Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Private Notes on Leon Edel's "Bloomsbury: A House of Lions" (Dynamic)

These are "private" notes from the book, one I thoroughly enjoyed. The notes are far from complete, and very poorly done, but I don't have the energy to clean the notes up nor add to them at the present. Maybe later. 

Tonight, while reading Leon Edel's preface to his 1979 Bloomsbury: A House of Lions I began to tear up a bit. I doubt I have read more about any subject in literature than about the Bloomsbury group. I never could have been part of their group. But I tear up when I read what remarkable human beings the were. Unlike the "talking heads" and the anonymous bloggers of the 21st century, they did much more than just complain about their government, or yell at the audience; they actually  tried to do something about it.

I doubt I accept ninety percent of their political beliefs, but deep down I have to admit, they were probably more correct than I am in my thinking. I certainly accept their personal relationships though I never could have lived them.

I first cam across Leon Edel when I read his biography of Henry James. At the time I did not know who Leon Edel was, and I barely knew who Henry James was, but I read the biography as a favor to a friend. Even though she does not know I have read the biography it means a lot to me that I did. Maybe someday our paths will cross again and we can laugh about Henry James.

After completing that one-volume biography of Henry James I was to learn that Leon Edel actually wrote a five-volume biography of James. The volume I read was his abridged edition.

Leon Edel wrote the 270-page "essay" on Bloomsbury after he finished the Henry James biography. He thought of the idea some fifteen years earlier but he was unaware that he still had a dozen years to go before he would finish the five-volume biography. Based on the preface, it appears Leon Edel wrote Bloomsbury while in Honolul from 1973 to 1978,

Now, to read Leon Edel's Bloomsbury.

Wow, it is excellent.

The last paragraph, p. 43, and first paragraph, p. 44, are outstanding -- just as one example. Wow, wow, wow.

"... a miner's son named Lawrence." -- p. 46. This has to be a reference to DH Lawrence, something I would not have known had I not just completed the Maddox biography of DH Lawrence.

Clive Bell, 1881 - 1964, 20, WWII
Vaness Bell, 1879 - 1961, 22, WWII
Roger Fry, 1866 - 1934, 35, WWI / Depression; the oldest
Duncan Grant, 1885 - 1978, 16, WWII / Vietnam, the youngest and outlived them all; died age 93
Maynard Keynes, 1883 - 1946, 18, WWKK
Desmond MacCarthy, 1877 - 1952, 24 WWII
Lytton Strahey, 1880 - 1932, 21, WWI / Depression
Leonard Woolf, 1880 - 1969, 21, WWII / Vietnam
Virginia Woolf, 1882 - 1941, 19, WWI / Depression / pre-WWII, 3rd youngest

Lytton (b. March 1, 1880) -- eight months later, Leonard -- and then four months later, Clive.

So, Lytton, old enough to start first grade the autumn before Leonard and Clive. Leonard and Clive should have started first grade the same autumn, one year after Lytton.

Clive, the hunter, well-off, happy-go-lucky, smug, but wondering what life was all about
Leonard, the nervous, cerebral, rich-to-rags socialist whose father died when he was eleven years old
Lytton, a juvenile who sought masculinity, motherly homosexual

At 19, Lytton enters Trinity College (though older, same year as Leonard and Clive). All of these folks were outsiders (Leonary, Lytton, and Clive), and entered Trinity the same year. The three entered Trinity in 1899, because Leon Edel mentioned they formed their Midnight Society in February, 1900.

Saxon Sydney-Turner lived on Clive's stair. One day Leonard was standing next to Saxon, who subsequently introduced him (Leonard) to Clive.

Saxon had also struck up a friendship with Lytton.

Wow. Thoby (Virginia's brother) was there also. Thoby's family knew of the Strachey family, and Thoby found Lytton's friend Leonard interesting and Clive companiable.

Saxon had also struck up a friendship with Lytton.

In 1902, when Leonard and Lytton lingered into their fourth year at Trinity, Maynard Keynes arrived, but at King's College.

Early 1903, Lytton and Leonard go to knock on Maynard's door and invite him to tea. Maynard had been elected to the Apostles and Lytton and Leonard, very active in the organization, had been sent ot "interview" Maynard since very few first-year students were ever elected to the Apostles.

The Apostles: G. E. Moore was their Christ; he gave them their religion. -- p. 53.

Desmond McCarthy, 1901, was visiting Trinity College as he was often wont to do most weekends. He had graduated three years earlier but loved visiting Trinity and his professor, G. E. Moore. McCarthy was 24; three or four years older than Clive, Leonard and Lytton and six years older than Maynard Keynes.

