The bright bolt of Robert Graves's thralldom to The White Goddess in the figure of Laura Riding—a long, rich, butchering madness; middle volume in Richard Graves's life of his uncle Robert, begun with Robert Graves: The Assault Heroic, 1895-1926 (1987). Richard Graves opens with Robert's return from the trenches in France, where he'd been shot through the lung and left for dead. Now suffering bouts of shell shock and deep insecurity, Robert feels his marriage to Nancy Nicholson splintering, with financial hardship magnified by four children. Enter American poet Laura Riding into the Graves household, as collaborator with admired fellow-poet Graves on a book about modern poetry. At first Nancy and Laura dress alike, almost as sisters, and get along well as the family moves to Cairo. Soon, however, a menage á trois is born that shocks their friends and all of Graves's family. But the trio hangs tight, moves into a houseboat on the Thames. Riding proves herself a towering genius (and supreme egoist), corrects all of Robert's poems and novels. Nancy is not Robert's intellectual equal. Only Laura gives him a focus that raises him above shell shock and the horror of the trenches. In a fit of jealousy, she jumps out a fourth-story window onto concrete—and Robert jumps right after her!—but from the third floor. Both survive but now Robert is Laura's, body and soul; he departs his family miseries and despairs, sets forth with Laura to Majorca. However, now that Robert is her servant, Laura can no longer allow him her body since—no longer her equal—he's unworthy of her. Laura, no beauty, looks like a small Hittite princess, with large nose, receding chin, and she always wears a tiara lettered LAURA. While guiding him through his acclaimed autobiography Goodbye to All That and his historical best-sellers, including I, Claudius (whose success she despised), her influence takes over Graves completely—and she becomes The White Goddess. They stay together for 16 years until Laura discards the broken Robert in favor of an intellectually dominating replacement she can have sex with. A poet spellbound by truth, inspiration, and horror. Gripping.
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1990
ISBN: 0333432258
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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