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All Passion Spent

by Vita Sackville-West, Victoria Glendinning (Foreword)

3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 · rating details · 641 ratings · 90 reviews

In 1860, as ayoung girl of 17, Lady Slane nurtures a secret, burning ambition—to become an artist.She becomes, instead,the wife of a great statesman and the mother of6 children. Seventyyears later, released by widowhood, and to the dismay of her pompous children, she abandons the family home for a tiny house in Hampstead. Here she recollects the dreams of youth, and revels...more

Paperback, 297 pages

Published May 1st 1983 by Virago (first published 1931)

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Apr 30, 2010 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century-early-to-mid, brit-lit, fiction, examined-lives, vita-virginia-violet-and-kindred, grande-dames, mawwiageiswhatbringsustogethertoday, its-the-quiet-ones

Geoffrey Scott, one of the many people who fell in love with Vita Sackville-West over the course of her life, said that there was an “indefinable something” about her writing that raised above what it otherwise might have been.

Although he turned out to be a little crazy (that’s a whole other story), I can’t help but think that he was right about that. I certainly felt that way about All Passion Spent.

Many people are not able to resist the powerful temptation to compare this work to Mrs. Dallowa...more

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Aug 08, 2012 S©aP rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, letteratura-inglese, 1900

Le prime 45 sono pagine di ingresso. Vicenda narrata e indispensabile costruzione di atmosfera, avrei capito dopo. Appena più lunghe di quanto la mia attesa fosse disposta a sostenere, in questo periodo. Stavo per lasciare, e riprendere in futuro, archiviando tuttavia nella mente una traduzione gradevole, lineare, in un italiano molto elegante e sobrio, vario e scorrevole. Ma l'incontro con i libri, si sa, non è casuale (o, sovente, non dà l'impressione di esserlo). In un pomeriggio di pioggia n...more Le prime 45 sono pagine di ingresso. Vicenda narrata e indispensabile costruzione di atmosfera, avrei capito dopo. Appena più lunghe di quanto la mia attesa fosse disposta a sostenere, in questo periodo. Stavo per lasciare, e riprendere in futuro, archiviando tuttavia nella mente una traduzione gradevole, lineare, in un italiano molto elegante e sobrio, vario e scorrevole. Ma l'incontro con i libri, si sa, non è casuale (o, sovente, non dà l'impressione di esserlo). In un pomeriggio di pioggia nordica, ho deciso di leggere una pagina in più e questo è diventato il migliore romanzo che ho letto, e leggerò, nel 2011. Senza ombra di dubbio. La vicenda, il contesto, anche letterario, e l'argomento, sono datati. Hanno una loro collocazione precisa e vi sono fiumi di saggi esplicativi, cui attingere per commentarla. Ma i concetti che vi si esprimono, e la delicatezza con cui sono declinati, portano a mio avviso il marchio di una modernità assoluta e incontestabile, oggi più che mai. Di un futuribile, direi, e cristallino coraggio sociale. O quello di una scomoda universalità, che forse relega questo scritto in una retrovia per poche menti serene. Non so. Queste, però, sono riflessioni a freddo. Voglio che qui emerga, invece, la sorpresa continua e crescente che ho provato nel rapimento dei concetti. Il piacere; puro. Lettura; rilettura; riflessioni libere; annotazioni. Un tripudio. E la sottile malinconia di fine libro; pure nella certezza che una sola parola in più avrebbe rovinato, annacquandolo, questo piccolo capolavoro. Ma anche l'equilibrio perfetto del monologo interiore; la cristallina sensibilità d'autrice (che, circa trentenne, descrive consapevolezze di un'età che non le appartiene); la lucidità spietata con cui i caratteri deprecabili, le attitudini peggiori di alcuni personaggi, non vengono stigmatizzati, bensì lasciati nudi, a denunciare sé stessi; lo stile, impareggiabile (oggi sconosciuto), di un simile atteggiamento, non solo letterario. Infine, e su tutto, la profondità del ragionamento sulla vita. E la meravigliosa condivisione di concetti tanto belli e naturali da definirsi, con imperdonabile errore, o con dolosa superficialità, scontati. Una grandissima lettura.

