Mabel Dodge Luhan: New Woman, New Worlds

by Lois Palken Rudnick

The definitive biography of a cultural icon.

Genres: Biography, Biography Memoir

400 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1984

Reviews

[John]

An academic biography of the salonniere and incubator of artists, especially "great men." Her story in short: she was a wealthy heiress who was widowed early, married again and moved to Florence, then returned to Greenwich Village in the years before WWI where she established a radical salon, picked up another husband, moved to Taos, married her last husband (a Taos pueblo Indian), and spent the rest of her life trying to influence a "great man" (most notably DH Lawrence) to write about the life-changing message of the pueblo Indians.

A lot of people visited her in Taos so reading a book it a bit like a who's who in artistic life in early to mid-20th century. In that regard, the book was very interesting although at times I forgot who certain artists were. Another possible flaw - the introduction was deadly boring but try to get through it - it is a key to the author's interpretation of Luhan.

Note: I just read that Rachel's Cusk's newest novel Second Place is based upon Luhan's own memoir of DH Lawrence in Taos: Lorenzo in Taos. I have to say that chapter of this biography dealing with Lawrence was equal parts fascinating and disturbing. Lawrence, Luhan, Frieda Lawrence, and Dorothy Brett were engaged in some world-class mind games.

[Barry Hammond]

Mabel Dodge was the common denominator between some of the most famous artists, writers and thinkers of the past 100 years. Just a few of the people she associated with were D.H. Lawrence, John Reed, Hutchins Hapgood, Bill Haywood, Maurice Sterne, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Dorothy Brett, Jean Toomer, Carl Van Vechten, Georgia O'Keefe, Andrew Dasburg, Thornton Wilder, Robinson Jeffers, Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Walter Lippmann, Witter (Hal) Bynner, Max Eastman, Emma Goldman, and Marsden Hartley. I've often come across her name while reading the biography of some other person over the years, which led to an increasing curiosity about her. Lois Palken Rudnick, the director of the American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, has written several books on her, including this definitive biography.

Many people have treated her a a rich patron, the holder of salons in Florence, Italy, and New York - a sort of dilettante of the arts but this biography reveals a much more interesting character. She was an intelligent and progressive thinker, was pivotal in putting on the Armory Show in New York where Modern Art first appeared in America, was the inspiration and sounding board for many artists, the person who introduced them to others likely to be sympathetic or help them in their careers, wrote the article that introduced Gertrude Stein to America, and was a prolific writer herself in journalism, short fiction, novels and several volumes of biography. She was also the main focal point the artists colony in Taos, New Mexico. She believed the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico had the sort of spiritually focused, unified, grounded life that was lacking in Industrial America and was an early Native rights activist, thinking the United States needed to move in that direction for its future survival.

Not without her human flaws, she emerges as a controversial but pivotal figure of 20th Century American arts, letters and philosophy. A very stimulating read. - BH.

[Kate Lawrence]

First I read Mabel's own autobiography, now this one written by Rudnick, who edited the first. Rudnick fills the book to the brim with details about Mabel's life and social circle; much of this information was not included by Mabel herself. Rudnick's work has lots more to dish about D.H. Lawrence, for example. Mabel lived for forty years after she finished her autobiography, and I wanted to know how she spent those last decades. I have a better feel for early day Taos and its literary luminaries.

[Sy DeMaya]

It was hard to read this book, so I took refreshing breaks. However I did finish it and am thinking about how I want to rate it. Mabel Dodge Luhan was a relatively self aware narcissist with a well developed link to sourcing what she needed in order to thrive. She was able to benefit her community in part because she saw it as an living, breathing extension of herself, entitled to accruing benefits. Her vision, sprung from widespread entitlement, compelled her to build as grandiose a community as possible from her compulsively distorted belief that only males could build and create. So she became a puppet master to a string of willful, petulant and gifted people. Her self-inflicted and neurotic gyrations towards these male creators became painfully predictable. Antonio Luhan, the Pueblo Indian who became her final husband, played a pivotal role in supporting her while staying out of her way. His was not an easy task. Overall, it was interesting to see her become more fully realized as the person she was as she moved through her life stages. Her biography is so non cathartic in that she was strung out on a wire of conflicting emotions, views and expectations that remained in place until her passing. The experience was exhausting. The conflict was non-relenting. The self awareness grew and grew and it’s only value ever was only towards the hungry narcissism. The painful lack of resolution depleted me. I feel exhausted.

[Lorraine Herbon]

Good heavens! I thought I’d never finish this book.

As biographies go, it wasn’t awful. But it was long and drawn out and had more psychological analysis than I’m comfortable with. The focus of the majority of the book was on how Mabel was portrayed in various literary works produced by those in her artistic circle. This got hella tedious after a bit.

But part of my ambivalence also stems from the fact that Mabel Dodge Luhan was not a likable character. Sooooo much navel-gazing! This woman, as portrayed in this biography, only thought of people, places, and things as they related to her. There was no actual connections, if the biographer is to be believed.

And, ugh, the people she gathered around her also come across as terrible. Each of the men she mentored ended up portraying her as some kind of man eater who lives to take away their masculine power. Did the men of the teens and twenties have any balls at all? They lived in a panic of losing their power to women.

So, yeah, this was a self-centered woman who surrounded herself with weak-ass men. Not my idea of a group of people worth reading about.

[Ginny Martinez]

Too scholarly for me. Skipped much. Enjoyed reading about her early life and the Taos connection with Tony Luhan (Lujan).

[Geary Brewer]

I enjoyed the articulate history of the 1920's in North America. The New York and Taos Salons of MD Luhan were interestting but not as influential as Miss Stein in Paris.

[Irene]

This is a scholarly look at MDL. Works closely with the autobiographies, often offering a tempering interpretation of Mabel.

[Joanne]

It's amazing what gets taken seriously when wealth is involved. More than anyone needs to know about Mabel and her hangers-on.

[Bob Stern]

interesting biography of the doyenne of Taos, worth reading