Black Spartacus by Sudhir Hazareesingh

I always look forward to seeing what books have been listed for the annual Wolfson History Prize which consistently highlights quality new nonfiction. Since its publication I've had my eye on reading Sudhir Hazareesingh's “Black Spartacus” because of its strikingly beautiful cover and a curiosity about its subject of Toussaint Louverture, a man born into slavery who became a military and political leader of The Haitian Revolution which occurred in the late 18th century. So its listing on this year's prize gave me the perfect excuse to dive into this fascinating and authoritative biography of a man who Hazareesingh dubs “the first black superhero of the modern age”. Indeed, Louverture appeared to have almost superhuman powers as the author describes how this was a man who consistently subsisted on only a few hours of sleep and consumed a meagre amount of food yet led battles from the front and utilized his considerable intelligence to strategize methods to build a Haiti liberated from slavery. This book is a fascinating account about his spectacular rise to power, the enormous challenges he faced, the competing myths surrounding him and his enduring legacy as a black leader with strong libertarian values. Like Spartacus, Louverture used his strength, intelligence and cunning to rise out of his oppressed origins and galvanize his brethren to follow.

What most impressed me about Louverture's incredible story is how strongly this general held onto his values even after his rise to power. The challenge for anyone who comes to prominence is how to maintain that position without being corrupted by it. Though there were numerous politically-motivated slanderous charges against Louverture suggesting he only sought to increase his personal finances, Hazareesingh carefully unpicks these in this biography showing how they are false. The author admits how difficult it is getting to the truth about Louverture's life since much information has been destroyed and Louverture himself presented contradictory accounts of his life out of a need for self preservation. Yet, through careful research and convincing arguments about the logic of Louverture's actions, we can surmise that he primarily wanted to build an independent nation where the black and white population could exist equally while maintaining amicable diplomatic ties with the country's former colonial master.

Louverture was a devout Roman Catholic and the author describes the influence which the locally practiced Vodou had upon him as well. He was also educated in the political philosophy of libertarianism which guided his belief that individuals should be accountable for themselves. This inspired Louverture to draft a constitution and set in place regulations to maintain order and enhance the independence of Haiti. Though he seemed to continuously beat the odds and live through terrifying ordeals, it seems almost sadly inevitable that Louverture couldn't survive the forces lined up against him which led to his betrayal, arrest and imprisonment in France where he eventually died in 1803. Yet, his far-reaching influence persisted through the years not only for anti-slavery and anti-colonial movements but also in emphasizing “shared ideals of justice and a vision of citizenship based on common political values rather than ethnicity”. He's such a compelling individual so it felt somewhat frustrating at times that we can't know more about his personal life since so little solid information exists. Instead, Hazareesingh focuses more on the military history and political battles which are well documented. While this is understandable, it made this book a less emotionally involving story than I would have ideally liked. Of course, that's the nature of biographies which must necessarily be rooted in fact. It left me hungry to read some of the novels inspired by his life which Hazareesingh mentions towards the end of the book. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to read this passionate account of Louverture's life to learn more about this incredible figure and his enduring legacy.

It'll be exciting to see if “Black Spartacus” is named the winner of this year's Wolfson History Prize which will be announced in an online ceremony on June 9th at 6PM (BST) which you can watch here for free: https://www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk/2021

Square Haunting by Francesca Wade

One of my ideal ways of spending a morning is listening to an audiobook of my favourite novel “The Waves” by Virginia Woolf while I'm walking or riding on a bus around London. There's an added pleasure of experiencing the text while travelling around the streets that Woolf herself walked while observing the people and shop windows (an activity she referred to as “street haunting”). For the past several months of the pandemic this “haunting” has taken on a different meaning whenever I walk through central London because it's mostly deserted. Naturally, I've had a long fascination with Woolf and the Bloomsbury group so I've previously made a pilgrimage to Monk's House, followed the trail of “Mrs Dalloway” and I like to musingly wander by Woolf's statue in Tavistock Square where she had a longterm residence. However, until picking up Francesca Wade's fascinating and creatively-written group biography “Square Haunting” I wasn't aware of Mecklenburgh Square which exists on the edge of Bloomsbury. 

