Women, fiction, life

[oursin]

Have finally acquired copy of Ann Norton’s much praised critical study of Rebecca West, Paradoxical Feminism. So far I am still in chapter 1 and getting rather irritated.

I am not saying that she shouldn’t be doing biographical readings/interpretations of the fiction, because there are valid things to be got out of this (particularly perhaps with

Comments

[movingfinger]

The class and money differences between Mitchison and West's backgrounds could account for much of the difference. But also Mitchison's writing was not so incisive at any point as West's. M did not engage with the world through her writing, as W did; M's writing is much more an accidental sideline. For W, writing was where her energy of mind was directed. IMVHO.

[oursin]

I wouldn't say that M's writing was incidental - anyone who wrote her first novel while pushing her child out in its pram had to be fairly dedicated. And so much of it, even given her long long life. And in my opinion she did engage with the world in her fiction and non-fiction in quite significant ways, though perhaps because much of it is so tied to specific historical moments, e.g. rise of Stalinism after early hopes of Soviet utopia, that kind of thing, it may not wear quite as well.

In the Norton book she says of West what could easily be said of Mitchison, that she was hard to get a critical handle on because she jumped around so much genre-wise, had such a long life encompassing so much social and political upheaval, etc. I agree that M never hits W's level of incisiveness or sheer style but she has some good moments.