PS - Vi è, certamente, tutto un discorso sociale da intavolare sul romanzo e sull'autrice; sul circolo di Bloosmsbury e l'amicizia con V.Woolf; sulla condizione sociale delle donne nel primo trentennio del '900; sul ritmo di una narrazione che potrebbe non essere recepito, oggi, e su tanti altri aspetti meno emotivi, più tecnici. Nulla che possa comunque migliorare il gradimento, o aumentare l'eventuale indifferenza, verso questo prodotto purissimo, e autonomo, di letteratura.(less)

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Apr 10, 2013 Suzanne Stroh rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction, comic-novel

Fair Spouse says I am not allowed to while away any more time writing reviews on Goodreads until I tell you about this wise, gentle, funny feminist classic written in 1931 by Vita Sackville-West. Yes, I said "Sackville-West" and "feminist" in the same sentence. The audiobook performance by Wendy Hiller is my favorite of all time. I listened to it again about a year ago, on a trip across the country, and I resented having to get out of my car. The book reads like music. Hiller reads like she's si...more Fair Spouse says I am not allowed to while away any more time writing reviews on Goodreads until I tell you about this wise, gentle, funny feminist classic written in 1931 by Vita Sackville-West. Yes, I said "Sackville-West" and "feminist" in the same sentence. The audiobook performance by Wendy Hiller is my favorite of all time. I listened to it again about a year ago, on a trip across the country, and I resented having to get out of my car. The book reads like music. Hiller reads like she's singing an aria.

Born in the 1860s, Deborah Slane spent most of her life in the company of the upper classes. She also spent it as the wife of a Viceroy, doing her duty. Now it's time for some real fun--only don't go telling her six uptight children, sexagenarians and septagenarians themselves, all bent on coddling or controlling her, each in the style dictated by his or her temperament. Lady Slane rethinks her life and decides to take drastic action (which is very funny) to live out her days the way she wants and with whom she wishes.

Funny scenes; sharp, witty writing when called for; eccentric and lovable characters; marvelous atmosphere including gorgeous scenes of contemplation and memory painted in light and fragrance; real ideas; and a few surprises. This is some of Vita Sackville-West's warmest, most humane writing (and I include her gardening letters in my assessment). It expresses her outlook and views on most things (especially on marriage) with economy, clarity and relaxed style. Lady Slane is the author's dream partner, as a character, in philosophic enquiry.

Any novel about old age, money-grubbing adult children and a beautiful, artistic woman over eighty risks cloying sentimentality on the one end, horrifying bad taste on the other. This one avoids both ends of the spectrum. In many ways it's a perfect book, often dismissed as a minor novel compared with, say, To The Lightouse by Virginia Woolf. This is better than To the Lighthouse, and it competes well with Mrs. Dalloway, the book that infuses this one. Is that a sacrilege? Well I think it's true. Sackville-West's feminism in All Passion Spent is clearer than anything comparable by Woolf. I feel this more strongly every time I re-read this re-readable book. If you like dreamy novels to mull over, chapter by chapter, on your walk or in the bath, this book will win your heart.(less)

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Aug 12, 2012 Cheryl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, psychology, favorites

This is a novel that looks at ambivalence in our decisions about marriage, children, and work showing the price paid for ignoring the conflicting opposites.

Eighty-eight year old Lady Slane is recently widowed. All six of her children have expectations of how she will live out her life based on the roles of wife and mother she has dutifully performed in the past.

Everyone, including the reader, is surprised when she makes her own decisions about where she will live and how she will fill her remai...more This is a novel that looks at ambivalence in our decisions about marriage, children, and work showing the price paid for ignoring the conflicting opposites.

Eighty-eight year old Lady Slane is recently widowed. All six of her children have expectations of how she will live out her life based on the roles of wife and mother she has dutifully performed in the past.

Everyone, including the reader, is surprised when she makes her own decisions about where she will live and how she will fill her remaining days. Clarity comes with life's pivotal events, and with death approaching, reflection is the way to achieve it.

As a young woman she had married Henry Holland who had provided status, travel, and treasures. The truth was that Henry had "cheated her of her chosen life." For a life of her own, "he had substituted his life with its interests. It never occurred to him that she might prefer simply to be herself."

Lady Slane had loved her husband. "Her love for him had been a straight black line drawn right through her life. It had hurt her, it had damaged her, it had diminished her, but she had been unable to curve away from it...all parts of her that were not Henry Holland's had pulled in opposition," but as the "weaker team in the tug-of-war" had been pulled over. It is clear that marriage results in loss of freedom for both people.

Her feelings for her children were conflicted upon reflection. All assigned her dependency traits, incompetency in decision making, and flightiness to her character. She realizes they do not know who she really is. Dismissive of their values and standards, she chooses to live apart from them and isolates herself from the "activity" of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She is in charge, making her own decisions based on who she has always been, though silenced in past.

