FOR WANT OF THE GOLDEN CITY

by Sacheverell Sitwell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 14, 1973

A traveler in search of antiquities, a somewhat precious aesthete, Sitwell has reached that fullness of years when a book becomes an accretion of experiences encrusted with memories, visual associations, literary allusions and more or less wayward fragments of thought. Ensconced in his garden amid the early Victorian shrubbery, Sitwell dwells on earlier landscapes and interiors (he's an amateur expert on Medieval and Renaissance architecture) -- ""the red walls and filigree interior courts of the Alhambra and the whitewashed alleys of Cordoba and Seville,"" the lushness of tropical flowers in Dakar or Mexico, the ""hummingbirds' iridescent gorget,"" the versimo of Caravaggio and the ""ever-excited passionate mysticism"" of El Greco which stirred him so powerfully in Spain in those long gone days when ""it was possible to go into any church and not know what paintings by El Greco one might find."" An old man who finds comfort in the civilization and civility of the past, Sitwell shows an aristocrat's cranky impatience with contemporary art and the noise and vulgarity of modern life and his asides on our crumbling values are both irritating and silly -- ""Probably the crassest political fallacy of our time is equality of opportunity. That is the sure path to destruction from inanition."" Nor can he see, Picasso apart, any grand masters to cherish while today's popular music (""the rat-like squealing of girls and women in the audience is revolting and unedifying"") is common, therefore contemptible. At times Sitwell even suspects that this decline of taste portends worse things -- ""the barbarian invasions must be coming soon."" Better by far to retreat to the glories of Greece or the grandeur of Rome or sail to Byzantium to be gathered into the artifice of eternity. Not much really, though he goes on at great length, but some dreamy, somnolent reflections -- a fantasia of what is past or passing or to come.

Pub Date: Sept. 14, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: John Day

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION