had been an _attempted_ rape after she agreed to give up her soldiers' clothing (which had "laces and points" by which the pants and tunic could be securely fastened together, thereby providing some protection against such assaults), and Ladvenu cites this attempted assault as one of the reasons she resumed her soldiers' clothing after the above-mentioned incident, to try to prevent another attempt from going even farther.
- There are some anachronisms, such as when the author interprets Joan as a "feminist" while ignoring certain of her recorded statements which sound like precisely the opposite (such as the comment: "I would rather stay home with my poor mother and spin wool [rather than lead an army]", or her statement to Catherine de la Rochelle to "go home to your husband and tend your household", etc). Feminism is a modern movement which really had no counterpart in the 15th century.
On the plus side, however, the author has faithfully mentioned many of the eyewitness accounts which are so often ignored, such as the testimony regarding the other reason for her return to "male clothing" (i.e., Massieu's statement that her guards had finally left her nothing else to wear, as a way to entrap her into a "relapse"); and most of the basic material on other subjects is generally accurate enough and detailed. The writing style is often engaging, and Vita Sackville-West, an aristocrat in early-20th century England, brings an almost Victorian-style flavor to the subject (which is a bit odd, but a welcome departure from most other modern books on this topic). Nevertheless, it's still a little sad to see this book in yet another reprint. Its previous popularity seems to have been due entirely to the fact that it was well-written (if not always factual), and the author did enough research to give it the illusion of being authoritative despite the fact that historians have rejected so many of the author's interpretations. The only accepted authority on Joan during the last half-century was the great French medievalist Regine Pernoud (founder of the Centre Jeanne d'Arc at Orleans, France); two of her books can be purchased here at Amazon.com.

Michell Westrick
March 7, 2003
Book Review of Saint Joan of Arc
I enjoyed the book as far as overall content goes. The author had a lot of information that many people may or may not have known about Joan of Arc. He had also brought up many interesting questions. Many of them were on what her physical appearance was really like and also some of whether God or the Devil sent her.
Unfortunately there were several things I disliked. For one, throughout the whole book he would occasionally slip in his own personal opinion, I didn't like that. Two, in some of the chapters he wouldn't even mention Joan of Arc, or her relevance to the chapter, till the very end. Third, he would have a lot of French words and sentences in the book. He never would write in English what they meant or said. For some people who didn't take French, in school, would become very confused as I did. Fourth, throughout the book, he would jump around in years a lot and I would get confused on which year he was talking about. Lastly, the author would also add in or mention quit a few people. When mentioning them, he wouldn't say, on some cases, their relevancy to Joan of Arc or why they were so important to mention in the first place.
I did enjoy reading about Joan of Arc and her, seemingly, fascinating life. I wish I were able to fully understand it all. As I had said earlier, I feel that if the author had skipped around so much on the dates it would be a little more understandable. There were a couple of parts, in the book, where he mentioned another book for getting his information instead of saying, "through my research." Reading this book makes me want to go out and read other books about Joan of Arc to see if they have the same information or if I would learn something new.

Joan of Arc (or Jeanne d'Arc, in French) was an interesting person, a female soldier in an age when women didn't fight, a visionary in an age of backwardness, a prophetess who wasn't believed in her day, and a valuable asset for the French nation, betrayed to France's enemies by Frenchmen. This book about her, written in the thirties, covers as much of her life as was known at the time (there haven't been many changes to the record since) in beautiful prose, with sympathy and understanding. Vita Sackville-West was a prominent member of society in Britain, and Catholic, so she understood some of the things that were going on in Joan's head as history unfolded around this strange young woman.

Sackville-West's book is very literary, and if there's one flaw it's that it doesn't show, sufficiently, how successful and revolutionary a soldier Joan was. She was much more aggressive than other French soldiers of the day, who had been conditioned to defend cautiously by the advent of the English longbow. How Joan overcame this isn't discussed (I suspect in part because this remains a mystery of sorts) though the remarkable fact of her becoming a soldier in this era where women didn't fight is commented on at great length. Joan's abilities as a prophet are also examined at great length, and analyzed carefully.

This book is a good starting point for anyone wishing to know more about Joan of Arc. There's nothing on the market since (at least not that I'm aware of) as well-written, and the scholarship is good, as far as it goes.