Lady Slane is reminded by a new friend that she had been "defrauded of the one thing that mattered...nothing matters to an artist except the fulfilment of his gift. Your children, your husband, your splendour, were nothing but obstacles that kept you from yourself." She is faced with the ambivalence that was always there about her choices in life, but was ignored, as she listened only to the positive feelings and put the wishes of others before her own.

This is a cautionary tale for all women. The effort first is to know yourself and meet your expectations before compromising, which is sure to come, with another. There is so much wisdom between the covers of this book written by Vita Sackville-West in 1931. Highest Recommendation! FAVORITE!

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May 19, 2012 Arwen56 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: romanzi

Nei riguardi dei condannati a morte, la tradizione prescrive un austero cerimoniale, atto a mettere in evidenza come ogni passione e ogni collera siano ormai spente, e come l’atto di giustizia non rappresenti che un triste dovere verso la società, tale da potere accompagnarsi a pietà verso la vittima dalla parte dello stesso giustiziere.
Primo Levi, “Se questo è un uomo”

Curioso, non vi pare, come questa considerazione di Primo Levi, nata ovviamente in altri ambiti e riferita ad altri contesti, si...more Nei riguardi dei condannati a morte, la tradizione prescrive un austero cerimoniale, atto a mettere in evidenza come ogni passione e ogni collera siano ormai spente, e come l’atto di giustizia non rappresenti che un triste dovere verso la società, tale da potere accompagnarsi a pietà verso la vittima dalla parte dello stesso giustiziere.
Primo Levi, “Se questo è un uomo”

Curioso, non vi pare, come questa considerazione di Primo Levi, nata ovviamente in altri ambiti e riferita ad altri contesti, si attagli anche perfettamente alla prima parte del romanzo di Vita Sackville-West. A differenza di molte voci che ho sentito e di vari commenti che ho letto su aNobii, personalmente ho apprezzato di questo romanzo anche quelle che vengono definite come “pagine introduttive”. E che non sono altro, appunto, che la rappresentazione del cerimoniale che dovrebbe convenientemente condurre Lady Slane a “spegnersi” in modo appropriato, ovvero senza piantare eccessive grane, dato che ha ottantotto anni ed è anche lei indubbiamente “una condannata a morte”, benché di tipo diverso da quello cui si riferiva Primo Levi. Infatti, i figli immaginano che, dopo la recente dipartita del padre, dovranno “palleggiarsela” a periodi alterni, ospitandola a turno presso le proprie abitazioni. Non lo dicono e, forse, neppure lo pensano in modo cosciente, ma di certo sperano che, comunque, la faccenda sia di breve durata. Perché il modo in cui si comporta mamma nella contingenza sarà pure ammirevole, come si premurano di sbandierare ai quattro venti, però di certo, alla lunga, diventerebbe una seccatura.

Peccato che lei non sia affatto d’accordo su questa linea di condotta e preferisca scrollarseli tutti di dosso. Non è una rivincita, intendiamoci. Al contrario. E’ solo che se tutti danno per scontato che per lei, in qualità di “condannata a morte”, ogni passione sia “spenta”, come vuole il copione che essi desiderano recitare e rispettare, logicamente ne consegue che “spenti” saranno anche tutti i doveri annessi e connessi. E’ dunque per lei giunto il tempo di recuperare i suoi personali ritmi, di seguire il suo solo passo, di pensare liberamente e trarre le debite conclusioni.

Ed è in questa specie di imprevista frattura o piega inaspettata dei fatti, che dir si voglia, che Lady Slane torna ad essere Deborah, ovvero lei stessa. E Deborah non avrebbe mai sposato Henry Slane, benché abbia poi finito per amarlo, in un certo senso. Esattamente come, con le dovute differenze, la manzoniana Monaca di Monza non avrebbe mai preso il velo, potendo scegliere. Anche in questo caso, curiosamente, le pressioni dirette e indirette che le due donne, tanto distanti temporalmente, ricevono affinché assecondino un’inclinazione che in alcun modo appartiene loro si rassomigliano molto.

Così accade che, nella più modesta dimora di Hampstead, Deborah si riappropria del suo sé. Senza rancori e con lucidità, ella ripercorre le tappe della sua vita, soppesandole e valutandole. Non è un bilancio del tutto amaro, ma un po’ malinconico sì. Sa di aver perso molto, benché riconosca di aver anche ricevuto parecchio. Diciamo che questa donna giunge ad avere il privilegio raro di conseguire, finalmente, la pace. L’equilibrio semplice che ora la sorregge le permetterà di aprirsi di nuovo al futuro e di guardare avanti, sia pur per il breve periodo che le rimane. E anche di essere, come dirà Gosheron, “bella in vita e bella in morte”.

