A review by nickartrip102
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

 

“Youth had no beauty like the beauty of an old face; the face of youth was an unwritten page. Youth could never sit as still as that, in absolute repose, as though all haste, all movement, were over and done with, and nothing left but waiting and acquiescence.”

I was thrilled when I randomly selected All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West from my bowl of TBR titles! Sackville-West has often figured into my reading over the years, but I've never actually read any of her writing. Upon the death of Lord Slane, it is assumed that his eighty-eight-year-old widow will fade into her grief and live to honor her husband's memory as befitting her station. Lady Slane, however, finds herself released by widowhood and enjoys the newfound freedom in making decisions for herself. To the dismay of her children, she abandons the family home and takes up in a small house in Hampstead, where she recollects the dreams of her youth and collects unsuitable companions.

The opening pages of Part 1 were superbly done. Lady Slane’s children are gathered, all puzzling around about what to do with her following the death of their father. This went on long enough that I actually grew quite desperate for the woman in question to make an appearance and also effectively drove home a point the novel set out to make. It felt like a wealthy woman’s Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day or Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.

This was a mostly enjoyable read. It has a certain charm that I found irresistible and I cannot deny the fineness of the writing, just don’t stare too long at the cracks. The strength of the novel really lies in Sackville-West’s treatment of the elderly, a recognition that age does not and should not sacrifice individuality or squash dreams and desires. What the novels fails to do, however, is interrogate what enables Lady Slane’s ability to retire to a nice little house and so wonderfully realize her dreams—that pesky little thing called money.

There’s this notion that independence and fulfillment come when one is the architect of one’s own life, but not everyone has a Gennoux ready and eager to serve, nor a Mr. Bucktrout and Mr. Gosheron willing conform to their plans. Lady Slane’s children consider class for all the wrong reasons, but it never occurs to her to give the issue any thought for the right reasons. She acknowledges that leaving the money and collection to the state will benefit for the poor, but this is once again tinged by a need to spite her children (not that the rotten creatures don’t deserve it.) Also, it took Lady Slane getting to the age of eighty-eight to realize that Gennoux had her own history, her own humanity? Come on, old girl. This one little section particularly bothered me:

“Deep down in her peasant wisdom, she recognized the wholesome instinct for perpetuation in posterity. Her own womanhood unfulfilled, she clung pathetically to a vicarious satisfaction through the medium of her adored Lady Slane.”

Vita! Peasant wisdom? Clung pathetically? Her own womanhood unfulfilled?

Lady Slane should have left that money to Gennoux, who is apparently the one of the few people who gave her any consideration during her life, not that it was returned. She does somewhat recognize this but….

“ Genoux had never had any personal fife, she supposed. Her life was in her service, with self submerged. Lady Slane suddenly condemned herself as an egoistic old woman. Yet, she reflected, she also had given her life away, to Henry. She need not blame herself overmuch for the last indulgence of her melancholy.”

The ability to recognize and then so easily dismiss this without any further qualms really annoyed me. These situations aren’t comparable, Lady Slane was provided with a rather luxurious life. Gennoux was provided with a life of servitude.