It's striking that Wade begins her book with the partial destruction of the square she's writing about. In 1939 Virginia and Leonard took up a lease at 37 Mecklenburgh Square after the noise of nearby construction work at Tavistock Square got to be too much for their nerves. This book is partly about their short time at this residence which was bombed in a German air raid in 1940. Luckily the Woolfs weren't in the building when the bomb hit, but Virginia had to dig through the rubble to save her diaries. Wade's book is also about the (sometimes intersecting) lives, careers and interests of four other trailblazing female academics and writers who also resided in this square at different periods of time during the early 20th century. These accounts are skilfully organized in a way that tunnels back not only through their personal histories but how they contributed to the intellectual and political battle for gender equality.

I'd not encountered these fascinating women before but after reading Wade's succinct and compelling accounts of their lives I'm keen to read their work and know more about them. They include H.D. (a pen name created by Ezra Pound for the modernist poet and novelist Hilda Doolittle); the detective novelist Dorothy L Sayers (who lived in the same building that H.D. had previously inhabited); the classicist and translator Jane Ellen Harrison; and the historian, broadcaster and pacifist Eileen Power. All of these talented women had their ambition and desire to intellectually engage with society through their writing stymied in different ways by the dominant patriarchy. Wade details the particular challenges they faced and the individual ways they successfully challenged a system which hampered their ability to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts. The spirit of “A Room of One's Own” takes a direct relevance in their stories as these women established their professional and personal lives in the homes they made while living in this square. Wade's accounts of these five lives are filled with tantalizing details about their unique struggles to live, love, work and write in the way that they most desired.

I admire how Wade artfully weaves these lives together to show the overlapping influence or friendship these different women shared. In a way this makes the book feel like a wonderfully compelling collection of interconnected short stories. Occasionally there will be other figures such as a charismatic landlady, members of the Bloomsbury Group or leading intellectuals such as Sigmund Freud who appear in their separate stories. It brings this physical location to life as you see the series of coincidences and incidents in common which formed the web of experience these women shared rather than viewing their individual lives as a collection of self-contained historical studies. Recently I visited the square during a rare snowy day. It was moving to look at the plaques dedicated to these different women while imagining how they lived in these stately old buildings and walked these streets. Of course, the weather further enhanced the feeling of “haunting” and made me feel like the ghost while pondering the exuberant experience of reading Wade's group biography.

The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather

Although it feels like events of the Holocaust and WWII have been comprehensively written about in numerous accounts, it’s astounding that new stories continue to emerge which present a different angle on this complex history. Virtually unknown accounts of heroism and tragic defeat continue to emerge and this new biographical account of Polish officer Witold Pilecki is one of the most shocking and heart breaking I’ve ever read. After Poland was occupied and Auschwitz (a former Polish army barracks) was turned into a German prisoner of war camp, Pilecki and other Polish nationalists devised campaigns to resist their invaders and take back their country. One of the things they needed most was information to convey to what would become the Allied countries to convince them to take action and strike against the Nazis. In order to gather proof about war crimes and form a resistance army from the inside, Pileck volunteered to be captured by the Nazis and taken into Auschwitz. Of course, this was long before anyone knew that it would turn into a death camp responsible for over 1.1 million deaths. 

Something Fairweather emphasizes frequently in his book is that Pileck was a fairly ordinary man who made such a daring sacrifice out of strong nationalist convictions rather any particular ideological or humanitarian feeling. Yet he boldly faced a magnitude of challenges and outrageous brutality. Witnessing this led him to put himself at dire personal risk time and time again in the hope of ending this horrendous suffering. Unbelievably, many of his reports which were miraculously smuggled out of the camps and made themselves into the hands of Western officials went unheeded. This was primarily because it was viewed as too strategically difficult to try to liberate the inhabitants of Auschwitz. Also some officials questioned the legitimacy of the reports. There was also a hesitancy about prioritizing such action because of anti-Semitic sentiments. Even when it became obvious to Pileck that no help was coming and that any insurrection from within the camps would most likely fail, he raly resistance amongst the downtrodden inmates of the camp and attempt to communicate the truth of what was happening to nations that could fight the Nazis. The author notes that “Witold’s story demonstrates the courage needed to distinguish new evils from old, to name injustice and to implicate ourselves in the plight of others”.