Quel che resta del giorno, titolo e materia del bellissimo romanzo di Ishiguro Kazuo, Lady Slane riuscirà a viverlo a modo suo. E non è poco, a ben vedere. Anzi, è moltissimo.

Romanzo raffinato ed elegante in cui, soprattutto quelli della mia età e oltre, troveranno moltissimi spunti su cui riflettere, anche ai giorni nostri.

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Jun 25, 2008 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Elizabeth

Recommended to Jenny by: Virago/Book People and my mother

Shelves: books-i-have-read-as-an-adult

This was a great read - I bought it in a pack of 10 from Book People. All good reads I would think.
This is the story of an 88 year old woman who, when her husband dies, decides she can finally live her own life as she wants. Much to the horror of her children, who are 60 or 70 years old !
The characters are very strong. She has most affection for her son Kay.
I didnt completely agree with the review that was written inside the book, unfortunately at the start so I read it first. I would say it is...more

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Jul 30, 2007 Wealhtheow rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical

The Lady Slane’s husband dies at the ripe age of 92, leaving her a widow with a small pension, six children (all over the age of 60), and innumerable grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Imagine her family’s surprise when this venerable and venerated old woman takes up a small house in London and asks her relatives not to visit her. It’s a quiet, beautifully told vignette of a woman’s last year of life. She had dreamt of being a painter, and retains an artist’s eye, but subsumed herself in her...more

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Mar 14, 2009 Linda rated it 3 of 5 stars

I watched the DVD with the divine Wendy Hiller and decided I needed to read the book again. What would Vita's life have been like if she could have inherited Knole? No books, no poems, no Sissinghurst? A home of one's own is so central to her work and it all comes from losing the one that meant the most to her. The subtext is always the real story with her.

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Jun 17, 2013 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a book that sneaks up on you. At first you're not very interested - former diplomat and Prime Minister dies, his children congregate at the house to decide "what to do with Mother." The interactions among the children bring out the worst in them. After they make a decision and present to their mother they find out, much to their chagrin and secret delight, that she has already decided to take a house on her own. Mother is one of those who has been in her husband's shadow nearly her entir...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Angela Young rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this with the Cornflower Book Group: http://cornflower.typepad.com/domesti...

And this is what I thought then: I love novels that show me something that's true about life, and in All Passion Spent Lady Slane's relinquishing of the life she longs to live, as a painter, rings very true. There are still, even now, quite a few female artists who have never married or had children and I wonder if that is at least partly for fear that the spark of their passion for their art will be extinguished...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Rosalba rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Così in un batter d’occhio, si era trasformata dalla ragazza che era in un’altra, completamente diversa."

Lady Slane ha speso tutta la sua vita a seguire il marito, Henry Holland viceré delle Indie e uomo politico influente nella Londra dei primi del novecento. Ma ora, alla veneranda età di ottantotto anni, rimasta vedova, può finalmente liberarsi dalle convenzioni, dagli obblighi richiesti dall’etichetta, da ogni compromesso, anche nei confronti dei numerosi figli che l’hanno sempre considerata...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Alice rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

• Mlle Alice, pouvez-vous nous raconter votre rencontre avec Toute Passion Abolie?

"J'ai eu le coup de foudre lors des fêtes de Noël pour le magnifique coffret Christian Lacroix et le papa Noyel m'a entendu... "Toute Passion Abolie" est le seul livre de la collection que je ne connaissais pas du tout."

• Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire...

"Durant ce court récit, nous suivons la vie de Lady Slane, une honorable vieille dame de plus de 80 ans, de la mort de son mari jusqu'à sa propre fin...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Blyth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oh boy, this fine little book riled me up good with questions aplenty to fuel a lifetime of inquiry, or at least a dissertation, all under the gentle cloak of a story about how an elderly widow chooses to ride out the last years of her life. Sackville-West cleverly submerges monumental issues of vocation, marriage, and womanhood under a placid surface of British gentility, the themes eating their way into the reader's psyche that much more effectively for their subtle presentation. They tap you...more Oh boy, this fine little book riled me up good with questions aplenty to fuel a lifetime of inquiry, or at least a dissertation, all under the gentle cloak of a story about how an elderly widow chooses to ride out the last years of her life. Sackville-West cleverly submerges monumental issues of vocation, marriage, and womanhood under a placid surface of British gentility, the themes eating their way into the reader's psyche that much more effectively for their subtle presentation. They tap you on the shoulder to bid that you might consider the fact that all of society is constructed on a platform of greed and blind ambition. Good fella, mightn't you have a look around you to notice the elbow-cocked jostling about among the world's grotesquerie of inhabitants, in the name of civilization. Her binary characters are constructed irksomely free of nuance. Perhaps due to her own stew of resentments over her marital and societal obligations, the burning questions get laid out in flat, blatant shapes to make her point clear: masculine competition = bad, feminine contemplation = good.

