false 607658 5 Think of Greta Garbo: imagine aloofness, eyelashes, huskiness, naturalness, "the smell of freshly mown hay." Think of Cecil Beaton: imagine camp foppery, narcissism, extravagance, artifice, "a snotty peacock." The two met once in 1932, then not again for 14 years, at which point they became embroiled in a thrillingly uneven relationship marked by projection, mismatched desire, and masochism. So what was the "terrible homosexualist" society photographer doing with "the divine" actress? Amateur psychologists, sharpen your pencils. Diana Souhami wisely does not allow herself to extemporize too wildly, despite the understandable allure of such an alliance. Along with the Scandinavian shoulders and paddle feet, Garbo also possessed a Nordic cold melancholy, rendering her screen portrayals attractively distant and her own self frustratingly absent. The truth was that she did not seem to possess a character to match her undoubted grace and beauty. Beaton, on the other hand, was instinctively bright and bursting with desire to be adored. He matched her indolence with bustling industry. At times, particularly in the recounting of his early days, his obnoxiousness borders on the unbearable, and Souhami barely conceals her disgusted glee. But she is superb at reining in such characters, as she showed in <I>Gertrude and Alice</I>, and she thrives on the challenge of eliciting respect for the sheer indomitable life force of such individuals. Beaton pursued the artificial throughout his life, and nothing could be more superficial than the hollow idealized self he saw in Garbo. <p> Absence--physical, emotional, and sexual--pervades every aspect of this book. Souhami's sympathetic and shrewd attentions coax a tragic and complicatedly familiar story from two masters of illusion who are united, then estranged, by their lonely natures--uncomfortable in their own skins but ultimately unable to live within each other's. <I>--David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk</I> 594169 1995 Greta & Cecil total:5|5:1|4:2|3:1|2:1|1:0| 5 18 6 2 607658 184212160X 9781842121603 4 2 3.60 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176250982m/607658.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/607658.Greta_Cecil 2 0 false Mon Sep 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 23 14:09:32 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 29 17:53:03 -0700 2008 607658 184212160X 9781842121603 4 2 3.60 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176250982m/607658.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/607658.Greta_Cecil 4 0 false Sun Jan 20 09:04:49 -0800 2008 Wed Aug 06 09:32:22 -0700 2008 607658 184212160X 9781842121603 4 2 3.60 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176250982m/607658.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/607658.Greta_Cecil 5 0 false Sun Nov 01 01:06:48 -0700 2009 Sun Nov 01 01:06:48 -0700 2009 6047043 0753810611 9780753810613 1 0 3.60 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6047043.Greta_and_Cecil 4 0 false Sat Dec 27 16:09:13 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 27 16:09:13 -0800 2008 607665 0006550355 9780006550358 0 0 3.60 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/607665.Greta_and_Cecil_Garbo 0 0 false Sun Aug 17 01:07:39 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 17 01:07:39 -0700 2008 607658 184212160X 9781842121603 4 2 3.60 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176250982m/607658.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/607658.Greta_Cecil 3 0 false Tue Jun 03 12:12:51 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 03 12:12:51 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6047043