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angelayoung 's review for:
All Passion Spent
by Vita Sackville-West
I read this with the Cornflower Book Group: http://cornflower.typepad.com/domestic_arts_blog/about-the-cornflower-book-group/
And this is what I thought then: I love novels that show me something that's true about life, and in All Passion Spent Lady Slane's relinquishing of the life she longs to live, as a painter, rings very true. There are still, even now, quite a few female artists who have never married or had children and I wonder if that is at least partly for fear that the spark of their passion for their art will be extinguished by necessary domesticity; at least partly for fear that they will never find the time to paint, write or compose if surrounded by other people who need their love and attention? At least partly for fear that, "in such a programme [Lord Slane's life] ... there [would be no] room for a studio".
But the gift that Lady Slane gives her great-granddaughter at the end, is wonderfully redemptive and perhaps prescient about an age to come. The gift Lady Slane makes to her namesake, Deborah, is priceless - and the fact that she didn't leave her great-granddaughter her inherited millions underlines that. I thought All Passion Spent a beautiful delicate flower of a book. It is poignant and understated and far more powerful than its simply written prose and relatively short length suggest. The characters are wonderfully observed and I agree with Fay about Mr Bucktrout's eccentricities - I particularly loved his name and his pointing of his toe to underline what he says.
I still think those things now. Here's the link to that post: http://cornflower.typepad.com/domestic_arts_blog/2007/12/all-passion-spe.html?cid=6a00d8341c6f9553ef00e54fb944558834#comment-6a00d8341c6f9553ef00e54fb944558834
And this is what I thought then: I love novels that show me something that's true about life, and in All Passion Spent Lady Slane's relinquishing of the life she longs to live, as a painter, rings very true. There are still, even now, quite a few female artists who have never married or had children and I wonder if that is at least partly for fear that the spark of their passion for their art will be extinguished by necessary domesticity; at least partly for fear that they will never find the time to paint, write or compose if surrounded by other people who need their love and attention? At least partly for fear that, "in such a programme [Lord Slane's life] ... there [would be no] room for a studio".
But the gift that Lady Slane gives her great-granddaughter at the end, is wonderfully redemptive and perhaps prescient about an age to come. The gift Lady Slane makes to her namesake, Deborah, is priceless - and the fact that she didn't leave her great-granddaughter her inherited millions underlines that. I thought All Passion Spent a beautiful delicate flower of a book. It is poignant and understated and far more powerful than its simply written prose and relatively short length suggest. The characters are wonderfully observed and I agree with Fay about Mr Bucktrout's eccentricities - I particularly loved his name and his pointing of his toe to underline what he says.
I still think those things now. Here's the link to that post: http://cornflower.typepad.com/domestic_arts_blog/2007/12/all-passion-spe.html?cid=6a00d8341c6f9553ef00e54fb944558834#comment-6a00d8341c6f9553ef00e54fb944558834