Like Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, this remarkable little book of wisdom and advice refreshes the mind and renews the spirit. Written in 1930 and published in Paris by the Hours Press in a limited edition of only two hundred, these letters were addressed to an eight-year-old girl, the "thoughtful and sensible" child of Nancy Nicholson and Robert Graves. But they were also meant for adults who might have such a child in their spirit. In simple, luminous language, Laura Riding explains the difference between learning and knowing; the value of thinking, of doing, and of not-showing-off; and how it is good to live straight, avoiding the hypocrisies and pretensions of "the muddle." Here is a literary treasure to be shared between generations. For many readers, it will also serve as an invaluable key to the thought of this astonishingly original writer.
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Written in 1930 and first published in Paris by The Hours Press in a limited edition of 200, these letters by Modernist poet Riding (who later went by her married name, Jackson) are ostensibly meant for an eight-year-old girl, the daughter of fellow writer Robert Graves and artist Nancy Nicholson. But in a postscript Riding alludes to "Nobody in Particular instead of... A Particular Somebody," and, indeed, the letters seem too high-flown for a child. Strongly reminiscent of prose by Gertrude Stein (to whom an epigraph is addressed), the letters toss abstractions about in a disarmingly simple fashion. Sentences like "a grown-up who doesn't first know everything about himself can't know everything about everything" suggest both an endorsement and a mockery of Edwardian wisdom that was characteristic of much Modernist thinking. This is a fey, original document of interest mainly to students of the period.
- David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intimate gem for teens or older women,
By A Customer
This review is from: Four Unposted Letters to Catherine (Hardcover)
Contrary to what the above publisher's comments suggest, that this small book is primarily "of interest to students of the period," this book is an easy to read, poetically stylized epistle of unique voice & spirit, that is at once illuminating, encouraging, and challenging to the established mind as it is edifying. It's quarky repetitive language reads like a poem or a speech, and it's straightforward advice is rebellious and intimate. Advice about knowing yourself and trusting yourself above all other voices and directions you will recieve throughout your life, including the voice speaking in the letter, is passionately refreshing, especially as written in its time. It's a little civil disobedience note...of a kind...and should not be buried in obscurities as a "period piece"...buy it for someone you love--yourself...and enjoy.
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