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A review by rebus
Armed with Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington by Mary M. Talbot
4.25
The art is excellent and this tale of a lesser known figure from the surrealist movement is more than engaging (and having dated Ernst and known PIcasso and so many others so well, we should all have known about her life prior to this). She was also one of the ultimate female libertines of her age, engaging in numerous passionate affairs with the luminaries of the art world a century ago, and a great artist in her own right, but one of the most fascinating figures from the period.
The theme of the upper class trying to control their adult children is one that runs through much of the best literature from that period, but many fail to realize how abusive this class continues to be, especially toward their female children who may be somewhat dependent upon the family money. Her madness was rather sudden, but certainly not without explanation, and she was subjected to the stable of horrific psychiatric treatments--electroshock and being medicated--for it and controlled by handlers from her family (and a father who always used emotional blackmail by threatening to cut her off); she still forged ahead with living a life of her own, even if it meant something more rustic than she had been accustomed to). Her madness did pass once she escaped that bad environment, and she settled into a productive life as an artist and mother and shockingly--she was a horrific smoker--lived to the ripe old age of 94, though at the end she had finally soured on romantic love and displayed a great deal of misandry. My only quibble is that there was no way she would have used the term 'anthropocene' in 2008, as it has only come into usage in the last 5 years.
The theme of the upper class trying to control their adult children is one that runs through much of the best literature from that period, but many fail to realize how abusive this class continues to be, especially toward their female children who may be somewhat dependent upon the family money. Her madness was rather sudden, but certainly not without explanation, and she was subjected to the stable of horrific psychiatric treatments--electroshock and being medicated--for it and controlled by handlers from her family (and a father who always used emotional blackmail by threatening to cut her off); she still forged ahead with living a life of her own, even if it meant something more rustic than she had been accustomed to). Her madness did pass once she escaped that bad environment, and she settled into a productive life as an artist and mother and shockingly--she was a horrific smoker--lived to the ripe old age of 94, though at the end she had finally soured on romantic love and displayed a great deal of misandry. My only quibble is that there was no way she would have used the term 'anthropocene' in 2008, as it has only come into usage in the last 5 years.