For the last several decades, the Bloomsbury industry has operated
at a frenetic pace, as biographies, histories, slim appreciations,
ane large catalogues have streamed forth from the academic mill. So
little has been left unsaid that most writers are now reduced to a
desperate search for something new to say, as is the case with
Stansky's (Orwell: The Transformation, 1980, etc.) disjointed
chronicle of a supposedly watershed year in the life of Bloomsbury
and British society. His inspiration is Virginia Woolfs passing
remark in her essay, "Mr. Bennett and Mr. Brown," that since 1910,
"All human relations have shifted." Stansky's search for supporting
evidence isn't much helped by Bloomsbury. Most of the figures in
that extended circle had yet to shake their undergraduate habits of
dilettantism. Woolf and Lytton Strachey were working sporadically
on their first books. John Maynard Keynes, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan
Grant had all accomplished little of substance. E.M. Forester,
however, with the publication of Howard's End, did achieve a degree
of critical acclaim. Outside of Bloomsbury, 1910 saw two
Parliamentary elections which led to extended suffrage (though not
yet for women) and the terminal decline of the Liberal Party, but
there was little else that shook the status quo. Stansky's defense
of 1910's protean importance, in the end, comes down to the
year-end, Postimpressionist show organized by Bloomsbury's Roger
Fry and Desmond McCarthy. Featuring artists such as van Gogh,
Cezanne, Matisse, and Gauguin, it was enormously controversial,
reviled as "savage," "crude," and "pornographic." In spite of the
venomous attacks, it did serve to introduce the British to
Modernism, but did that really change society? Despite a game
effort, Stansky ultimately fails to prove his thesis. (Kirkus
Reviews)
"On or about December 1910" human character changed, Virginia Woolf
remarked, and well she might have. The company she kept, the
Bloomsbury circle, took shape before the coming of World War I, and
would have a lasting impact on English society and culture after
the war. This book captures the dazzling world of Bloomsbury at the
end of an era, and on the eve of modernism. Peter Stansky depicts
the vanguard of a rising generation seizing its moment. He shows us
Woolf in that fateful year, in the midst of an emotional breakdown,
reaching a turning point with her first novel, The Voyage Out, and
E. M. Forster, already a success, offering Howards End and
acknowledging his passion for another man. Here are Roger Fry,
prominent art critic and connoisseur, remaking tradition with the
epochal exhibition "Manet and the Post-Impressionists"; Vanessa
Bell and Duncan Grant beginning their most interesting phase as
artists; Lytton Strachey signing the contract for his first book;
and John Maynard Keynes entering a significant new stage in his
illustrious career. Amid the glittering opulence and dismal
poverty, the swirl of Suffragists, anarchists, agitators, and
organizers, Stansky--drawing upon his historical and literary
skills--brings the intimate world of the Bloomsbury group to life.
Their lives, relationships, writings, and ideas entwine, casting
one member after another in sharp relief. Even their Dreadnought
Hoax, a trick played on the sacred institution of the navy, reveals
their boldness and esprit. The picture Stansky presents, with all
its drama and detail, encompasses the conflicts and sureties of a
changing world of politics, aesthetics, and character.
General
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