At the risk of sounding ungrateful to my female forebears, Sackville-West's protagonist, Lady Slane, comes across at times like a spoiled brat who has no idea what real suffering even smells like (not meaning to imply that I have ever gotten so much as a whiff, either). She has the grace to spend nearly three pages giving a perfunctory nod to the her French servant's subsumed life before deciding not to "blame herself overmuch for the last indulgence of her melancholy." It took some effort to figure out what FitzGeorge and her other admirers saw in Lady Slane, though it's possible I'm underestimating the rarity of a gentle soul in the viceregal crowd.

She wraps things up with a sanguine passing of the baton to her great-granddaughter who has the chance to do things differently, to act with defiance against society's expectations of her. Following the success of this book, Sackville-West apparently fell into what the author of the book's introduction terms an "irrational depression" - the best sort for a privileged smartypants like herself. Is a life of artistic contemplation justifiable and true or is there no obligation to society to be of more practical use, especially considering the resources at one's disposal? Does the answer depend on the presence of artistic talent? I don't know.(less)

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Dec 31, 2010 Sarah Magdalene rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think this book should be on every school curriculum.
Its a joyous celebration of old age. A hopeful message to all young artists. And a warning.
A kind of touch of fingers between the generations, sending a message. An important message.
Which is if you are an artist that is what you must be, and suffer terribly. That the "normal" world will always resist your choice and judge you a failure. But that "achievement" doesn't matter at all, only spirit and consciousness. So don't worry. Be happy to...more

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Oct 29, 2012 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

After the death of her husband, the elderly Lady Slane surprises her family by renting a house in Hampstead and withdrawing from society. But as she reviews her past, life comes knocking. Meditative, short and quietly funny.

"She remembered how, crossing the Persian desert with Henry, their cart had been escorted by flocks of butterflies, white and yellow, which danced on either side and overhead and all around them, now flying ahead in a concerted movement, now returning to accompany them, amuse...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Beth_Adele rated it 5 of 5 stars

My adoration of Vita is no secret.

And my love for her dims not. Her wit and inventiveness, both strong in All Passions Spent, tend to be slightly overshadowed by her tenderness and a certain kind of brutality that she slowly unwinds simultaneously in a tale that takes a dig at the social conventions that threatened to suffocate and consume women of the era and examining how well we truly know those closest to us and at times, indeed, even ourselves.

When the enigmatic Lord Henry Sloan (former P...more My adoration of Vita is no secret.

And my love for her dims not. Her wit and inventiveness, both strong in All Passions Spent, tend to be slightly overshadowed by her tenderness and a certain kind of brutality that she slowly unwinds simultaneously in a tale that takes a dig at the social conventions that threatened to suffocate and consume women of the era and examining how well we truly know those closest to us and at times, indeed, even ourselves.

When the enigmatic Lord Henry Sloan (former Prime Minister and Viceroy of India) takes his final breath, the couples six children descend on their home in an effort to protect and manage their mother in her final days. Lady Sloan, however, has other plans. What happens next makes for a bemusing tale. One can't help but feel elated at Lady Sloan's ability to irritate and confound her children. For once, mistress of her own destiny, Lady Sloan opts to live her days alone with a small cast of eccentric and peculiar companions that bring a richness to her life that she had been craving for years.

It's refreshing to read about a protagonist living out the final scenes of her life. So much of life is focused on youth. But as Mr. FitzGeorge notes on p122 "the face of youth is an unwritten page", but an old face, an old face is full of the richness of life and there is a beauty in the stories it can tell that the youthful have not yet attained.

Vita's disdain for convention is well known. So it's no surprise that All Passion Spent is a cautionary tale of the dangers of allowing others to assume they know you, to allow them to take the drivers wheel and navigate the route of your life. The wastefulness of being the supporting role in your own tale instead of the heroine. But all is not lost. It is never too late to pull over and demand to take back the wheel.

The conflict is in the subjugation, the hope is in the casting off of the shackles, the tragedy is not doing so sooner.
Lady Sloan dies reasonably content. She has lived a life, not always entirely her own, but one that at it's end is entirely hers.