It's very effective how Fairweather balances accounts of Pilecki's personal journey alongside a comprehensive overview of the history of WWII and how Auschwitz evolved into a site of such barbaric horror. Part of what made this book so compelling was the tension of finding out what happened to Pilecki. That his valour has largely been unsung in the history books is part of the tragedy of his life story. I'm grateful that “The Volunteer” has given me a broader understanding of the complicated progression of the war as well as an incredible account of one man's astounding courage.

Thomas Cromwell by Diarmaid MacCulloch

I had a plan. It was a beautiful and logical plan that I was so excited to start. Having tried and failed to read Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” several years ago because I felt confounded by the politics of the Tudor period, I thought reading a biography about Thomas Cromwell would give me an informed background to start reading the novel again. “The Mirror and the Light”, the third part of Mantel’s much-lauded trilogy about Cromwell’s epic rise and fall is due to be published in March. So I want to catch up on the first two novels. Reading Mantel and MacCulloch side by side should be the perfect pairing because both authors compliment each other’s writing in their respective books. But wading through this biography was a big effort. MacCulloch conducted a lot of research using period documents and letters to piece together a narrative about Cromwell’s life detailing his instrumental role in the court of Henry VIII and the English Reformation. While this did give me a broad overview of the events surrounding his life and his political manoeuvres during this period of radical reform, it felt to me more like an academic book for people who have a specialist interest and knowledge about this historical period. As an amateur who wanted some basic understanding I felt alienated.

I know I must sound like a lazy schmo, but I frequently found so much of this book tedious. There are endless lists of names carefully detailing the trajectory of these individuals’ ranks and social status. There are long passages about political strategies which made my eyes glaze over. Even when it came to the bloody machinations of Henry’s reign that saw whole slews of people being beheaded or chopped up, the descriptions of these events made them sound like tiresome inevitabilities. Certainly there were some sections I found more engaging. Certain events gave me an interesting and different perspective and as well as new knowledge – especially concerning false starts in the Reformation and the economics surrounding the dissolution of the monasteries. I also occasionally found some small details interesting such as the large amount of money Henry spent creating a massive library – though he probably had other people read most of the books for him rather than reading them himself.

Where this biography really frustrated me was in what it brushed over in its 752 pages. Cromwell’s early life, development, marriage and early status as a widower are quickly dealt with to get to the meat of his professional career. Details about his downfall also feel strangely sparse as if the author wanted to quickly move onto his legacy and Henry’s regrets about having Cromwell’s head chopped off. I realise as a historian MacCulloch must stick to what can be verified rather than speculate or guess on the emotional status of the parties involved. In one section, MacCulloch even refers the reader to a scene from Mantel’s novel if they want to get a feeling for the inner lives of these historical figures. So this biography failed to come alive for me in the way that reading Matthew Sturgis’ equally long biography of Oscar Wilde did for me earlier this year. I think because I don’t possess a passion for this period of history or a reverence for the individuals involved I simply got impatient as if I was listening to a monotonous lecture.

This leaves me a bit apprehensive about restarting Mantel’s trilogy. It might be a blissful relief to experience these people and events dramatized in her imagination… or it might feel like being sat back in the classroom. I wouldn’t normally make such an effort to reread a novel, but I’ve read and loved Mantel’s novel “Beyond Black” and memoir “Giving Up the Ghost”. So I think this is an author worth making an effort for. The two novels in her trilogy thus far are also hugely critically acclaimed award winners so it makes me feel like an odd duck for not having fully engaged with them. I don’t mind having the dissenting opinion as there are novels such as “Milkman” and “First Love” which didn’t work as well for me as they did for the majority of readers. But I feel like I have to give “Wolf Hall” a second try before having a proper opinion about it. While I feel better equipped to do so having read this biography, it was an enormous slog I wouldn’t recommend to anyone who doesn’t have a scholarly interest.  

Oscar: A Life by Matthew Sturgis

I don't often read biographies but when I saw that Matthew Sturgis' recent book on Oscar Wilde has been shortlisted for this year's prestigious Wolfson History Prize I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn more about Wilde's life. Sturgis' extensive biography is deliciously comprehensive and draws upon a lot of recent research and untapped material about Wilde to give a really authoritative, well-rounded understanding of this infamous, irresistibly flamboyant and brilliant writer. I've previously read Wilde's most famous fiction as well as several of his plays (I even acted in a production of Lady Windermere's Fan) but I knew little about the trajectory of his life. I was only aware that he was a famous wit whose health and success went into sharp decline after he was tried and imprisoned for gross indecency with men. For instance, Rupert Everett's recent film 'The Happy Prince' is a really sympathetic depiction of the melancholy later years of Wilde's life. Sturgis documents in detail Wilde's family life and many social connections, his rise to fame and the gradual formation of his writing craft, the way his aesthetic principles connected to the expression of his sexuality and, of course, Wilde's tragic downfall from social darling to condemned sodomite. In doing so he has created a masterful portrait of Wilde capturing the rare flame of his brilliance and the gross injustice of his persecution. 

