Ornament and Silence: Essays on Women's Lives From Edith Wharton to Germaine Greer (Paperback)

~ Kennedy Fraser (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In these fourteen essays, Fraser focuses on women in love affairs, friendships, marriages, and families; in relation to one another and to the talented men who so often rendered them invisible. In Ornament and Silence we see Virginia Woolf, haunted and eventually destroyed by the sexual secrets of her childhood. We meet Flaubert's theatrically importunate mistress, Louise Colet, the one woman who could briefly slip past the master's misogyny. Fraser offers vibrant portraits of the Russian novelist Nina Berberova and the English naturalist Miriam Rothschild. And here is Fraser herself, learning her craft at The New Yorker, tending her English garden and--on every page--delighting us with the manifold felicities of her prose.

"A wonderfully idiosyncratic set of essays on women famous and unknown whose public and private lives Fraser examines with great feeling and exactitude...insight, intelligence, and grace."--Newsday

"Subtlety, fluency, candor, an agile sensate intellect--Kennedy Fraser brings all these gifts to bear on a subject that is not always contemplated so untendentiously, with such independence of mind, and from such a generous and worldly point of view."--Phillip Roth

From the Inside Flap

In these fourteen essays, Fraser focuses on women in love affairs, friendships, marriages, and families; in relation to one another and to the talented men who so often rendered them invisible. In Ornament and Silence we see Virginia Woolf, haunted and eventually destroyed by the sexual secrets of her childhood. We meet Flaubert's theatrically importunate mistress, Louise Colet, the one woman who could briefly slip past the master's misogyny. Fraser offers vibrant portraits of the Russian novelist Nina Berberova and the English naturalist Miriam Rothschild. And here is Fraser herself, learning her craft at The New Yorker, tending her English garden and--on every page--delighting us with the manifold felicities of her prose.

"A wonderfully idiosyncratic set of essays on women famous and unknown whose public and private lives Fraser examines with great feeling and exactitude...insight, intelligence, and grace."--Newsday

"Subtlety, fluency, candor, an agile sensate intellect--Kennedy Fraser brings all these gifts to bear on a subject that is not always contemplated so untendentiously, with such independence of mind, and from such a generous and worldly point of view."--Phillip Roth

Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375701125
• ISBN-13: 978-0375701122
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #557,023 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Feminine relevance, June 27, 2000

By	Mama K "English teacher" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

I read this book at a time when a friendship I'd held near and dear ended irrationally and insensitively, my kids were growing into independent teens, but also a time when my 18-year marriage was coming into a state of profound comfort and happiness. However, I was also in the midst of finishing a college degree, working on writings I hoped to have published, and coping with the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. This book brought me down to earth, in a way, because I think we tend to look upon writers as a special breed of people with no personal difficulties, when quite the opposite is actually true. If nothing else, this book taught me that it could very well be my current travails that put me into print!