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"All Passion Spent" by Vita Sackville-West (Virago Modern Classics, 9780860683582, $15.99)
 
Another of my unjustly-forgotten and now rediscovered classics, this 1931 British novel explores the late life of an older woman who has lived for too long as if her thoughts and spirit were bottled and corked, stored away on too-high a shelf. It's a great treasure for readers who love "Howard's End," "The Enchanted April," or "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day."
 
Now in her late eighties, Lady Slane has just endured the death of her husband of seven decades. His was a brilliant political career, and his wife shared in all its travels and pomp. But through all those many years, Lady Slane deeply, secretly wished for a different sort of life, one less filled with competition and striving, one given over to art and contemplation.
 
The matriarch of a large, important family, Lady Slane sets about refusing to take herself too seriously--or conversely, for the first time ever, she begins seriously to take her own desires into account. She finds a small house in an out-of-the-way spot; she makes odd new friends; she asks her grandchildren not to visit. Having been watched for so long by the "eyes of the world," she decides to take "a little holiday."
 
Author Vita Sackville-West, herself a politician's wife, was a great gardener, critic, and writer, and her sensibility and eager eye for beauty show themselves throughout "All Passion Spent." Gorgeous moments and little ironies grow up like welcome wild blooms in the corners of her novel. It's a story of old age, but also a story about living in accordance with one's joys and inner voice.
 
The new life Lady Slane composes for herself is filled with easy friendship, with delight, and with the sort of calm repose that allows one to properly inhabit one's own skin and to truly (finally!) appreciate "a vase of flowers set with a curious effect of brilliance on a window-sill in an empty room."
 
Review by Mark David Bradshaw, January 28, 2010

 

 

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