Elders and Betters

by Quentin Bell

In this sparkling voulme Quentin Bell provides a remarkable collection of pen portraits - of his parents Vanessa and Clive; of his aunt and uncle, Virginia and Leonard Woolf; of Roger Fry, E.M.Forster, Ottoline Morrell, Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey and many more.

In writing about them he also tells the story of his own work: his employment as agricultural labourer, his career as artist - in two and three dimensions - and teacher of art, critic, writer, and as reluctant spokesman of Bloomsbury.

Genres: Biography

234 pages, Hardcover

First published September 14, 1995

About the author

Quentin Claudian Stephen Bell was an English art historian and author.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Another book of Bloomsbury recollections, this time by Quentin Bell, son of Vanessa and Clive Bell. It takes the form of a series of chapters on major figures in and around Bloomsbury. It apparently began as an attempt at an autobiography, but turned into this. There are chapters about the usual suspects (but not Virginia Woolf, because Bell has written a biography of her), but also some less expected, like Anthony Blunt, Mary Butts, Claude Rogers, Lawrence Gowring, Ethel Smyth and Robert Medley.
Bell is observant and tells some good tales; thankfully he isn’t reverential and this is a warts and all portrayal; particularly about his parents. As he says “I loved my parents, and I had more than the usual number to love”. He is candid about his father’s political leanings and about the conduct of both his parents, especially in relation to his sister Angelica. Bell revisits the sexual abuse of Virginia and Vanessa by their step brothers and its long term effects. He is able to be candid, but is forgiving of human frailty. He is less forgiving of David Garnett and his marriage to Angelica; “Old men have no right to prey upon the young”.
This is an interesting set of recollections and Bell is aware he has a good tale to tell;
“I was born at 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. The doors of No. 45, No. 47, and indeed of all the other houses in the square were black, or if not black, dark grey or a funereal blue. The door of No. 46 was a startling bright vermilion. The colour had been chosen by my mother, Vanessa; she also decorated the interior of the house, making use of equally startling colours. My father, Clive Bell, was in those days a left-wing radical. From an early age I knew that we were odd.”

There are extra chapters at the end; one on the way Maynard Keynes’s political views changed over time and the other on Virginia Woolf’s works A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas. He examines attitudes to pacifism in Bloomsbury, especially in relation to the rise of fascism. He does not always manage to contain his own radicalism, asserting that his aunt Virginia would have been horrified at the legacy of Thatcherism and at a pointless war with Argentina. The chapter on Anthony Blunt contains some interesting reflections on espionage, treachery and treason. Bell is never dull and there is always something to contend with.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had the great good fortune to meet Quentin Bell at Charleston farmhouse when he was signing copies of this book. Cressida Bell was there too, having designed the cover for him.
He was a wonderful old man and it was an incredible experience to meet him for a moment. To be close to someone who had met all those amazing people Virginia and Vanessa, Clive and Duncan, Lytton, Carrington, Maynard, Roger, etc, etc. He knew them all, and that is what this book is all about - all those names that went before.
He was a wonderful man, so old and frail at the time, but he had a twinkle in his eye, one of good natured humour that I will always remember. It was an honour to shake his hand that day.

[Norma Laming · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book in a charity shop because it was cheap-£2.99 – and looked beautifully unread. The cover (not exactly the one shown here) is an attractive blue and it has the same painting of the author by, I think, his son. Those two qualities called to me but I wasn’t really much interested in the Bloomsbury Group, thinking that pretty much everything that could be written about them has been and that what there was didn’t interest me much. Nevertheless I bought the book and how glad I am that I did. From the beginning, I was enchanted by the author’s style of writing which is amusing and rather droll but unaffectedly so: if he worked hard to achieve this style, the effort does not show at all. The pen portraits of the many different people in and around the Bloomsbury Group are eye-opening. I suppose, what comes through very clearly is the damage that the lifestyle of some members caused to the children in the group, particularly the authors half sister, Angelica. I am fascinated by art and particularly by 20th-century art and the descriptions here of artists and artistic styles are illuminating.

There are many insights that I simply haven’t read elsewhere: it had not occurred to me, for example, how hard it was at the beginning of the 20th century for people in the UK to see Impressionist paintings. Even if they went to Paris the individual paintings had to be tracked down and couldn’t be seen together. The author contrasts, for example, Virginia Woolf, who simply had to write letters and to read in order to be up-to-date with literary trends, with her sister, Vanessa Bell, who could read about styles of contemporary paintings but could only rarely see them. The author’s brother, Julian, went out and painted what he hoped was a painting in the style of an impressionist painter, apart from reading about them he just couldn’t know.

I enjoyed this book so much and I value the opinions of the author so highly that I have obtained other books by him that I’m looking forward to reading.

One warning, if it is a warning, I’m not sure: the author had no problem at all with homosexuality, which he grew up being aware of and accepted and of course many of the members of the Bloomsbury Group were, famously, gay and bisexual. It’s simply wasn’t an issue for him, or so it seems to me, but he frequently refers to Sodom, catamites and pederasty which I found remarkable and puzzling. I wonder if the lifestyle affected him more than he let on and perhaps he was more judgemental then he realised? I’m really not sure: it could simply be that he did not think these terms were offensive and grew up using them as a common place, but be aware that the terms are used.

[Felicity · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of cameos of people central to, or on the periphery, of Bloomsbury. Basically anecdotes strung together. Of some interest but I wearied of it by the end, skipping some of the later chapters. Useful no doubt to the Bloomsbury historian, but not of much general interest.

[Steve]

Highly opinionated in an unusual and courageous evaluative sense of the word. Achieves, at its best, realistic character portraits . In its assessment of women's sexual freedom (especially the section on Vanessa Bell where he wa writing about his mother, its feminism comes close to being an essay prefiguring personal politics. Infectious, in that I found myself character analysing everyone I knew. Really interesting, well written, thoughtful, with the portraits of Quentin's parents Clive and Vanessa being the highlight of the book. That and the portrait of Anthony Blunt. It's strengths are the readability and the self-assurance which enables appraisals of people's personal lives in a political manner.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Capsule views of famous family and friends by one of their own who gives his own perspective from inside on people so well written about from outside.