The Virago Book of Wanderlust and Dreams

by Lisa St. Aubin de Terán

Book by

Genres: Fiction

291 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Lisa St. Aubin de Terán was born Lisa Rynveld in South London. She attended the James Allen's Girls' School. She married a Venezuelan landowner, Jaime Terán in 1971, at the age of 17, and became a farmer of sugar cane, avocados, pears, and sheep from 1972-1978.

Her second husband was the Scottish poet and novelist George MacBeth. After the marriage failed, she married painter Robbie Duff Scott and moved to Umbria, Italy.

In 1982, St. Aubin de Terán published her first novel, Keepers of the House. This novel was the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award. Her second novel, The Slow Train to Milan, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. She received the Eric Gregory for Poetry in 1983. Her work includes novels, memoirs, poetry, and short-story collections.

St. Aubin de Terán has three children, including a daughter by her first husband, Iseult Teran, who is also a novelist.

She currently lives in Amsterdam with her partner Mees Van Deth, where she runs a film company and has set up the Terán Foundation in Mozambique.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, there are three complete short stories, in this collection and twenty-four extracts from novels, autobiographies, memoirs, notebooks, and essays, in other words a great range of writing, all by women and, as the editor Lisa St. Aubin de Terán notes in her introduction:

As disparate as the entries may seem at first sight, coming from five different continents and spanning nearly four hundred years, they are all about or by women who have put their lives on the line together with their prose.

And what a stunning collection: out of the twenty-seven entries I am pleased to say I am familiar with eleven of them. I've read these writers and loved them over my whole life; and there are another two - Romain Brooks, and Liane de Pougy - that I'm 'aware of'. I have to laugh over Liane de Pougy because for sure the reason I recognise this name is because it turns up in St. Aubin de Terán's books.

I'm a little surprised to find that the majority - the remaining fourteen I have never heard of, not even vaguely - as in oh yes, my friend likes her, will get to some day - or here on Goodreads - nope.

So, the thirteen writers I either know well or are known to me - all received five stars. They are all truly great writers - and I don't need to go into details with them. You know who they are. The big names: Marilynne Robinson, Zora Neale-Hurston, Janet Frame, Angela Carter, Shena Mackay, Elizabeth Smart, Buchi Emecheta, Karen Blixen, Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth von Arnim, Romaine Brooks and Liane de Pougy - they are all brilliant, and in many different ways. The only one in my 'knowns' that falls short is St. Aubin de Terán's. Her story just didn't hold its own against those towering blocks of woman power.

The anthology was first published in 1998 and again in 1999 by Virago press.

Now to the fourteen - brand new to me. These are the ones I am going to spend some time and space on. Out of those there were three that I would confidently recommend to other readers and they are ones that I will search out, and read in full. They are, in no particular order:

Jessie Kesson, - born in Scotland, moved to London. This extract is taken from her novel 'Glitter of Mica' and focuses on the narrator Sue Tatt, who is a women living in the highlands, in a small town called Caldwell. It is all about village gossip and who can afford to hold their head high. I noticed one reviewer said the dialect was hard to follow, I didn't find this at all. A five star read for me.

Raffaella Barker - daughter of the British Poet George Barker - the one who was involved with Elizabeth Smart - and had fifteen children with three different 'wives'. Anyway back to Rafaella, a talented novelist in her own right.
The extract is from her novel, 'The Hook' -it's about a relationship - Christy and Mick - we get a tantalising glimpse of this relationship - Mick is in court, on serious charges with a very high-security presence. Christy the girlfriend, has to look pretty and sad - the jury will be more sympathetic. I don't know if the rest of the book holds up to the intrigue level in this section but Barker is definitely worth checking out. She has eleven books to her credit - none of which I have ever heard off.

And finally in this section - Anonymous - yes, we don't know who wrote this. We do know she was educated, living in Berlin during the second world war. For me this was the real surprise in the whole anthology. She started her diary at the point at which the Liberating Army - the Russians, entered Berlin. There was carnage - rape, murder - she kept a diary to make sure that nothing would be forgotten. But the point is - her writing, is very, very powerful. It is good - beyond good. From - A Woman in Berlin

The two writers - whose names I knew of, but had not actually read - were also five star reads:
Romaine Brooks born in 1874 - moved in the avant-garde society of André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Colette, Radclyffe Hall. Brooks, has a powerful voice - it is definitely one that I want to know more of - I was struck by a similarity with Charlotte Brontë. She is determined to use her talents and confidant because of her dedication to the arts. Brooks was a well-known portrait painter and a writer. She died in 1970. The extract is from Between Me and Life: A Biography of Romaine Brooks

Liane de Pougy The last great French courtesan - is the description by St. Aubin de Téran, this extract is from It Was One Lovely Party Very funny and reminded me a great deal of Sēi Shonagan's The Pillow Book - the Japanese courtesan of the Heian period.

So, now to move into the less glittery sections but still worthwhile and interesting.

Harriet E. Wilson - a very sad story about a family who leave their six-year old daughter with a cruel but wealthy woman - the new owner of a plantation estate. The extract is from 'Our Nig'. St Aubin de Terán includes Wilson because: "It was the first novel written by a black woman and yet it passed relatively unnoticed in its day and has continued to be somewhat neglected ever since, despite both its content and its historical significance."

