Customer Reviews

A Particular Friendship

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In 1967, a woman thumbed through an English magazine, while getting her hair done in an American beauty parlor. By chance, she noticed an interview with actor Dirk Bogarde, and was amazed to realize that the home Mr. Bogarde was shown in, was the one she and her husband had lived in, prior to fleeing England in 1939. Plucking up her courage, she wrote a letter to Bogarde, identifying herself as a former owner of his circa 1200 home...and so began a fascinating relationship, conducted entirely by mail, between this Englishwoman, now residing and teaching in America, and the film actor. "A Particular Friendship" is comprised of Mr. Bogarde's letters to Mrs. X., as she is identified.We are not privy to her letters, excepting a few lines here and there, but much can be inferred from responses and comments they elicit from DB.

The description I have just given you may seem a bit dry, but the book is far from it. Not only are his letters an incredibly personal, unsanitized time capsule that touches on every subject that weighed on the actor's mind, but also the mind of society in general. Throughout all of it,the reader follows the relationship developing between the two unlikely pen friends. Amidst descriptions of fans tearing the fly out of his trousers,during his days as a matinee idol, descriptions of British and Americans alike, weeping on the street after hearing of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and his innermost conflicts on what to do with his own life, there is an ongoing sweet flirtation between the actor and the older woman. He saves her letters until he has finished all other correspondences, and takes them away to a room where he can read and enjoy them alone. Although in the introduction he claims that his desire was to give some comfort and amusement to a woman who was in failing health and seemed, to him, to be terribly lonely; if Truth be told, he did not know, for some time, that Mrs. X was ill at all...I suspect she may not have known herself...but certainly, having Dirk Bogarde tell you how much he likes to think of you, sitting on the chair across from him, with the fire roaring, and signing a letter, "Endless Love," would work wonders at distracting anyone!!!He reassures her in his letters, that the Dirk Bogarde she reads about in interviews is not the real him. That world is not his real world; his real world is the one he shares with her.

He shares everything from his household details to his disagreements with directors, and his unflinching observations, as he travels to such far flung locations as Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Tunis, Germany, Rome, Paris, and New York...many of these places standing on the brink of political upheaval. The prose was meant for her eyes alone, so there is much that might offend; but keep in mind this was written for a fellow Brit, and not for you or me. They never meet, never talk on the phone, and she never shares her photograph with Bogarde, but e daily sends her postcards, which he calls his flock of starlings, when she is in the hospital, and sends her copies of books he is reading, some of them containing roles he is considering.
This book is intensely personal, and reveals the uncertainties and worries that Bogarde lived with; his lack of satisfaction with his career, the lack of offers of work in England (he even quotes an English director, "If I hear Dirk Bogarde's name one more time, I am going to throw up!"), his dislike of working with Hollywood types , and the uncertainty of his finances, present and future. When Jane Fonda was stumping for communism, he worried about England becoming a dissipated country that would welcome communism, a repressive state he found so unbearable, when working on "The Fixer," in Czechoslovakia.

He tells all to Mrs. X...having nothing to gain and nothing to lose, when sharing his biting comments, anger and humor, with a woman who was not involved in films or the public life at all. Mrs. X served as Bogarde's sounding board and confessor, from 1967 until 1972; a period of time in which he went from receiving no offers in England, other than for a voice over for the Timber Industry, to moving to Europe and taking on roles like Aschenbach in, "Death in Venice."

Life is full of ironies, and as Mrs. X grows ill from a condition she never completely shares with Bogarde, he finds new life in Europe; taking on challenging roles and restoring a home and property in France. Mrs. X urges him to work on his grammar and punctuation, and to get serious about his writing, and he eventually sends three chapters to her, while she is abed, to amuse her. These chapters would later become part of his first memoir, "A Postillion Struck By Lightning."

Prior to this book, the only thing I had read by Bogarde was a novel called, "Voices In The Garden," which was published in the early 1980s. It had made a big impression on me, at the time, and I recently purchased it on Amazon, to enjoy it, all over again. It was this reading that moved me to order this title...just by chance, but it was truly a serendipitous choice. I am convinced that the character of Cuckoo, in "Voices In The Garden," was inspired by Mrs. X, and that the young man, Marcus, was based, at least in part, onDirk Bogarde himself. I won't say too much more, since I wouldn't want to spoil the reading experience for anyone who might want to read these two books, suffice to say that Cuckoo is an older woman who is still attractive, desirable, and elegant, and who has quite charmed Marcus, who has pulled her out of the sea, when he comes upon her, trying to drown herself. No doubt the stones in Cuckoo's pockets were inspired by Bogarde's childhood memories of seeing Virginia Woolf walking around town, picking wild flowers, and quite oblivious to one and all. He and the other children believed her to be a witch. Like I said, this book is anything but dry. Fascinating writing, fascinating man, and a mysterious woman who I will always wish I knew more about. Definitely recommended.

I have seen all Dirk Bogarde's movies and read his biograthy
and every book he has written. They are wonerfully written
and a joy to read.