In 2017 I went to an exhibit at the Tate Britain on the subject of 'Queer British Art' and within the gallery hung the large door from Wilde's prison cell. To be confronted with the ugly impenetrable barrier to the artist's freedom was quite moving and brought home the reality of his situation. One could think seeing such a brutal object that this was Wilde's inevitable fate. The challenge of biographies is to present the history of a life while showing that circumstance and coincidence determined what happened to this individual (rather than fate.) This biography begins with a scandalous and much publicised sex trial – but it was for Wilde's father and not Oscar himself. Wilde's father was a doctor accused of inappropriate behaviour with his client. He was exonerated of the charges (partly because of his very respected social position) even though he was certainly a philanderer who fathered a number of illegitimate children. This was sadly not the case with Oscar many years later whose sexual activity happened to be deemed socially unacceptable and so he met severe punishment. Sturgis draws this contrast in a meaningful way.

It's fascinating and surprising to read about Wilde's early life as a rambunctious sporty child in Ireland. I would have assumed that his mannered sense of being was inborn but it appears that (though it was certainly heartfelt) it was a way of presenting himself as one of the leaders of the aestheticism. This was a movement which focused on the aesthetic values rather than political or moral content of literature and art objects. The often flamboyant dress code and posturing which coincided with this was one which periodicals delighted in parodying. It was so interesting to learn how Wilde played into this by connecting himself to such depictions and self-consciously crafted a way of presenting himself in order to achieve fame. And what was especially curious was that Wilde obtained such a level of fame before he'd even published much. I was previously aware that he embarked on extensive lecture tours across America and the United Kingdom, but I assumed that he only did so after the fame of his plays. However, it was quite the reverse. He fervently attempted and failed to get plays produced while simultaneously filling theatres with patrons eager to hear his witticisms about an aesthetic's decorum and manner. This biography taught me what a struggle Wilde had achieving literary success even though he was clearly ferociously intelligent and funny; it just took time for him to learn how to harness this into an art form which would pay his considerable bills.

Certainly not everyone agreed with Wilde's values and dandy persona. His opinions ran counter to the beliefs of the times so naturally earned him a lot of scorn – as did the petty vengeance which comes within small art circles. But no one could deny Wilde's entertaining style of delivery so it firmly fixed him in the public eye. It was interesting to learn in Sturgis' biography how Wilde attempted to embark in a number of professions before earning money from his own writing. For instance, he reviewed books but hilariously Wilde didn't believe it was necessary or even appropriate to read the entire book he was reviewing. No doubt this position stemmed more from his reluctance to spend so much time on these books.

It's difficult to imagine how Wilde could be extracted from his famous public persona which persists today in legend and the many photos taken of him in elaborate garb. For instance, actor Ezra Miller cites Wilde as one of his style icons. Perhaps Wilde wouldn't have developed his literary talents without this way of presenting himself (as well as indulging in his excessive lifestyle), but it meant that though he was a great genius his literary output was relatively low. The time he hit his stride having a number of very successful plays produced was also the time that he became most entangled with Lord Douglas (Bosie). Because Bosie's father so viciously harassed Wilde and Bosie to end their relationship the couple attempted to sue him for libel and lost. This also unfortunately meant that the testimonies from that trial led to Wilde's own persecution and incarceration. Sturgis' biography details how this end perhaps wasn't inevitable. Of course, the primary cause of his downfall was the prejudice of the time and this paired with Wilde's inflexibility about being who he was and living how he wanted led to his ruin. Wilde should be celebrated for pursing his desires and bravely standing in the face of such condemnation, but it sadly meant that his life was cut short and curtailed his literary output. Sturgis' impressive biography elucidates this struggle in a meaningful and memorable way.

Montaigne by Stefan Zweig (translated by Will Stone)

Several years ago I read Zweig’s biography of Balzac and it remains one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. Balzac led an impassioned, rigorous and tragically bumbling life that is great fun to read about. But what was so gripping about this book was the tension between Zweig who was evidently a writer of high ideals and his subject Balzac who was a brilliantly gifted writer with frivolous values. Zweig was a man dedicated to art and a freedom of spirit. Balzac desired status and fortune and only wrote so prolifically to get himself out of the enormous debts he accrued through get-rich-quick schemes. Thus reading Zweig’s intense frustration at Balzac’s indifference to his obvious talent and foolish striving for material goods and pretentious society is incredibly compelling to read about. Zweig is a thoroughly subjective biographer who makes his opinions known in a way that works so well more than a biographer trying to present an objective portrait of a life. He sticks to the facts, but focuses on aspects of his subject’s personal history and the statements their work made which he deems important to our culture and that have the most relevance to where he was in his own life.

“Montaigne” is a biography which is almost more compelling for what it says about Zweig than it does about his subject. Translator Will Stone gives a thorough and intelligent introduction to this brief book which is more a sketch of Montaigne’s life than a comprehensive account. (His biography of Balzac was much more extensive.) Normally I get impatient with such introductions and want to get to the real text of the book I’ve bought. But Stone’s account gives vital information about where Zweig was in his life when he wrote about Montaigne and why he was so drawn to this subject at this point in his life. Zweig famously retreated to a house in Brazil to escape the increasing influence of Hitler’s rise to power and the authoritarian forces threatening Europe. Despairing about the state of the world, he and his wife committed suicide in 1942.

“What Montaigne seeks is his interior self… which Goethe labelled the ‘citadel’, where all access is prohibited… This citadel, which for Goethe was only symbolic, Montaigne erects with real stones, a lock and a key… the famous tower of Montaigne.”

This biography was written in the crucial year before this act and the psychological cracks show in the text. The first section of the biography is an impassioned account of Montaigne’s high ideals. The values which he believed Montaigne exhibited are ones which felt so crucially relevant to Zweig’s own life that he seized upon him as a subject for the highest reverence. Zweig feverishly states: “Only he whose soul is in turmoil, forced to live in an epoch where war, violence and ideological tyranny threaten the life of every individual, and the most precious substance in that life, the freedom of the soul, can know how much courage, sincerity and resolve are required to remain faithful to his inner self in these times of the herd’s rampancy.” It’s as if he’s leapt upon Montaigne as a life raft in a time where he felt hemmed in by the ideological forces of his time which threatened the civilization Zweig valued so highly.

Zweig focuses on only the most crucial facts of Montaigne’s life, those which are relevant to him, and skips over huge chunks. What he seizes upon is gold and wholly engaging. No doubt if Zweig had lived longer he would have written much more extensively about this famous essayist. I can feel very sympathetic to Montaigne’s abrupt removal from his family and public life in his late thirties since it’s the same age I’m at now. Montaigne retreated to a tower to study, read and write while blocking out the everyday distracting realties of the world as much as possible. As a great reader Montaigne felt “Books are my kingdom. And here I seek to reign as absolute lord.” It’s interesting the way that Montaigne’s life played out – because, of course, however much we try to completely retreat into books the world draws us back into it. Montaigne’s reading tastes suited Zweig perfectly as he remarks “Concerning Montaigne’s judgement on books I am 100 per cent in accordance.” Thus Zweig found in Montaigne an intellectual kinship across centuries and found strength to stand against the tyranny of his own time. More disturbingly, it’s possible that Montaigne’s reasoning might have heavily influenced Zweig’s own decision to end his own life. This can be intimated in the line: “the last freedom: in the face of death. Life hangs on the will of others, but death on our own will.”

This is such a fascinating book for what it says about both its biographer Stefan Zweig and its subject of Montaigne. I’m now inspired to go out and read more by both of these fascinating authors.

Ammonites & Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively

Do you think of your life as a narrative? Casting your mind back do you hit upon “landmark” moments that set you on a course to becoming the person you are now? Last year I started spending more time with an acquaintance who I’d casually known for years. Increasingly we discussed books and went to events together although we didn’t really know all that much about each other. So one evening while we were having dinner he suddenly looked up at me and asked “Who are you?” I had to mentally scramble around quite quickly picking up and arranging all those introductory phrases and things you say at social gatherings to present a coherent answer to this. We’re accustomed to constructing narratives, forever tweaking and refining them, to make sense of our lives. It’s not that we necessarily try to fictionalize elements of the past, but that we attempt to make our lives into a complete comprehensible story rather than a series of slapdash experiences dependent upon chance and sporadic bursts of willpower which is the existence of most people. As Lively writes, “Most of us settle for the disconcerting muddle of what we intended and what came along, and try to see it as some kind of whole.” The trouble is that giving an approximate linear shape to our lives doesn’t really convey the experience as it was lived or how that experience has been translated into the memories inside our heads. Penelope Lively is very aware of this problem. Our lives don’t play through like a grand fictional narrative on a movie screen starting at birth and ending in death. Life exists in the sensory moment and in the scattered fragments of memory flitting through our minds throughout every day. 

Lively has previously given us her fictional representation of this in her lauded novel ‘Moon Tiger’. Here a life is presented in an impressionistic way. The story doesn’t move from start to finish but leaps around settling here and there upon episodes through a variety of narrative points of view. ‘Ammonites and Flying Fish’ which Lively admits is not a traditional memoir uses a similar tactic when trying to present a picture of her own life now that she’s over eighty years old. She muses upon what old age means now and how it’s transformed her personality: “We have to get used to being the person we are, the person we have always been, but encumbered now with various indignities and disabilities, shoved as it were into some new incarnation.” In many ways Lively feels like the same person she was when she was younger, but now she has a lot of memories to mull through. “We are the same, but different, and equipped now with a comet trail of completed time, the memory trail.” She finds old age has its challenges and also its freedoms and pleasures. There are physical problems, but she’s liberated by the fact that she doesn’t feel obligated to do anything that she doesn’t want to do. Lively muses upon the social impact of people living longer and how society reacts and is transformed by this new aging portion of the population.

Memory is a troublesome issue for Lively – both the process and the way memories are used to give coherence to our lives. Throughout the book she refers back to the strange phenomenon of memory loss when it comes to names. It’s a common problem and one that is often cited by writers and psychologists, but nobody can ever answer why it is that being unable to recall the name of someone you met last week would be more difficult than remembering the capital of Indonesia. It annoys her that no one has an answer and the problem annoys me too as it’s a difficulty I’m prone to though I’m less than half Lively’s age. In addition to losing the ability to recall names as easily, Lively finds herself unable to look forward to the future so much as continuously circling back through thoughts of the past. “What is at issue, it seems to me, is a new and disturbing relationship with time.” And so she casts her mind back and tries to construct a portrait of her life.

Hilariously, Lively remarks that “we old talk too much about the past.” In the chapter which immediately proceeds this that is exactly what she does: goes on for a hundred or so pages talking about the past in an engaging way. Personally I love hearing interesting older people talk about the past and Lively is an incredibly fascinating individual. When she describes the beginning of her life she juxtaposes her personal memories of growing up in Egypt with general historical knowledge of social and political upheaval of the time whether that be the Suez Crisis or the nuclear attack threat of the Cold War. She also supplements this knowledge with documents including her personal writing or articles and books from the time. This connection to history is very important to her. “If you have no sense of the past, no access to the historical narrative, you are afloat, untethered; you cannot see yourself as a part of the narrative, you cannot place yourself within a context. You will not have an understanding of time, and a respect for memory and its subtle victory over the remorselessness of time.”

Lively has a preoccupation with time and a desire to define the meaning of time which eerily reflects Ali Smith in her book ‘Artful’ which I read recently. Lively remarks that “linguistically, we are positively cavalier about it – we make it, we spend it, we have it, we find it, we serve it, we mark it. Last time, next time, in time, half-time – one of the most flexible words going, one of the most reached for, a concept for all purposes.” Smith also notes this flexibility and ponders our relationship with it: “Time means. Time will tell. It’s consequence, suspense, morality, mortality. Boxers fight in bouts between bells ringing time. Prisoners do time. Time’s just ‘one damn thing after another,’ Margaret Atwood says. That sounds like conventional narrative plot. And at the end of our allotted time, we’ll end up in one of those, a conventional plot I mean, unless we stipulate otherwise in our wills.” Time is the map we use to locate ourselves within whether that be recalling when we first kissed someone, arriving at work or planning to retire. We exist in time and we wouldn’t have any conception of our place in the world without it.

