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A review by evelyn261999
Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West by Matthew Dennison
1.0
After thirty years without a new biography on the subject of 'Orlando', one of the most famous bio(mytho)graphies ever written, I'm sure the literary world was clamouring for this rambling mess of underwrought psychological insights and plodding recitations of Vita Sackville-West's affairs. All of Dennison's points are either true of everybody (eg. the public vs the private mask) or already stated outright by Sackville-West in her diaries and letters (eg. her frustration at being unable to inherit Knole as a woman). Dennison's penchant for gutting random lines from her poetry and novels, and clunkily bolting them on to his points with all the grace of a GCSE English essay does not make this a literary biography.
Apparently written for an audience who care enough to read a biography about Sackville-West, but who emphatically do not care about Virginia Woolf or her suicide, Dennison's desire to reclaim Sackville-West from being reduced to prurient accounts of her sexuality amounts to nothing more than a distinct lack of empathy, or even base consideration, for the difficulties of any lesbian experience in the early 20th century. That Dennison makes her sex life boring does not make his focus on it any less voyeuristic. One might well ask whether the biographical details of anybody's life can ever be exhausted, but this book really did feel pointless.
Apparently written for an audience who care enough to read a biography about Sackville-West, but who emphatically do not care about Virginia Woolf or her suicide, Dennison's desire to reclaim Sackville-West from being reduced to prurient accounts of her sexuality amounts to nothing more than a distinct lack of empathy, or even base consideration, for the difficulties of any lesbian experience in the early 20th century. That Dennison makes her sex life boring does not make his focus on it any less voyeuristic. One might well ask whether the biographical details of anybody's life can ever be exhausted, but this book really did feel pointless.