Customer Reviews

Pentimento (Back Bay Books)

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Lillian Hellman's PENTIMENTO, A loose collection of autobiographical essays and stories, has been both controversial and famous, and very specifically so for "Julia." In this particular tale, Hellman describes her attempt to aid a friend by smuggling money to support anti-Nazi efforts in 1930s Germany--and subsequently finding herself unable to protect Julia from the ferocity of the Nazi machine. Powerfully written, it is the centerpiece of the book, and in 1977 was adapted into a very popular and much-praised film starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave.

It was at this point, however, that controversy arose. The film caught the attention of Muriel Gardner, who promptly asserted that she was 'Julia' and the story itself was significantly based on her own life and work in pre-World War II Germany. She also stated that she had never met Lillian Hellman--but it transpired that she and Hellman had at one time shared the same attorney, who was well aware of her past and who could have described it to Hellman.

Hellman flatly stated that Gardner was not 'Julia' and insisted that the story, while altered re details and circumstances to protect the identities of those involved, was indeed factual. As more details of Gardner's life came to light, however, it seemed increasingly likely that Hellman had indeed made use of it in creating the story, and the dispute continues to provoke strong feelings even some thirty years after the deaths of both Hellman and Gardner.

It was not the first time Hellman had been accused of literary fraud and it would not be last. During her long love affair with novelist Dashiell Hammett, Hellman was frequently accused of draining his ideas to further her own work. In 1979 writer and critic Mary McCarthy prompted a suit for slander when she described Hellman's work by saying "every word she writes is a lie, and that includes 'and' and 'the!'" But regardless of how Hellman came by her ideas, there is no getting around the fact that she had the gift: at her best, she was the equal of the best of the best, turning out several masterpiece dramas and three autobiographical works that jolted best seller lists from end of the country to the other.

PENTIMENTO is the second of these autobiographies, published in 1973 between the equally famous UNFINISHED WOMAN (1969) and SCOUNDREL TIME (1976.) And although "Julia" remains the most famous--or perhaps most infamous--work in the collection, Hellman is actually at her finest in the other stories she tells, most particularly those that center on her childhood home of New Orleans.

In both these writings and others, Hellman shows a remarkable gift for capturing place, time, and character, zeroing in on her New Orleans family, her lover Hammett, and the legendary Tallulah Bankhead to name but a few. From the lunacy of personalizing condoms in Hollywood to the drunken jitters of opening night on Broadway, Hellman makes you see it, feel it, touch it, taste it. It is a brilliant accomplishment--and if you suspect that the stories on which she hangs these talents are at best misrecalled, at worst deliberate falsifications--is this not, after all, what we demand that writers do? Recast reality in order to spin a good story? Strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Pentimento is a brilliant--and entertaining--portrait of a woman's life seen through the doubleness of "then and now." Hellman sketches the people within her life, now housed in her memory. Although dubbed a memoir, it transcends a mere record of Lillian Hellman's life and portrays instead the way in which a woman's history merges with the memory of it. Each chapter is a portrait of someone or something symbolically important, and each is written in a different style reflecting its content and theme. Not history, not autobiography, not fiction, Hellman tried instead to get the feeling of her life right, to find something individual and universal. Drama, humor, tragedy--it's here, and it's important.

Lillian Hellman, one of the great playwrights of the Twentieth Century, bares her soul in this electrifying collection of vignettes about her life in the theatre; her friends and family; her complex relationship with the great Dashiell Hammett; and much more.

Reading this book is like listening to Hellman talk intimately about her life. It is a true memoir; she does not remember details; the conversations tend to be fragmented, and she freely admits that her memories may have been blurred by the passage of time (and in some instances, Hellman's consumption of liquor).

Hellman was an extraordinary writer and an extraordinary woman. In PENTIMENTO she reveals herself as few writers have ever done. She makes no attempt to portray herself as a hero or a villain, but as a real, living, breathing woman with changing views and difficult but fascinating relationships.

Some people have questioned the truth of some of the stories in this book. Hellman does not claim to be an historian; she is merely a human being talking about the things, places, and people of her life. It is precisely because the book is so fragmented and uneven that it rings so true.

All in all, a MUST READ!!

I do not have the knowledge or tools to judge whether Hellman has written the truth here. However, what I do know is that it is splendidly written in a quirky style, which I studied when younger, and the stories are full of psychological depth and personal reflection. While I find her plays and scripts somewhat shallow with easy-to-label characters, I admit that I liked this book as a fully realized work of art.

While I do think it matters if she consciously fictionalized her life, whatever the facts this is a good read. I will leave it to scholars and critics to hash out the debate.

There are many memorable scenes that live in my mind: her floating in a storm and remembering an incident of killing a snapping turtle, with reminiscences of Hammett as her great love. The scene wanders into a rumination of death and loss, which I thought was real literature. Of course, there is the story of Julia, but there are many other notable scenes, like Hemingway competing with Hammett over his sppon-bending abilities. It is also a window into the past that is vividly rendered.