There is a lot of food for thought here. The wonder of how well do we really know those closest to us? How well do we really know ourselves? And what if we came to the closing chapters of our own lives to discover all our passions were spent on others with nothing left for ourselves? (less)

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Jun 30, 2011 Petra X rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Little old lady tries, at last, to make her own life after a lifetime of looking after other people's interests and especially her children. Of course, this only rings true if you are from the class of the little old lady or the author - exactly how much 'looking-after' does the Vicereine of India do? She is once described as arranging flowers though - onerous duties indeed. So here we have a deluded, very wealthy old bat who buys a house in Hampstead and has only one servant in order that she m...more

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Mar 15, 2010 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Prior to reading this novel, all I really knew about Vita Sackville-West was that she inspired Woolf's Orlando. For that reason, I was expecting something rather dashing and romantic. --So you can imagine my initial disappointment when this turned out to be an uneventful book about old people!

This is a quiet, if assertively feminist, work. It isn't quite my own brand of feminism. I kept thinking, "Yes, I see your point, but I can't quite relate to it." It seems to me, there are worse things than...more Prior to reading this novel, all I really knew about Vita Sackville-West was that she inspired Woolf's Orlando. For that reason, I was expecting something rather dashing and romantic. --So you can imagine my initial disappointment when this turned out to be an uneventful book about old people!

This is a quiet, if assertively feminist, work. It isn't quite my own brand of feminism. I kept thinking, "Yes, I see your point, but I can't quite relate to it." It seems to me, there are worse things than a wealthy husband!

I don't normally do a synopsis, but here's the essence of the story: Her lead character Deborah is passively led into a marriage she doesn't want. She secretly resents her husband, because she believes his career stands in the way of her own passion for art, -- a passion she has not pursued in any way. Though described as a devoted wife and mother, Deborah doesn't appear to mourn her husband's passing (at the opening of the story) or to feel any affection for her children, her home, or any other tangible aspect of her life. I can't reveal any more than that, but yeah, what passion spent? This book should be called, All Attachment Averted (says me).

But Vita kept ahead of me! She outsmarted me! She answered my criticisms as quickly as I could form them: Yes, this character is a detached and idle dreamer. Yes, she's very, very privileged. Again and again, she led me right into her trap.

All Passion Spent reflects Woolf's argument for the "androgynous mind". Deborah is too feminine. Her husband, too masculine. This theme echoes throughout the lives of all the book's characters, regardless of actual gender. The very concept of gender is a difficult one to define. I can't say whether Vita achieved this, but I give her credit for even trying.

Beyond that, it's a book about life, death, aging, beauty, and self expression. This book shimmers with startling insights. But it doesn't, to misquote Fitzgerald, turn the light on within my own soul. Or does it?:
"...the children themselves were entirely ignorant, an ignorance which added considerably to Lady Slane's half-mischievous, half-sentimental pleasure, for pleasure to her was entirely a private matter, a secret joke, intense, redolent, but as easily bruised as the petals of a gardenia."(less)

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Oct 01, 2012 Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: europe, fiction

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I'd heard of Vita Sackville-West but didn't know much about her before my book group chose this for October's selection. Sackville-West was married to Sir Harold Nicholson and spent most of her life at their estate at Sissinghurst Castle. She and Nicholson had an open marriage, and both of them carried on extensive same-sex relationships. Sackville-West's most famous lover was Virginia Woolf. Some describe this novel as the fictional version of A Room of O...more http://mariesbookgarden.blogspot.com/...

I'd heard of Vita Sackville-West but didn't know much about her before my book group chose this for October's selection. Sackville-West was married to Sir Harold Nicholson and spent most of her life at their estate at Sissinghurst Castle. She and Nicholson had an open marriage, and both of them carried on extensive same-sex relationships. Sackville-West's most famous lover was Virginia Woolf. Some describe this novel as the fictional version of A Room of One's Own.

The story begins with the death of Lady Slane's husband, who had been prime minister and Viceroy of India during his prime. Suddenly, Lady Slane is presented with freedom for the first time in her life...at the ripe age of 88. Her scheming children devise a plan by which she would be passed around from family to family, but she has other ideas. She retires to a modest cottage in Hampstead and directs them that she is to live on her own, and she doesn't want her grandchildren or grandchildren to visit her (no one under 60)...and doesn't much want her children around either.