Emily Perkins I enjoyed this - it's about a young woman working in an office who has a crush on her boss. The story is set in the UK 70s/80s - the fantasy life that we see is so utterly accurate of the thoughts in young women's heads that I could not leave this one out of my got to mentions. The extract is from - Not Her Real Name, published in 1996 - her first book.

Other mentionables - Marsha Hunt, Flora Tristan, Bernice Reubens - they were all 4 star reads - for me of course.

And the final section - ones that I just did not connect with or found heavy-weather reading them. I'm still going to mention them, however, because we have all moved into 'oh yes, women's writing - it's been brought to the forefront, with amazing publishing houses; Virago, or Persephone Books, and with prizes such as The Women's Prize for fiction' - BUT and it is a big but, more than half the writers in this collection I had never heard of. So the deal is - there is still work to be done in promoting women's writing.

So let's have them - the ones that didn't particularly inspire me.

Rosetta Loy - big name in Italy - her book The Dust Roads of Monferrato - best seller in Italy 1987. I just could not get my head around this one.

Doña Catalina de Erauso - this just read like a very boring list of - I did this and then this and then that - but given that it was written in c.1626 - I'm not surprised. She dressed as a man, and toured South America alone, and liked to seduce young women. Hectic life style - clearly not a lot of time for composing beautiful notes.

Louise Merriweather set in Harlem from 'Daddy was a Number Runner' - just didn't stand out for me. Perfectly good writing, just doesn't compare for example besides Zora Neale-Hurston.

Elaine Dundy Again accomplished writing - just didn't do it for me. Dundy is American and the story is about a wealthy young American woman in Paris. The extract is from the part where she realises that she ought to perhaps make better use of her time. Taken from - 'The Dud Avocado'(1958)

Helen Garner - Australian - the problem here is that the story seems disjointed and subsequently hard to follow - perhaps this is one that didn't sit too well as an extract. The story focuses on generation conflict in particular between father and daughter.

Paris Franz Again I felt the story didn't cohere; and I found the characterisation not very well done, for example I was confused between Ginger and Sophie one is the mother, the other the grandmother of our narrator. I was more than half-way through before I had it sorted.

So I hope this doesn't come across as a negative review - I've focussed on all the unknowns and yes I have to acknowledge that the unknowns contain all of my 2 and 3 star ratings.

Can I suggest that if you are already familiar with those Big Names at the top, forget them for awhile. Everyone knows them, everyone reads them now. Have a look at my fourteen unknowns.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

The very idea of a Virago anthology is fantastic, and I have loved those which I have read to date. They open new worlds; they put one on the trail of authors they perhaps haven't heard of before, and individuals who pique the interest. Unlike The Virago Book of Food, for instance, I wasn't enamoured with every entry here, but I do love the thematic idea of wanderlust, travelling, and dreaming of places real and imagined. Equally lovely is the unifying thread which St. Aubin de Teran writes of in her introduction: 'courage in all its forms'.

There are many excerpts from novels here, and a couple from works of non-fiction or autobiography. My personal interest was heightened in the following authors, whom I will certainly endeavour to seek out in the months to come: Bernice Rubens, Buchi Emecheta, Emily Perkins, Louise Meriwether, Paris Franz, and Liane de Pougy. The collection, on the whole, is varied and engaging, and it was wonderful to see the inclusion of books as wonderful as A Woman in Berlin and Elizabeth von Arnim's Elizabeth and Her German Garden. The use of separate sections worked nicely, although the titles were often a little obscure, and didn't seem to relate to anything included in one instance.

Wanderlust & Dreams isn't the best Virago anthology which I have come across to date, but it is certainly entertaining and thoughtful, and is undoubtedly a good way to reconnect wit old favourites and discover something new.

[Milena · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of short stories by female authors. More Eurocentric than I would have liked, but it did include some global perspectives. Overall, a good read.

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant collection of extracts taken from the work of rich mix of female authors .

[Fred Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be fascinating. It has excerpts from the writings of various women over the span of 300 years. Some I will want to explore further, like Dona Catalina de Erauso, who's Historia de la Monja Alferez details her life living as a man after leaving an Abbey before becoming a nun. A Woman in Berlin, Anonymous about living in Berlin at the end of WWII or The Patriotic of War of Liberation as it is known to many. Romaine Brooks, Between Me and Life, a biography. Harriet Wilson, Our Nig, about a mixed race marriage about the time of the American Civil War. Flora Tristan, London Journal 1840, by one of the founders of the Socialist movement and a big influence on Karl Marx. Virago Press, a division of Little, Brown and Company, put out a number of books of compilations like this late in the last century. I hope to explore more of them.

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't understand the value of this collection. There are some wonderful writers in here, but the excerpts seem to be randomly chosen, and rarely coalesce around a common theme. returnreturnAt the end of the day, I don't think "wanderlust and dreams" is returna sufficiently clear rubric to build an anthology around. And even if it were, chosing a handful of lengthy prose extracts from 20th century female novelists doesn't adequately serve it, to my mind. returnreturnFrustrating and disappointing.

[Tuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

excerpts of women traveling and escaping, if need be. excerpts from Angela carter, Karen blixen, Dorothy Parker type folks.