Lively notes some grand changes in society since the time she was young remarking specifically upon the advancement of equality for women and acceptance of homosexuality. Then she changes tact, giving an impression of her life by recounting a series of seemingly random memories and sensations. Next she presents a group of objects in her house and the personal significance of each item. Objects for her are all artefacts of the past, in some ways more reliable for recounting history than anyone’s subjective account. “It is objects, things like these scraps of pottery, that have most keenly conjured up all those elsewheres – inaccessible but eerily available to the imagination.” Finally, she ends discussing the meaning books and writing have had upon her life.

Penelope Lively discusses reading, history, fiction and nonfiction at Yale University in 2009.

Lively is someone who is passionate about literature. For her, “books are not acquisitions, they are necessities.” She feels her life is not just informed from what she has read, but literally is a part of her past and who she is: “What we have read makes us what we are – quite as much as what we have experienced and where we have been and who we have known. To read is to experience.” The books we read allow us to experience lives we can never lead bound as we are in our own particular circumstances of our own particular time period. She has found this in both fiction and non-fiction. Her dedication to literature and illuminating thoughts on what books mean to us struck an emotional chord with me. Lively is someone dedicated to not just telling stories, but constantly pushing the boundaries of narrative itself and finding new radiant ways of writing. She has a wonderful quip which is a play upon a famous TS Eliot line: “I can measure out my life in books.” This book shows a new way of measuring one individual’s life. One that is honest, artful and enlightening.

In Bed with Gore Vidal by Tim Teeman

Getting under the covers with Gore Vidal is a terrifying prospect when thinking about the last time I saw him appear live on television. It was when David Dimbleby interviewed Vidal after Obama’s election in 2008. The elderly Vidal was haughty, argumentative and made no sense. Since he was such a vocal and frequent presence on television throughout his life, Tim Teeman references this incident in the book as the nadir of Vidal’s many public appearances due to his evident mental and physical decline. The appearance was particularly embarrassing in relation to thinking about a time when I’d seen him several years before give a reading at a PEN event in London. After the event people were mingling in the corridor chatting away when Vidal’s long-term partner Howard came bursting through clearing a path with a walking stick and grumbling “Make way! Make way!” as Vidal followed behind him strutting with his nose held high like an imperial statesman while everyone looked upon him with awe. People surrounding him practically bowed in respect. Looking past his status and accomplishments, consider portraits of the tall masculine intellectual stud in his heyday and the prospect of slipping in bed with Vidal is much more enticing. I was ambiguous about wanting to go there, but now that I’ve read this insightful, entertaining and admirable biography I’m glad that I did. In this book Teeman disentangles Vidal’s complicated position on sexuality while constructing a history of his erotic life. In doing so he creates an important portrait of one of recent gay history’s most controversial figures. 'In Bed with Gore Vidal' prompts us to challenge our assumptions and ask vital questions about how we define sexuality on a personal, social and political level.

Teeman makes clear at the beginning: “This is a book with sexuality at its heart; it is neither a general biography nor evaluation of Vidal’s writing career.” Through rigorous research and clear analysis Teeman manages to compile a collage of opinions both about Vidal’s sexuality and what sexuality means for an individual in relation to society. Drawing on an impressive range of resources, Teeman’s references draw upon Vidal’s books, letters between Vidal and his friends, interviews with a huge variety of people Vidal knew intimately, an important unpublished interview the publisher Don Weise conducted with Vidal in 1999, research material for an unfinished biography by Walter Clemons which was largely destroyed and an interview Teeman conducted with Vidal himself a few years prior to his death. Like a review of the last century’s most influential figures names of prominent politicians, writers and Hollywood actors are listed as having not only been acquainted with Vidal but close personal friends: Jackie and JFK, Eleanor Roosevelt, Princess Margaret, Rudolf Nureyev, Allen Ginsberg, Tennessee Williams, Norman Mailer, Paul Bowles, Muriel Spark, Anais Nin, Christopher Isherwood, Edmund White, Rock Hudson, Greta Garbo, Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon and many others. Naturally all these opinions and viewpoints about Vidal are sometimes in conflict with one another and present a series of contradictions.

