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THE PILGRIMAGE OF DOROTHY RICHARDSON

Name: THE PILGRIMAGE OF DOROTHY RICHARDSON
Author: Joanne Winning
ISBN: 0-299-17030-6

by Joanne Winning ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2001

An invaluable contribution to the process of reclaiming a hidden lesbian literature.

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Dorothy Richardson’s “Pilgrimage” novels, long revered as major achievements in modernist literature, are analyzed here as narratives of lesbian desire.

Winning (Literature/Middlesex Univ.) opens with a consideration of Clarissa and Sally’s kiss in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, seeing this scene as the pivotal moment in the modernist canon when female homoerotic desire surfaces. She then traces similar lesbian longing in British writer Dorothy Richardson’s “Pilgrimage” series, 13 “novel-chapters” exploring the consciousness of protagonist Miriam Henderson, launched in 1915 with Pointed Roofs and completed with the publication of March Moonlight in 1967, ten years after Richardson’s death. Paying meticulous attention to the cultural context in which the writer lived (Richardson was a friend of H.G. Wells and other avant-garde thinkers), Winning first explores the difficulties inherent in an autobiographical reading of “Pilgrimage.” She then investigates the writer’s depiction of Miriam’s consciousness as a site for competing discourses of masculinity, femininity, and lesbianism. Winning also considers how the scandal surrounding the 1928 publication of Radclyffe Hall’s openly lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness, influenced Richardson’s decisions with her own fiction, notably the ways in which silences are exploited to reveal rather than conceal homoerotic desire. The final chapter addresses the repercussions of Richardson’s decision to edit overt lesbianism out of March Moonlight. Winning sees her work as a study of lesbian modernism, but she never allows this definition to constrict her study of Richardson’s contradictory multiplicities.

An invaluable contribution to the process of reclaiming a hidden lesbian literature.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-299-17030-6

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Univ. of Wisconsin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.