IMPORTANT TO ME: Personalia

by Pamela Hansford Johnson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1975

Random retrospective experiences -- observations which reveal not only the firm moral sense and intelligence and level judgment we have always respected in Pamela Hansford Johnson's assorted works -- but also much that we might not have suspected: the recurrent guilt which has been her ""besetting misfortune""; a modesty only too often nipped by deeper insecurity and anxiety; and to some extent a withdrawal from the world as it is now, perhaps more than can just be written off by the ""uglification"" of modern times. Miss Johnson is most discreet, and deliberately so, when writing of that youthful relationship with Dylan, an earlier marriage, and then the years with C.P. Snow (""He has been all I could wish. More might be said but it isn't going to be""). There are as many opinions as ""reflections upon things that have been important to me"" -- on women's problems and the desire for freedom (are we just liberating the men?), on the younger generation, on the climate of crime and pornography and violence; but something too about writing -- her own and others' -- travels whether to Auschwitz or Stratford, her parents and particularly her sense of default at her mother's death, and people -- the ""six-legged race"" of the Sitwells, Cyril Connolly, Compton-Burnett, others. . . . Admittedly Important To Me will primarily attract those to whom Pamela Hansford Johnson is important, but there are shaded truths and recognitions for almost everyone.

Pub Date: March 1, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1975

Categories: NONFICTION