Customer Reviews

Violet Trefusis

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This is the first biography of Violet (nee Keppel) Trefusis published in 1976 as "The Other Woman..." 4 years after Violet's death and 3 years after Nigel Nicolson's 'Portrait of a Marriage' was published (Violet's friends had been shocked by this book). It is written, with respect and affection by people who knew Violet in her late years (John Phillips was her executor) and had only recently learned in any detail of her early affair with Vita Sackville-West more than 50 years before.

At 143 pages it is a rapid read but, additionally, it includes a good selection of Violet's letters to Vita Sackville-West and later letters from Vita and Harold Nicolson to Violet. It includes quotes from Violet's 'Don't Look Round' and also from her unpublished memoire 'Triple Violette'.

We get a good sense of the old version of Violet as a larger than life, witty, flirtatious, fun loving woman who entertained luxuriously and knew all of high society. She appears to have built a psychological superstructure as the sensitive young Violet was not visible to the authors (she had not shared painful memories and she rose coloured the truth) therefore they find it difficult to construct an in-depth biography and rely heavily on the few contemporary published sources of information. More of their own very entertaining remembrances would have been welcome. "She played the Faubourg Saint-Germain dowager to perfection, but always with a wink to her intimates." She would say with that wink of hers, "You must remember I'm a very conventional old lady".

Nevertheless, this book includes the first sight of a collection of Violet's letters in full thus allowing Violet to speak for herself. The book was important for that reason. It is difficult to marry young Violet to her old enigmatic self. She therefore remains intriguing.

The name dropping gets a bit tiresome (because I don't recognize many of the aristocrats) but then that was her later life - full of aristocrats, writers, artists and the rest of high society. It is almost the antithesis of the bohemian desires of her youth.

This is a good read because of the insights of the authors who knew and appreciated Violet in her later years; the book remains important for this reason and because it contains the most comprehensive overview of the correspondence. The inclusion of 13 of Vita Sackville-West's letters from 1940 to 1950 (not gathered together anywhere else I believe) is particularly valuable because, from a cooling distance, the letters testify to the passion of the past and help make up for the destruction of Vita's early love letters. Here's the best quoted excerpt from Vita's letter of 3 September, 1950 when Vita and Violet were in their late 50s:

"This is a sort of love letter I suppose. Odd that I should be writing you a love letter after all these years - when we have written so many to each other. Parceque c'etait lui, parceque c'etait moi. [Because it was him, because it was me - Michel De Montaigne].

Oh, you sent me a book about Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Thank you, darling generous Lushka and you gave me a coal-black briquet. It lights up into the flame of love which always burns in my heart whenever I think of you. You said it would last for three months, but our love has lasted for forty years or more.

Your Mitya"

I originally awarded this book 3 stars because of its lack of depth but with hindsight it deserves 4 stars because of the intimate insights and the correspondence.