List price: $39.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $24.99
Buy one from zShops for: $26.60
Used price: $9.99
Collectible price: $9.90
I found this to be quite an informative book and would highly recommend it to anyone with a curiosity regarding this period of British history.
Used price: $1.95
Collectible price: $12.94
This is all the more unusual given that Strachey is a historian. In most cases, his style doesn't get in the way of the story; his subjects are usually represented accurately and with respect.
Unfortunately, he doesn't quite succeed in this case. Strachey's Victorian sensibilities and Freudian view of his subjects often take him on wild flights of fancy that fail the test of Occam's razor. For instance, he asserts that Elizabeth was sexually disorganized based on a smattering of rumours which, he claims, prove that she had a deep-seated fear of sex and perhaps a hysterical block which prevented her from engaging in intercourse. Pretty convoluted reasoning, especially considering the fact that Elizabeth had perfectly sound political reasons to remain single.
Strachey's portrait of Essex is likewise suspect. He turns the proud scion of an ancient family into a manic-depressive basket case, but his evidence for this is scanty and his reasoning difficult to follow. Again, is it really likely that Essex plotted to overthrow the government because he saw himself as the true King of England, when a much more simple explanation (he was angry and felt insulted) comes to mind?
Yet even through the flights of psychological fancy and the wildly improbable motives, Strachey's portrait continues to enchant. I cannot stress strongly enough how enjoyable and entertaining this book is. Yes, one does have to take Strachey's explanations with a grain of salt, but the journey itself is a lot of fun and should not be missed.
I highly recommend this book.
Used price: $3.48
Collectible price: $10.49
Buy one from zShops for: $21.98
The main problem simply is that Strachey's life was too uneventful to command attention for nearly 700 pages. What you end up with is this image of an old-maidish, pampered, and astonishingly self-centred man forever reading books in the aloofness of his country cottage while unaccountably being the object of universal adoration. The final and supposedly climactic love-affair with Roger Senhouse might have provided some eleventh-hour excitement, but honestly doesn't amount to more than the cliché of the unattractive (but intelligent, rich and famous) middle aged man infatuated with the vapid, reluctant and opportunistic (but very pretty) much younger man.
Surely Holroyd is a bit to blame as well for not gaining full hold of our (well, at least my) attention. Here we have The Apostles and the "Bloomsberries" in their heyday, with Diaghilev, Nijinsky and the likes casually thrown in as well. An incredible collection of brilliant and colourful people; and yet all they seem to occupy themselves with is bourgeois bickerings, common gossip, parties, parties, parties, and amorous obsessions of a peculiarly puerile nature. Where is all the wit and dazzling conversation that is frequently reported by Holroyd, but rarely demonstrated? We're told about a lot of people and things, but they remain abstractions. Even a character as bizarre as Ottoline Morrell remains a mere cipher. The frequent trips to France and Spain read like depersonalised itenaries from a travel agent's brochure, and we are kept in the dark about their meaning in Lytton's life.
Unfortunately Holroyd reverts to an overdose of Freudian psycho-analytical blabla to lend depth to his characters. This largely obsolete approach to psychology remains a staple of biographers, probably because it offers such metaphorically appealing instant explanations of all relational problems and personal obsessions. Seeing rather too much of Mama lately? - hello Oedipus! Such off-the-peg explanations add very little to our understanding of the person. Actually I didn't find this book all too insightful psychologically speaking. E.g., the bouts of anxiety and depression that troubled Carrington in her final years pop up out of nowhere as a rather too hasty prelude to her suicide. Her complicated relationship with Strachey is underplayed, so that at times she emerges more like a luxury housekeeper with a talent for painting than as Strachey's ticket to survival. For clearly it was she alone who saved him from utter and desparate loneliness (as well as he her). Gretchen Gerzina's biography of Carrington, in all its compactness, is much closer to the essence and tragedy of both Carrington's and Lytton's personalities, and the peculiar chemistry between them, it seems to me.
Another strange thing is that we get to know just about nothing about Strachey's sexual pursuits. Now call me unhealthily curious if you like, but Lytton himself was known to speak disparagingly of Virginia Woolf's books because of their 'lack of copulation'. So where is his own? How can you write 700 pages about one of the most notable and visible homosexuals in England at the time, and yet in the end leave the reader uncertain whether the man ever had any sexual contacts with anyone at all???
And the other, more troubling question that remains in the end is: why would this man deserve so much attention? His lasting output amounts to no more than three books. And Strachey may have thought Forster (another spectre relegated to the sidelines by Holroyd) a dreary 'old maid' (projection, the dedicated Freudian might wonder?), but himself certainly never mustered the courage or conviction to write something like "Maurice", let alone anything else approaching Forster's novelistic output! And output aside, Marie-Jacqueline Lancaster has shown in her collectors-item biography of Brian Howard, who was in many ways Strachey's extroverted counterpart, that you can even write a fascinating book about somebody who produced literally nothing at all of worth during his lifetime (could somebody please reprint this book!). Starting on Holroyds book I expected a classic like Furbank's Forster or Ellman's Wilde. Alas, it wasn't so; which is partly due to the fact that Strachey was simply a more superficial and less tragic or extravagant figure than either of these; and partly to the fact that Holroyd fails to make the most of the brilliant company he associated with.
Lytton Strachey was an English writer in the interwar period. He wrote a number of histories including a biography of Queen Victoria and another work called Eminent Victorians. At the time it was published Eminent Victorians was seen as a savage attack on the reputation of a number of English heroes. Nowadays it seen as an affectionate but realistic portrait of a number of figures who were previously given mythical status.
The biography of Strachey is really a biography of the Bloomsbury Group. Keynes, Virginia Wolf and the others who lived or met around the London Suburb of Bloomsbury. It tells of their affairs, the ups and downs of their lives and how they interconnected.
The portrait of Strachey is a gentle and affectionate one. Strachey was a person who was gay. He married Carrington a woman who became a minor artist. Their relationship has been turned into a recent film.
The book is quite long but it is the portrait of an England that is long since gone. A description of a number of people who were once at the centre of their nations cultural life. It is a book that is gently endearing.
Holroyd's biography is a superb portrait of Strachey and the circle he moved in. Well-documented, it brings to life many people never well-known in America. Strachey's personal life was extremely complicated; a woman named Carrington (she refused to use her first name which was Dora) fell desparately in love with him. This was unfortunate for her because Strachey was a confirmed homosexual. When examined for possible conscription during the First World War, he was asked what he would due if he saw a German trying to rape his sister; his response was "I should try to come between them." This made no difference to Carrington, whose love for him was so great that she committed suicide after his death. Carrington, and other figures who became involved in Strachey's complicated life make this almost a group biography. In fact, the biography was rereleased in connection with the movie "Carrington" (starred Emma Thompson in the title role and Jonathan Pryce as Strachey) and on the cover Carrington's name is in type as big as that used for Lytton Strachey. Holroyd's writing style is fluid, and his eye for a tellng anecdote make the biography eminently readable. One does not have to be obsessed with Bloomsbury to enjoy this book.
Used price: $9.95
Collectible price: $10.00
Buy one from zShops for: $13.89
Taddeo writes really well---the book moves quickly and I was fascinated by Taddeo's analysis and discussion of Strachey's sexuality. What I liked most about this book (and I can't say this enough!) was its readability. This is a book for scholars and non-specialists.
If you've read any of the books by the Bloomsbury group or if you love the Victorians, buy this book (actually you should buy it and read it no matter what!).