Sackville-West, Vita. (1931). All Passion Spent.
It is inescapable that this book is about the female condition, having been written by a woman about a woman’s life that was shaped largely by her being female. The argument that Vita Sackville-West was writing a feminist expression of frustration at a male-dominated world is therefore pretty hard to deny; that sentiment is present, but I don’t think it is the main point, which I see as the fact that an artist sees the world differently, and to be true to herself, must make choices that are neither understood nor appreciated by those around her. Also that artists are not able to live their lives purely true to themselves, at least not if they care about other human beings.
“The rift between herself and life was not the rift between man and woman, but the rift between the worker and the dreamer. That she was a woman, and Henry a man, was really a matter of chance (p. 164).”
This can of course be broadened out away from the artistic vocation to any passionate dream that is incompatible with one’s expected path in life, with the values of one’s larger society. Deborah, in her youth, felt passionately that she wanted to be a painter, but instead found herself becoming Lady Slane, model wife, mother and hostess.
The story is told largely through the lens of an elderly Lady Slane looking back on her life of enviable worldly riches and privilege, but with regrets at her unachieved sense of a greater, purely personal purpose.
At first it seemed odd to me that a book about living a life against one’s youthful dreams and hopes, revisited and regretted in old age, was written by a thirty-eight year old novelist, because I typically think about these themes as belonging to adolescence. But I realized that the story isn’t old from the fearful and uber-tragic perspective of youth, and it isn’t written with the resignation of the “very incarnation of placidity” of an older person. It is the middle-aged artist who dreamt up this tale, who remembers the youthful ideals and is painfully aware of the world’s impositions upon them, yet who is still seeking (hoping) for a way to that ideal life. Suddenly I relate to the book. Lady Slane’s life, as different from mine as one could be, becomes my life. This is one of the traits of a great story, that however different from you, you relate to the central character, become the central character as you are reading.
The book works because it does not have the hot language and movement of youthful emotions, but very carefully considered ideas and a mature vocabulary. Its humor works because the joke is rooted in a sense of justice, that artistic sensibilities will win out, that pettiness will end with its just rewards.
The book shows us that old age as a human condition; it gives power, dignity and freedom to the elderly. It presents multiple older characters who live the way they want, who no matter what else they have done in their lives, deserve the joy and quirkiness at this stage of life. It does so without sentimentalizing old age or painting a maudlin portrait. Its ending connects the young and old, and shows that no matter our age, we are all alike in our passions.