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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The rich really are different,
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This review is from: The Edwardians (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)
In a sly author's note at the beginning of "The Edwardians", Vita Sackville-West says "No character in this book is wholly fictitous." Oh, really? It's intriguing to wonder who among the British aristocracy was being sent up in this volume. "The Edwardians" is a book of manners and morals during the last years of a decadent, decorative, and very inbred upper class. The characters live a life of total self-indulgence, waste and spiritual emptiness. The story focuses on the dukedom of Chevron and its 19 year old heir Sebastian, attracted to and repelled by the society he was born into and takes for granted; his selfish, predatory mother, Lucy, a legendary hostess who is as shallow and superficial as she is popular; and his sensitive, introspective sister Viola, considered an ugly duckling by her mother at sixteen. Into their lives comes a polar explorer named Leonard Anquetil, temporarily lionized by society, who sees "society" for the fraud it is and tries to open the young people's eyes. But as drawn to Anquetil as Sebastian finds himself, he is also drawn in the opposite direction, heading into his first adult relationship with one of his mother's married friends, Lady Roehampton, of a certain age but still drop-dead gorgeous. Self-knowledge and discovery can wait; Sebastian is launched into society through a clandestine affair with Lady Roehampton, which, as Anquetil predicts, will be the first of many such empty, meaningless liaisons. Is this all there is to a life in which one's every wish is granted? Sebastian realizes how soul-deadening such a life can become eventually and after a few years he wants out; but just as he appears resigned to his gilt-edged fate, Anquetil resurfaces. Who knows where Sebastian's life will go from there? As Anquetil tells him, it's up to Sebastian to decide his own destiny. And decide -- for better or worse -- he does.Sackville-West has a talent for characterization; we see all the youthful conflict in Sebastian, the heady excitement of Lady Roehampton as she flings herself into what may well be her last affair before age catches up with her; and the shallowness of Sebastian's mother, the duchess, who must surround herself with and endless procession of people and parties to cover the vast chasm of internal emptiness that is her own life. But Sackville-West is herself torn in two directions. On the one hand, she appears to share Anquetil's disgust and the false facade of high society; on the other, she shares that society's contempt of middle-class values and virtues. She can't have it both ways, and it's this very conflict that gives "The Edwardians" so much of its tension and interest. The daughter of a British earl herself, Sackville-West knows the aristocracy inside-out, and she writes with an authority that makes her book all the more compelling to read.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great read,
By Jon (Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Edwardians (Hardcover)
If Sackville-West wasn't writing about her own childhood and home, and if her life wasn't so interesting, the book's flaws (and it has plenty) might have stood out more. But as it is, the absolute command of the subject overcomes the not especially perspicacious going-over of old ground.
I predict that this is one that will go into my 're-read regularly' pile.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting book,
By
This review is from: Edwardians (Paperback)
This is a beautiful and haunting book tracing the lives of the heir to a Dukedom and his sister during the Edwardian age.Sackville-West deals gently yet firmly with the social aspects of the age, the double standards, the society, and the arrising reforms. Sebastian becomes very real, very human and his struggles are believable. Though not one of her finest works, The Edwardians is an excellent book and well worth reading.
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