Lady Slane reflects back on her life and her regrets, chief among them the fact that she was never able to pursue her artistic ambitions. She is quite happy with her little circle--her French maid, Genoux; her landlord, Mr. Bucktrout; and Mr. FitzGeorge, a reclusive, wealthy collector who fell in love with her in India, in another time, and saw immediately what she had given up.

She revels in the precious time she has left, finding pleasure in sitting outside in her back garden, going for brisk winter walks, and quietly reflecting back on her life, mistakes, and relationships. It's a beautiful, feminist story about what women in those days (and still, now) give up to pursue marriage and family. Lady Slane never really enjoyed motherhood, being a wife, or being a grandmother. She just wanted time to reflect and paint, and she never got it. She comes to peace with her realization that she did not really love her husband and she had given up everything to be with him.

And she realizes that she doesn't, really, want to be completely alone. She just wants to carefully choose her companions and how she will spend the remainder of her time.

I enjoyed this book very much and plan to view the BBC miniseries about Vita Sackville-West's relationship with her husband, "Portrait of a Marriage," based on their son Nigel's book of the same name.

To hear Vita's own voice, listen to this recording of her talking about Virginia Woolf and Orlando.(less)

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Feb 16, 2012 Vale rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english-literature

Scriveva Nick Hornby: " A volte un libro non può proprio fare a meno di essere alta letteratura; è impotente contro le proprie complicazioni, perché le idee che contiene mettono alle corde la semplicità espressiva".
Prendiamo questo libro ad esempio, 167 pagine dedicate ad una donna di ottantotto anni e ai suoi ricordi. Si può pensare ad una storia ricca di eventi: la protagonista era stata vice-regina delle Indie, invece gran parte del libro è dedicato ai piccoli piaceri della vita quotidiana ai...more Scriveva Nick Hornby: " A volte un libro non può proprio fare a meno di essere alta letteratura; è impotente contro le proprie complicazioni, perché le idee che contiene mettono alle corde la semplicità espressiva".
Prendiamo questo libro ad esempio, 167 pagine dedicate ad una donna di ottantotto anni e ai suoi ricordi. Si può pensare ad una storia ricca di eventi: la protagonista era stata vice-regina delle Indie, invece gran parte del libro è dedicato ai piccoli piaceri della vita quotidiana ai quali la donna decide di dedicarsi alla morte dell'importante marito. Non è più ricca ed è attorniata da un manipolo di figli aridi e avari. Cosa vuole Lady Slane? Vivere senza costrizioni sociali, con poco denaro attorniata dalla bellezza di incontri puri e sinceri nella natura incontaminata tanto decantata da Constable nei suoi quadri.
Eppure tutti la cercheranno, tutti sentiranno il bisogno di essere amati da questa donna silenziosa, che scava silenzi di ammirazione e stupore negli animi dei protagonisti.
Nel suo animo, invece, resta la tristezza di un passato in cui si è donata solo agli altri, senza avere l'occasione di dedicarsi al suo grande amore: la pittura.
Il matrimonio aveva chiuso tutte le ambizioni, le aveva relegate nei sogni romantici, nelle fantasticherie freudiane alle quali abbandonarsi quando non è richiesta l'attenzione e si può stare in silenzio con se stessi. Ora, ad ottantotto anni ogni passione è spenta, ma con serenità, senza rimpianti dolorosi, perché il suo amore per l'arte, nonostante tutto, ha vivificato ogni singolo giorno della sua vita anche se non è diventata una pittrice.
... quello che mi piace in certe persone, non è che si soffermano morbosamente sul senso della morte, ma che mantengono incessantemente il senso di quello che, secondo loro, è essenziale nella vita. La morte, tutto ben sommato, è un episodio. Anche la vita è un semplice avvenimento. Le cose che intendo io sono al di là dell'una e dell'altra.
A Vita Sackville-West va riconosciuta una grande capacità narrativa, uno stile educato, pulito, aggraziato in cui prevalgono le descrizioni come prospettiva dell'animo, come corollario di un teorema ben tratteggiato. Ma che descrizioni! Che piacere lasciarsi cullare dalle parole e viaggiare tra riflessi di luce e colori cangianti. Il finale lascia un po' perplessi, è un po' lasciato lì, senza cure, ma alla fine tutto il libro ( sia lo stile, sia la prosa in sé) è in perfetta sintonia con la voce della protagonista e con la sua storia.
Un bel libro che alla fine lascia un senso di serenità e fa rimpiangere un tempo in cui solo chi era capace pubblicava libri.
(less)

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Dec 13, 2008 Russ rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20thcentury, fiction

