Married to Genius considers the emotional and artistic commitment in the marriages of nine modern writers: Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, D.H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. These writers believed that marriage provided their most profound relationships, and although their lives reveal the strains of modern marriage, their creativity was directly inspired by their emotional and intellectual conflicts. It is a fascinating study of how these celebrated figures attempted to integrate life and art.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Biographer Meyers delves into the married lives of nine novelists-Tolstoy, Shaw, Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Mansfield, Lawrence, Hemingway and Fitzgerald-bypassing the daily bric-a-brac of marriage to focus on the artists' intertwined commitments to their spouses and their craft, often drawing parallels between the fiction written and the lives lived. Meyers suggests marriage for his subjects was a "strengthening bond... deeply valuable to an artist engaged in psychic survival and in creating order out of chaos," but it is clear that even the happiest marriages came at a price. Meyers uses the diaries, letters and fiction of his subjects and their peers to cover the legendary aspects of their biographies (Conrad's estrangement, Woolf's mental fragility, Fitzgerald's alcoholism, Hemingway's machismo) in satisfying, psychologically incisive detail without risking caricature, and is able to provide a revealing portrait of what made Tolstoy's marriage "unhappy after its own fashion," and why Woolf wrote in a suicide note to Leonard, "I don't think that two people could be happier than we have been." Readers familiar with the works of these figures will take pleasure in the sometimes subtle links Meyers notes between their life and art. What's more, Meyers takes full advantage of the fascinating intersections between these literary figures' lives-Mansfield's husband Murry's flirtation with Lawrence's wife Freida; Hemingway and Fitzgerald's judgments (sometimes discerning, sometimes clearly blurred with jealousy) of each other's marriages; Woolf's envy of Mansfield's writing; and Mansfield's envy of Woolf's marriage-to enrich the volume.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Review
"... a series of fascinating and well-documented studies." -- Financial Times
“Meyers takes full advantage of the fascinating intersections between these literary figures' lives to enrich the volume.” -- Publishers Weekly Review Annex --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
“Meyers takes full advantage of the fascinating intersections between these literary figures' lives to enrich the volume.” -- Publishers Weekly Review Annex --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better to marry than to have to do one's own laundry,
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This review is from: Married to Genius: A Fascinating Insight Into the Married Lives of Nine Modern Writers (Paperback)
Great writers usually make bad spouses. Their dedication to their work means they have less time for real consideration and feeling for other human beings, even those closest to them. Jeffrey Meyers in this work studies the lives of nine important writers, and the spouses they made their lives with. Cold Shaw was happy to be married to a woman he had no physical connection with . Passionate Lawrence was involved in endless public and private wrestling and shouting matches with the woman he loved and hated, who gave him much inspiration for his work. Virginia Woolf was cared for and loved by Leonard Woolf though their marriage was never physically consummated. Conrad too needed to be babied by his wife Jesse and was jealous of their child. Katherine Mansfield needed a Leonard Woolf but received instead a selfish philandering John Middleton Murray who abandoned her during her final illness.Joyce's Nora could not understand her dirty- minded genius of a husband, but provided for him the means to understanding the eternal feminine. Hemingway's super-machismo behavior did his first three marriages in. F.Scott Fitzgerald could not really tame or control Zelda. They both needed help but neither could give it to each other. The greatest of the writers Tolstoy is depicted by Meyers as the worst monster. But here I am not sure he gets it completely right, as the long complex relationship of Tolstoy and the former Sonya Behrs had moments of great love and passion in it, along with the terrible quarreling and disagreements.
On the whole Meyers suggests that the marriages provided support for the writers which enabled them to get on with their work.
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