Warmly recommended.

Pentimento is a fine example, not only of Hellman's writing, but of her imaginative style. The story 'Julia' stands out in this collection because of its basis in reality.
The character of Julia is based, at least partly, on the adventures of the New York psychiatrist, Muriel Gardiner. Like the fictitious Julia, Gardiner studied in pre-war Vienna where she became involved with an anti-Nazi group. Hellman, who also lived for a time in New York, heard bits and pieces of Gardiner's story. Though Gardiner did not lose a leg and obviously survived, her story piqued Hellman's imagination. Hellman's portrait of Julia does not exactly parallel the life of Muriel Gardiner but it was sufficiently close, especially the Vienna section, for some critics to accuse Hellman of purloining Dr Gardiner's story.
Dr Gardiner produced her own memoir in 1983, a book titled 'Code Name "Mary" '. Though she had an exciting time in Vienna, her story is not nearly as fascinating as Hellman's 'Julia'. The ending is especially poignant and avoids the happy ending that brought Dr. Gardiner's book to a close.

Pentimento: A Book of Portraits is electrfying in its earnestness and candor, incisive in its tone, acerbic in its wit and picturesque in its mental imagery - a memoir (unlike An Unfinished Woman) that is a bit more honed and focused and less formless in how the recollections and diary entries jump from one to the next. Be that as it may, let it not mitigate the merit of An Unfinished Woman, for in its own right, it is a very worthy read and most deserving of its National Book Award. Each chapter in Pentimento is framed, each segment representing a person, place or experience that had a certain signifigance to Lillian Hellman's life and development not only as a playwrite but as a person. The book chapters are listed as thus: Bethe, Willy, Julia, Theatre, Arthur W.A. Cowan, Turtle, and Pentimento. The writing fluidity is fragmented, almost jarring, but the fierce, explicit prose enhances the flavor of the volatile, broken mishmash of truth and hyperbole, a choice style that is not a detriment to what Hellman has to say. With magnetic intimacy, the portraits all have something meaningful to declare; they range from the profound to the wittily bizarre. The latter is best represented in the portraits entitled "Arthur W.A. Cowan" and "Turtle." It is in these two portraits where Hellman's mordant humor especially shines.

From Arthur W.A. Cowan:

I said, "Oh, shut up, Arthur."
And he did, but that night as he paid the dinner check, he wrote out another check and handed it to me. It was for a thousand dollars.
I said, "What's this for?" "Anybody you want."
I handed it back.
He said, "Oh, for Christ sake take it and tell yourself it's for putting up with me."
"Then it's not enough money." (P.235)

And

From Turtle:

Toward afternoon I telephoned the New York Zoological Society of which I was a member. I had a hard time being transferred to somebody who knew about turtles. When I finished, the young voice said, "Yes, the Chelydra serpentina. A ferocious foe. Where did you meet it?"
"Meet it?"
"Encounter it?"
"At a literary cocktail party by a lake." (P.278)

Considering the period, the one-liners are quite sharp; the portrait that obviously stands out the most is "Julia," the 'supposed' friendship that developed between Hellman and a Freud disciple who happened to be an anti-facist supporter - a 'friendship' that later formed the basis for the Academy Award-winning film of the same title. Whether the story is fact or fiction, that is up for the reader to decide. Whether "Julia" represented a single woman or a group of dedicated individuals fighting to stop/lessen the evils of war whom Hellman truly admired and who thus wanted her name associated with, may also never be known. But what can be said of the Julia portrait is that it is a written down homage to a person or persons who tried to make a positive difference in that dark epoch of our global history.

If you have never read "Pentimento," you should find a way to rectify that fact. The terrible beauty of the story "Julia" has stayed with me for decades. This collection of stories is an ode to friendship, loss, and remembrance and well worth the effort to find and read.

Moving collection of real life stories that make you appreciate Hellman's plays. A must read for anyone interested in her relationship with Dashielle Hammett, who penned some of the, if not, Thee best crime novels in American literature. Read his works first, then read this, then read Hellman's plays. You'll feel as though you've spent time with them over a life. (Lillian has 2 further books of memoirs to complete her trilogy.) Her and Dashielle were 2 of the clearest examples of the cliched hard drinking writer of the 20th century.

A wnderful "re-visit" to this writers journey of her life, an independent soul, perhaps even "unfinished" (are we ever "finished?". I last read this many years ago when I was staring my own "journey" as a young man...I am now 70 and looking at the "Pentiemento" of my own life...

I really enjoyed this book. After I saw a special on Lillian Helllman on PBS, I purchased this book. She led a fascinating life and her immediate friends...Dorothy Parker and lovers...Dashiell Hammett confirmed this. Pentimento takes you through time as you visit her family in New Orleans, her friends in New York and London and her deep resentment and bitterness over the McCarthy era...that caused her to suffer greatly because she would not bend to their will. She was an amazing woman, who led an amazing life and Pentimento delves deep into the characters of her life that made an impact. Pentimento is a great read and find.