On this particular day, Clive and Desmond happened to get into the same first-class train care to ride to Cambridge. What serendipity. Desmond was also an Apostle. Wow.

Lytton Strachey lingered in Cambridge for more than two years after his friends moved out into the world, p. 110.  Clive, to Paris, and then settled in Paris. Leonard, to Ceylon. Thoby, studying law and living with Vanessa and Virginia at Gordon Square.


Bloomsbury, first phase, Thoby, Thursday nights, about 1904 - 1905.

Thoby dies, 1906.

Vanessa and Clive marry, 1907.

Virginia accompanies Vanessa and Clive to Paris, April, 1907. Chance meeting with Duncan Grant, painting on the Left Bank, p. 140. It turns out Duncan was a cousin of Lytton, p. 140.

Quote by DH Lawrence, p. 141, the second time I have run across a quote by DH Lawrence today (December 26, 2010); the earlier was while reading a review of the just-released movie "True Grit" from the Coen brothers. In fact, DH Lawrence puts Duncan Grant into his Lady Chatterley's Lover as Duncan Forbes! It is amazing how these coincidences keep popping up. I have just finished Mary Maddox's biography of DH Lawrence, and although she pulls back the drapes on many of the DH Lawrence characters, I don't recall any such on Duncan Forbes/Duncan Grant.

"...bourgeois feelings that sex is immoral." -- p. 141

The way these folks handled poverty is very, very interesting. Regarding Duncan: "During his penniless bohemian days, he knew when to turn up in Bloomsbury houses to get a hot meal. He seemed thena a greaceful figure of comedy. He wore hand-me-down clothes from various friends; his jackets were paint-stained, ... he was always hitching up his oversize trousers. Yet he carried poverty lightly; he took the world as it came, and with a great sense of fun. There was something loose and relaxed about him." -- p. 141

Lady Strachey's youngest brother was Duncan's father. (Interesting the connection with aristocrats these bohemians had.) Both Duncan's father, and General Strachey, had gone to London, p. 142. He lived with his aunt, Lady Strachey, while attending St Paul's (1899; 14 years old).

Simon Bussy, the painter: "A painter painted every day, even when he didn't want to, even if what emerged was a mess and had to be thrown away; art was a regularity, not a waiting for inspiration; artists learnd by knowing what had been done in the past; they had to copy old masters ... a painter had to ave, above all, regular hours at his task, very much like the workaday world." -- p. 143

Duncan met the future Vorticist and litterateur Wyndham Lewis, later a vehement critic of Bloomsbury, in 1907. -- p. 144 "... the perpetual belligerence of Lewis." -- interesting; that's exactly how I felt about Wyndham when I read the biography of him. Wyndham was belligerent, thankless, ... a misogynist with no redeeming qualities.

Duncan's studio: 22 Fitzroy Square. Remember, Virginia and Adrian had just moved into 29 Fitzroy Square when Vanessa and Clive married, and took over 46 Gordon Square.  Both were near Euston Square underground, on the south side of Euston Road, and about a half mile from each other.

A lover's triangle: Lytton -- Duncan; Duncan -- Maynard; Lytton -- Maynard. -- p. 145. From this time on, and for many years, Duncan and Maynard shared homes and traveled together. -- p. 146.  Their friendship endured beyond Duncan's love for Vanessa and Maynard marrying a Russian ballerina.

Although at this time Maynard was ensconced at Cambridge, in time he became settled at Bloomsbury, which was in a real sense his home (p. 147); he soon became a close friend of Adrian's and that's how he "entered" Bloomsbury.


Bloomsbury, phase 1: 46 Gordon Square, p. 123.
Bloomsbury, phase 2: Fitzroy Square, p. 148.

Fitzrovia: Fitzroy Square and Fitzroy Street.

Duncan: 22 Fitzroy Square.
Roger Fry, Omega Workshops: 33 Fitzroy Square.
Walter Sickert and others: 8 and 19 Fitzroy Street.
Augustus John, same street (Fitzroy Street), in Whistler's old studio.

Bloomsbury Thursday evenings were held alternately at each house (Virginia/Adrian and Vanessa/Clive)

Vanessa's Friday Club continued.

But "Bloomsbury" was still not known by this name.

Bloomsbury -- the third phase, p. 171.  Adrian and Virginia move to 38 Brunswick Square. They wanted to establish a house where "all" could live. This is where Leonard came back to and lived on the top floor, and started his conversations with Virginia.

Vanessa and Clive retained rooms at 46 Gordon Square; this would be Maynard Keynes home for the rest of his life. Wow.

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