Even just by scratching the surface of Vidal’s life a huge variety of questions arise about what the writer did in bed especially when considering Vidal’s ability to “embellish” the facts and present a carefully monitored public persona. Did Vidal really have sexual relations with the long-dead Jimmie Trimble who Vidal always considered his great lost love and masculine ideal? Did he ever have a cock in his mouth or was he only into mutual masturbation? Was Vidal indifferent about the AIDS crisis or deeply moved by it? Was he a great lover of women or was his close relationships with them only platonic? Did he really suck off and fuck Jack Kerouac in the Chelsea Hotel? Did he ever have sex with Howard, his partner of over 50 years, or (as he claimed in interviews) never have sex with him? Can Vidal, with all these questions swirling around him, legitimately claim not to be gay?

A small part of a 2008 interview with Gore Vidal speaking about sexuality at his home in Hollywood.

By presenting these queries with an even-handed array of references and offering his own diligent clear-sighted commentary Teeman constructs what feels like an accurate reconciliation between how Vidal presented himself as someone who claimed “There is no such thing as a homosexual person” and a man who lived with another man for over fifty years while having countless sexual encounters with male prostitutes. In some ways it all seems to come down to semantics as Teeman notes: “Vidal thought ‘gay’ referred to a sexual act, rather than a sexual identity.” Since Vidal saw sexual identity as always being fluid, people can’t ever be defined as either homosexual or heterosexual in his mind. 

There is a niggling sense throughout the book that his position on sexuality is largely founded on Vidal’s own fear of having his public image diminished by being labelled as gay: “He knew his political destiny would be betrayed by his gay sexuality – this taint.” That a public image could be diminished by a queer label was something he learned well after the reception of his ground-breaking novel ‘The City and The Pillar’ upon publication in 1948. On multiple occasions Vidal tried to be elected into government and harboured a longstanding daydream wish to one day become president. With these ambitions for power and overall public approval, it’s not surprising that, as Teeman observes, “his mind never allowed that ‘gay’ could mean firm wrists, men of all kinds having sex with, and loving, one another and being open about it; even realizing the potency of its political appropriation, or something to reveal, rather than hide.” Vidal had his definition and he stuck to it without considering how it might reflect on his personal longstanding relationship with Howard or the way it might be interpreted by society as self-denial.

Vidal always became very disgruntled if anyone tried to fix these labels on him. It’s humorous to think how the author, so deeply concerned about his self image, would have hated that this book exists. Now that Vidal is dead riffling around the sacred bed to discover his dirty underclothes gives the reader a giddy feeling of transgression – like when Colm Tóibín depicted the inner life of the deeply private Henry James in his novel 'The Master'. Such audacity can seemingly only occur after the subject’s passing. Vidal reveals himself as a hypocrite when he affixed the label of homosexual on Henry James even though this is something no one can know for sure. Teeman points out the “irony in Vidal freely casting James as a homosexual and homosexual writer, whereas he strenuously resisted any such definitions being applied to himself.” This is another indication of Vidal’s tremendous arrogance, but also what made him so enthralling to listen to as he was clearly a great gossip. He knew almost everyone worth knowing so could either recite accounts based on experience or spin believable fables to suit his purpose.

This is the well known incident between William Buckley and Gore Vidal that occurred during ABC's coverage of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.

This resistance to embrace terms like “homosexual” and “gay” in relation to himself often led to feelings of animosity between the gay community and Vidal – something Vidal was never that bothered about as he felt “There is no fellow feeling particularly.” In addition, as can be seen in many recorded interviews with Vidal, he enjoyed a good scrap and enjoyed stirring heated debate. However, Teeman records how through some clear-intentioned writing, sporadic acts of charity and support for gay activism Vidal backed his claim when he once said to someone “I am on your team. After all, I’ve been there all along.” Maybe he didn’t do everything he could, but he played a part. Perhaps even by standing alone with his radical opinions he progressed ideas in society in ways that aren’t so clear-cut. As Teeman wryly notes: “He was a renegade, not a crusader.” And, after all, this raises one of the questions central to the heart of this book: was Vidal a sexual pioneer creating a level playing field or an old-fashioned relic who was too worried what people would think? There is no clear answer to this question or any of the other many questions raised by the fascinating and frustrating figure of Vidal. The fact that we’re forced to question and challenge our own beliefs and assumptions when considering him is what makes him so interesting to study. For that reason, Tim Teeman has produced a valuable biography and study that takes sex seriously while also providing a fantastically titillating read.