Read Online The Pursuit of Laughter by Diana Mitford (Mosley) - Free Book Online
Authors: Diana Mitford (Mosley)
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for the people; a great deal of nudging and joking on the part of very unattractive young men and women; making it lively, I suppose; and yet, to be truthful, when I watch them I never laugh or criticise but only feel how strange and interesting this is; wonder what they mean by “Come to the Lord”. I daresay exhibitionism accounts for some of it; the applause of the gallery; this lures boys to sing hymns; and kindles shop boys to announce in a loud voice that they are saved. It is what writing for the
Evening
Standard
is for…’
The Woolfs owned the Hogarth Press; they were offered
Ulysses
and refused it—a curious parallel to Gide’s refusal, for the NRF, of
Du Côté de chez Swann
.
Most of the chief Bloomsbury figures are dead. Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, Maynard Keynes—they did not live to a great age, they never reached the
Grand Old
stage of an earlier generation. But some of the younger ones are still alive, and here is the first volume of David Garnett’s autobiography. In it he describes his upbringing, with the typical background of the future Bloomsbury; the intellectual parents (Constance Garnett, a translator of genius, was his mother); the liberal, rationalist opinions; the famous friends; the cranky food; the sofa propped up with books; the solid discomfort. Excellent writer that he is, readers of
The Golden Echo
will eagerly look forward to the next instalment; hoping, meanwhile, for a new novel after too many silent years.
Were the Bloomsburies as parochial as the name suggests? Roger Fry proclaiming the merits of post-impressionism to Edwardian London was an interpreter; Lytton Strachey, E.M. Foster, Virginia Woolf and David Garnett are artists, whose books will be read as long as there is anyone left to enjoy the ‘combinations, rejections, felicities and masteries’ of the English language which they all know how to employ.
A Writer’s Diary
, Woolf, V.;
The Golden Echo
, Garnett, D. (1953)
Nervous Endings
The second volume of Mr Garnett’s autobiography is a less polished success than
The
Golden Echo
; in places it reads almost like notes for somebody’s memoirs rather than the finished product. Nevertheless the book has virtues, of which the chief is that the author tells tales and anecdotes about his clever friends and contemporaries the Bloomsburies which marvellously bring them to life. If, at times, the narrative seems jerky instead of running on ball bearings, it may be that it cost him a good deal to write about the war years which must, in some ways, have been a disagreeable time for him.
Unless he is buoyed up by particularly strong political or religious beliefs there is no doubt that, for a healthy man in the twenties, the position of conscientious objector in war time is a difficult one, even if he belongs to a group of clever and like-minded friends which forms a cushion between himself and the outside world. (Mr Garnett spent part of the 1914 war with Frankie Birrell working behind the lines in France among Quakers, and the rest with Duncan Grant as a labourer on a Sussex farm, where he stayed with Vanessa Bell.) That simple people may suspect him of cowardice is the very least of the complicated feelings which he must have about himself and about the attitude of others towards him. Keynes, for example, the only member of the circle to take part in the world of action, faithfully gave evidence for all the Bloomsburies of military age at their Tribunals, and was obviously a great help in getting them exempted from fighting. Yet there was a ‘painful scene’ at 46, Gordon Square when ‘the conversation turned on conscientious objection and Maynard declared that he did not believe anyone had a genuine conscientious objection. If he said this to exasperate Vanessa and Norton he certainly succeeded.’
In Mr Garnett’s case the result of these tensions seems to have been that he suffered from nerves and
angst
. Not until a few years after the war, when
Evening
Standard
is for…’
The Woolfs owned the Hogarth Press; they were offered
Ulysses
and refused it—a curious parallel to Gide’s refusal, for the NRF, of
Du Côté de chez Swann
.
Most of the chief Bloomsbury figures are dead. Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, Maynard Keynes—they did not live to a great age, they never reached the
Grand Old
stage of an earlier generation. But some of the younger ones are still alive, and here is the first volume of David Garnett’s autobiography. In it he describes his upbringing, with the typical background of the future Bloomsbury; the intellectual parents (Constance Garnett, a translator of genius, was his mother); the liberal, rationalist opinions; the famous friends; the cranky food; the sofa propped up with books; the solid discomfort. Excellent writer that he is, readers of
The Golden Echo
will eagerly look forward to the next instalment; hoping, meanwhile, for a new novel after too many silent years.
Were the Bloomsburies as parochial as the name suggests? Roger Fry proclaiming the merits of post-impressionism to Edwardian London was an interpreter; Lytton Strachey, E.M. Foster, Virginia Woolf and David Garnett are artists, whose books will be read as long as there is anyone left to enjoy the ‘combinations, rejections, felicities and masteries’ of the English language which they all know how to employ.
A Writer’s Diary
, Woolf, V.;
The Golden Echo
, Garnett, D. (1953)
Nervous Endings
The second volume of Mr Garnett’s autobiography is a less polished success than
The
Golden Echo
; in places it reads almost like notes for somebody’s memoirs rather than the finished product. Nevertheless the book has virtues, of which the chief is that the author tells tales and anecdotes about his clever friends and contemporaries the Bloomsburies which marvellously bring them to life. If, at times, the narrative seems jerky instead of running on ball bearings, it may be that it cost him a good deal to write about the war years which must, in some ways, have been a disagreeable time for him.
Unless he is buoyed up by particularly strong political or religious beliefs there is no doubt that, for a healthy man in the twenties, the position of conscientious objector in war time is a difficult one, even if he belongs to a group of clever and like-minded friends which forms a cushion between himself and the outside world. (Mr Garnett spent part of the 1914 war with Frankie Birrell working behind the lines in France among Quakers, and the rest with Duncan Grant as a labourer on a Sussex farm, where he stayed with Vanessa Bell.) That simple people may suspect him of cowardice is the very least of the complicated feelings which he must have about himself and about the attitude of others towards him. Keynes, for example, the only member of the circle to take part in the world of action, faithfully gave evidence for all the Bloomsburies of military age at their Tribunals, and was obviously a great help in getting them exempted from fighting. Yet there was a ‘painful scene’ at 46, Gordon Square when ‘the conversation turned on conscientious objection and Maynard declared that he did not believe anyone had a genuine conscientious objection. If he said this to exasperate Vanessa and Norton he certainly succeeded.’
In Mr Garnett’s case the result of these tensions seems to have been that he suffered from nerves and
angst
. Not until a few years after the war, when
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