I wasn't more than a few pages into this novel than I had to radically change my expectations. Knowing that Sackville-West was very close to Virginia Woolf, I expected a novel that was as daring stylistically as it was thematically. That was not the case. This novel is written in a very traditional style, with a narrative voice hopping seamlessly from one character to another. There are a few flashbacks, but for the most part the novel also tells its story in a linear fashion. There is little, i...more

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Jun 14, 2009 Lynn rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this for the first time over a rather lonely Christmas holiday, & found such encouragement in it that I repeat the ritual every other year or so. I am tempted just now to lend my copy to a great friend & great lady whose husband - who managed all of their affairs forever - is recently diagnosed with Altzheimer's Disease. She is left to deal with their affairs alone, without any preparation to take it all on, but she is a magnificent woman who is coming out the other end, whole.

The...more

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Sep 14, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a beautifully written story about a woman who lived most of her life living for others and suppressing all that was real in her personality. After the death of her husband when she was 88 years old she did manage to get away on her own. She bought a house where she could spent her waning time in peace and contemplation. I don't know why the author couldn't have made her 78 years old instead of leaving her with the dregs of her life when she really was feeble. I found that while she appea...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Bob rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this over the summer and in glancing back to try to recall why I liked it so much, I find myself rereading the whole thing. Vita Sackville-West's writing is elegant and effortless and this is apparently regarded as her best book. The story, that of an 88-year old woman widowed and delightedly doing things exactly the way she wants to for the first time in her life despite the incessant meddling of her six children (now in their 60s), is inspiring and elegaic. Of course the author's aristo...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Pippa222 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: feminism, art, genius

A very moving book - gently, sensitively written. It reminded me of my grandmother who prayed in her sleep, in old age, that God would help her give up the things she really wanted to do (painting - she'd won a national art scholarship as a girl and not been able to take it, writing - she made up wonderful stories, music - she played the violin by ear, but she did not have one). She spent her life as a housewife and mother, dearly loved, but not fulfilled. She must have prayed for courage to ren...more

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Nov 12, 2011 Olduvai rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: library, 2011

It begins with a death.

The children gather – although children hardly seems the right word to describe this batch of elder-folk themselves, who have children and grandchildren of their own.

However, they are indeed the man’s children so children they shall be.

The children gather. They discuss in hushed tones not so much their late father but their widowed mother. Making plans, planning her future. Who she should live with. What she should do. Forgetting, or perhaps never really knowing, that she...more

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Dec 23, 2009 Reena Ribalow Ben-Ephraim rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a truly beautiful and wise book, about what it means for
a woman to give up her own dreams and her deepest
self and "sin against the light". Lady Slane has had what
appears to be a perfect and gilded life: but having reached the
end of it, wants to reclaim the true inner life, and the art,
which she has lost. There is a moment of redemption, even as
Lady Slane's own story ends. The writing is precise, profound,knowing and poetic . Anyone who has struggled with self-abdication: the sacrif...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Christina rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was given to me to read by a coworker. I'm not sure I would have read it on my own accord, but am glad I did. It's refreshing to read a book in a different style of writing from today. The book is a story - plain and simple - and the style gives away when it was written. You can tell the author wrote it in her own time and, unlike many recent books, it's not pulled along by the plot. A good deal of care is taken to set the scene and provide character description, and from that strong base y...more

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Aug 10, 2009 Green Road rated it 3 of 5 stars

Lady Slane enters widowhood in her eighties and decides to live her last years on her own terms, in her own little house, and in the company of people she enjoys being with. The last does not include her children who are self-absorbed and frankly, a bit mean.
This is a book of its time, and is very simplistic in plot and characterisations. I sympathise with Lady Slane to a certain extent, but on the whole I feel she could have done more with her life. She had a glittering lifestyle in her youth,...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Young curmudgeons; the old-at-heart

Recommended to Sarah by: Powells' employee

Shelves: i-quit-that-job-and-read-this-book

A magnificent book about the glories of old age. I'd never read Sackville-West before and enjoyed her writing, which feels contemporary to Woolf's but more comforting. It's the difference between being best friends with a genius you always feel you are disappointing, and being best friends with someone who just happens to be a lot smarter and wittier than you. I love the quiet, sly wisdom gained by Lady Slane, savored in old age. The best is when she bequeaths an unexpected, sudden fortune to th...more

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About Vita Sackville-West

The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, best known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author, poet and gardener. She was known for her exuberant aristocratic life, her passionate affair with the novelist Virginia Woolf, and Sissinghurst Castle Garden, which she and her husband, Sir Harold Nicolson, created at their estate.

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