PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE

by Nigel Nicolson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 26, 1973

One cannot underestimate or overlook the tasteful, sometimes elegant, romantic and wayward elements which are variously and signally a part of this memoir of Nigel Nicolson's parents -- the gifted and prominent V. (Vita) Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. And even where one might attempt to avert one's eyes from Shakespeare's ""greatest scandal waits on greatest state,"" one cannot dismiss it out of hand particularly since Vita's imperious mother was involved in the most notorious trial of Edwardian society. But the primary story here -- one third of which was written in Vita's hand and left locked in a Gladstone bag, two thirds of which consists of her son's amplification thereof -- deals with her love for another woman, Violet. This was prefaced by a girlhood affair with the duller Rosamund and followed by a more discreet friendship with Virginia Woolf who modeled Orlando on Vita -- that ""most charming love letter in literature."" The liaison with Violet (which included a period when Vita appeared as ""Julian"" both in fact and in the novels she wrote) lasted some three years and is filled with a turbulent urgency on both sides, ending with a scene -- closer to French comedy than tragedy -- when both husbands came to reclaim their wives. None of this will or did diminish the fact that the Nicolsons achieved a marriage of great mutuality and serene permanence for 49 years in spite of ""her muddles"" and ""his fun"" -- they were both homosexual from the start. Indeed before she married him, Vita spoke of Harold as ""unalterable, perennial and best"" just as he proved to be. Nicolson's book is then much more than this episode -- in recording it Vita said ""I swore I would shirk nothing"" and her mother called it ""quite like a sensational novel"" -- as he retraces, revises and illumines the family history throughout. Vita also said that this story ""assumed an audience"" -- surely it will now be affirmed.

Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION