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Ladies Almanack
This work is a novel in which real persons or actual events figure under disguise. Its subject is the predominantly lesbian social circle centering on Natalie Clifford Barney's salon in Paris in the 1920s. The language, inside jokes and ambiguity of the work have kept critics arguing about whether it is an affectionate satire or a bitter attack, but Barney herself loved the book and re-read it throughout her life.
42 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1928
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2001 people want to read
About the author
Djuna Barnes
91 books567 followersDjuna Barnes was an artist, illustrator, journalist, playwright, and poet associated with the early 20th-century Greenwich Village bohemians and the Modernist literary movement.
Barnes has been cited as an influence by writers as diverse as Truman Capote, William Goyen, Isak Dinesen, John Hawkes, and Anaïs Nin. Bertha Harris described her work as "practically the only available expression of lesbian culture we have in the modern western world" since Sappho.
Barnes played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel Nightwood became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T. S. Eliot. It stands out today for its portrayal of lesbian themes and its distinctive writing style. Since Barnes's death, interest in her work has grown and many of her books are back in print.
Barnes has been cited as an influence by writers as diverse as Truman Capote, William Goyen, Isak Dinesen, John Hawkes, and Anaïs Nin. Bertha Harris described her work as "practically the only available expression of lesbian culture we have in the modern western world" since Sappho.
Barnes played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel Nightwood became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T. S. Eliot. It stands out today for its portrayal of lesbian themes and its distinctive writing style. Since Barnes's death, interest in her work has grown and many of her books are back in print.
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May 5, 2015
A nice long quote to show how great this is:
"In my day," said Dame Musset, and at once the look of the Pope, which she carried about with her as a Habit, waned a little, and there was seen to shine forth the Cunning of a Monk in Holy Orders, in some Country too old for Tradition, "in my day I was a Pioneer and a Menace, it was not then as it is now, chic and pointless to a degree, but as daring as a Crusade, for where now it leaves a woman talkative, so that we have not a Secret among us, then it left her in Tears and Trepidation. Then one had to lure them to the Breast, and now," she said, "You have to smack them, back and front to ween them at all! What joy has the missionary," she added, her Eyes narrowing and her long Ears moving with Disappointment, "when all the Heathen greet her with Glory Halleluja! before she opens her Mouth, and with an Amen! before she shuts it! I would," she said, "that there were one Woman somewhere that one could take to task for Lethargy. Ah!" she sighed, "there were many such when I was a Girl, and in particular I recall one dear old Countess who was not to be convinced until I, fervid with Truth, had finally so floored her in every capacious Room of that dear ancestral Home, that I knew to a Button, how every Ticking was made! And what a lack of Art there is in the Upholstery Trade, for that they do not finish off the under Parts of Sofas and Chairs with anything like Elegance showered upon that Portion which comes to the Eye! There should," she added, with a touch of that committee strain which flowed in a deep wide Stream in her Sister, "be Trade for Contacts, guarding that on which the Lesbian Eye must, in its March through Life, rest itself. I would not, however," she said, "have it understood that I yearn with any very great Vastness for the early eighties; then Girls were as mute as a Sampler, and as importunate as a War, and would have me lay on, charge and retreat the night through, as if," she finished, "a Woman, be she ever so good of Intention and a Martyr, could wind herself upon one Convert, and still find Strength in the Nape of her Neck for the next. Still," she remarked, sipping a little hot tea, "they were dear Creatures, and they have paced me to a contented and knowing fifty. I am well pleased. Upon my Sword there is no Rust, and upon my Escutcheon so many Stains that I have, in this manner, created my own Banner and my own Badge. I have learned on the Bodies of all Women, all Customs, and from their Minds have all Nations given up their Secrets. I know that the Orientals are cold to the Waist, and from there flame with a mighty and quick crackling Fire. I have learned that Anglo Saxons thaw slowly but that they thaw from Head to Heel, and so it is with their Minds. The Asiatic is warm and willing, and goes out like a Firecracker; the Northerner is cool and cautious, but burns and burns, until," she said reminiscently, "you see that Candle lit by you in youth, burning about your Bier in Death. It is time now that I find me a Night-light, and just what Fusion of Bloods it be, I have not as yet determined, but—I think I have found it."
"Where!" exclaimed Nip, looking about her with a touch of kindly Apprehension.
"The Night-Light of Love," said Saint Musset, "burns I think me in the slightly muted Crevices of all Women who have been a little sprung with continual playing of the Spring Song, though I may be mistaken, for be it known, I have not yet made certain on this Point. There is one such in our midst on whom I have had a Weather Eye these many Years. She is a little concocted of one bad night in Venice and one sly Woman going to morning Mass, her Name is writ from here to Sicily, as Cynic Sal. She dressed like a Coachman of the period of Pecksniff, but she drives an empty Hack. And that is one Woman," she said, "who shall yet find me as Fare, and if at the Journey's end, she still cracks as sharp a Whip, and has never once descended the Drivers's Seat to put her Head within to see what rumpled meaning there sits, why she may sing for her Pains, I shall get off at London and find me another who has somewhat of a budding Care for a Passenger."
"In my day," said Dame Musset, and at once the look of the Pope, which she carried about with her as a Habit, waned a little, and there was seen to shine forth the Cunning of a Monk in Holy Orders, in some Country too old for Tradition, "in my day I was a Pioneer and a Menace, it was not then as it is now, chic and pointless to a degree, but as daring as a Crusade, for where now it leaves a woman talkative, so that we have not a Secret among us, then it left her in Tears and Trepidation. Then one had to lure them to the Breast, and now," she said, "You have to smack them, back and front to ween them at all! What joy has the missionary," she added, her Eyes narrowing and her long Ears moving with Disappointment, "when all the Heathen greet her with Glory Halleluja! before she opens her Mouth, and with an Amen! before she shuts it! I would," she said, "that there were one Woman somewhere that one could take to task for Lethargy. Ah!" she sighed, "there were many such when I was a Girl, and in particular I recall one dear old Countess who was not to be convinced until I, fervid with Truth, had finally so floored her in every capacious Room of that dear ancestral Home, that I knew to a Button, how every Ticking was made! And what a lack of Art there is in the Upholstery Trade, for that they do not finish off the under Parts of Sofas and Chairs with anything like Elegance showered upon that Portion which comes to the Eye! There should," she added, with a touch of that committee strain which flowed in a deep wide Stream in her Sister, "be Trade for Contacts, guarding that on which the Lesbian Eye must, in its March through Life, rest itself. I would not, however," she said, "have it understood that I yearn with any very great Vastness for the early eighties; then Girls were as mute as a Sampler, and as importunate as a War, and would have me lay on, charge and retreat the night through, as if," she finished, "a Woman, be she ever so good of Intention and a Martyr, could wind herself upon one Convert, and still find Strength in the Nape of her Neck for the next. Still," she remarked, sipping a little hot tea, "they were dear Creatures, and they have paced me to a contented and knowing fifty. I am well pleased. Upon my Sword there is no Rust, and upon my Escutcheon so many Stains that I have, in this manner, created my own Banner and my own Badge. I have learned on the Bodies of all Women, all Customs, and from their Minds have all Nations given up their Secrets. I know that the Orientals are cold to the Waist, and from there flame with a mighty and quick crackling Fire. I have learned that Anglo Saxons thaw slowly but that they thaw from Head to Heel, and so it is with their Minds. The Asiatic is warm and willing, and goes out like a Firecracker; the Northerner is cool and cautious, but burns and burns, until," she said reminiscently, "you see that Candle lit by you in youth, burning about your Bier in Death. It is time now that I find me a Night-light, and just what Fusion of Bloods it be, I have not as yet determined, but—I think I have found it."
"Where!" exclaimed Nip, looking about her with a touch of kindly Apprehension.
"The Night-Light of Love," said Saint Musset, "burns I think me in the slightly muted Crevices of all Women who have been a little sprung with continual playing of the Spring Song, though I may be mistaken, for be it known, I have not yet made certain on this Point. There is one such in our midst on whom I have had a Weather Eye these many Years. She is a little concocted of one bad night in Venice and one sly Woman going to morning Mass, her Name is writ from here to Sicily, as Cynic Sal. She dressed like a Coachman of the period of Pecksniff, but she drives an empty Hack. And that is one Woman," she said, "who shall yet find me as Fare, and if at the Journey's end, she still cracks as sharp a Whip, and has never once descended the Drivers's Seat to put her Head within to see what rumpled meaning there sits, why she may sing for her Pains, I shall get off at London and find me another who has somewhat of a budding Care for a Passenger."
July 16, 2015
[Note: I have since revised and expanded this review for my blog, Queer Modernisms.]
Even after more than eight decades critics and scholars still squabble over what exactly Djuna Barnes was trying to accomplish with her Ladies Almanack. Is it an affectionate satire? A bitter denunciation? A parodic exercise in self-loathing?
Maybe it's all of these things, perhaps "none of the above" gets a bit closer to the truth, but this tension touches upon exactly the thing that most compels me most about Barnes's text—it somehow encompasses nearly all interpretations but stakes itself definitively to none of them. Which makes it a superlative example of one of my current academic interests: the conveyance of queer content through "queered" form. As Barnes herself readily admitted, her Almanack was meant for "the private domaine" [sic], meant to be "distributed to a very special audience" (the reason why she never bothered to copyright the text, a decision she later regretted), if only because its subject matter—the romantic foibles of the various members of the lesbian-centered coterie Natalie Barney assembled in Paris—was enough to bring an author to public trail, as vividly displayed in the The Well of Loneliness which was published in the same year as Ladies Almanack, and whose author, Radclyffe Hall, who along with her longtime partner makes an appearance within Barnes's pages.
In regards to Barnes's obscure, archaic utilization of language and form in the Almanack, Susan Snaider Lanser writes that for Barnes it was "better to shroud [the overtly lesbian content] in obscurity, generating a prose whose meanings dissolve beneath a torrent of difficult words and sentences," which is exactly the thing that most readers find off-putting about the work. This isn't merely an example of willful high modernist obfuscation, and its style just can't be solely marked up as a method for eluding censorship either: it's something between, I'd argue, an attempt to avoid shoehorning queer topics and desires into traditional novelistic forms (The Well of Loneliness again, which is practically unreadable today), but instead attempts to articulate a new means of expression altogether. Barnes accomplishes this by cherry-picking elements from a variety of sources both historical and modernist, which makes it a kind of anomaly (much like her much more well-known Nightwood) within high modernist literature, of which she was one of the most prominent figures. As such, Ladies Almanack is at once both outdated and undateable, as playfully and deliberately enigmatic today as it must have been in 1928.
And hell, it's just a lot of fun.
"'The Night-Life of Love,' said Saint Musset, 'burns I think me in the slightly muted Crevices of all Women who have been a little sprung with continual playing of the Spring Song, though I may be mistaken, for be it known, I have not yet made certain on this point.'"
Source: Silence and Power: A Reevaluation of Djuna Barnes
Even after more than eight decades critics and scholars still squabble over what exactly Djuna Barnes was trying to accomplish with her Ladies Almanack. Is it an affectionate satire? A bitter denunciation? A parodic exercise in self-loathing?
Maybe it's all of these things, perhaps "none of the above" gets a bit closer to the truth, but this tension touches upon exactly the thing that most compels me most about Barnes's text—it somehow encompasses nearly all interpretations but stakes itself definitively to none of them. Which makes it a superlative example of one of my current academic interests: the conveyance of queer content through "queered" form. As Barnes herself readily admitted, her Almanack was meant for "the private domaine" [sic], meant to be "distributed to a very special audience" (the reason why she never bothered to copyright the text, a decision she later regretted), if only because its subject matter—the romantic foibles of the various members of the lesbian-centered coterie Natalie Barney assembled in Paris—was enough to bring an author to public trail, as vividly displayed in the The Well of Loneliness which was published in the same year as Ladies Almanack, and whose author, Radclyffe Hall, who along with her longtime partner makes an appearance within Barnes's pages.
In regards to Barnes's obscure, archaic utilization of language and form in the Almanack, Susan Snaider Lanser writes that for Barnes it was "better to shroud [the overtly lesbian content] in obscurity, generating a prose whose meanings dissolve beneath a torrent of difficult words and sentences," which is exactly the thing that most readers find off-putting about the work. This isn't merely an example of willful high modernist obfuscation, and its style just can't be solely marked up as a method for eluding censorship either: it's something between, I'd argue, an attempt to avoid shoehorning queer topics and desires into traditional novelistic forms (The Well of Loneliness again, which is practically unreadable today), but instead attempts to articulate a new means of expression altogether. Barnes accomplishes this by cherry-picking elements from a variety of sources both historical and modernist, which makes it a kind of anomaly (much like her much more well-known Nightwood) within high modernist literature, of which she was one of the most prominent figures. As such, Ladies Almanack is at once both outdated and undateable, as playfully and deliberately enigmatic today as it must have been in 1928.
And hell, it's just a lot of fun.
"'The Night-Life of Love,' said Saint Musset, 'burns I think me in the slightly muted Crevices of all Women who have been a little sprung with continual playing of the Spring Song, though I may be mistaken, for be it known, I have not yet made certain on this point.'"
Source: Silence and Power: A Reevaluation of Djuna Barnes
March 9, 2025
...porque no tengo escapatoria, y la fantasía es mi único sortilegio.
El almanaque de las mujeres es un misterioso pero divertido texto que constituye dos ejercicios literarios a la vez: por una parte, es una roman à clef que encripta las pasiones y tribulaciones acontecidas en un salón literario de mujeres durante la época del París-Lesbos; y por otra, para esto toma la forma de un almanaque medieval, narrando la vida y muerte de su protagonista en capítulos que son los meses del año, e incorporando elementos típicos de este formato como el santoral o el horóscopo.
Esta es una de esas obras que me recuerdan lo entretenido que puede ser escribir. Barnes hizo lo que quiso con esta obra: hizo las ilustraciones de época que acompañan la narración, reescribió un cahuín sobre sus colegas, imaginó un mundo solo para las lesbianas; todo esto con las palabras de un inglés arcaico y pomposo. Las traductoras de la edición que encontré hicieron un muy buen trabajo en volver este texto uno inteligible. Ellas advertían que, pese a sus esfuerzos, habían apartados que no era posible comprender - muy en la línea de las declaraciones de su autora, que posteriormente confesaría tampoco recordaba qué quiso decir.
Además, El almanaque... tiene ya casi cien años, pero las temáticas que discuten sus personajes siguen igualmente vigentes. En sus páginas, ellas debaten sobre el matrimonio igualitario, la potencia y diferencia hombres y mujeres, el significado del género como categoría, y así hartas conversaciones más. Me resulta difícil no contrastar la época de publicación de esta obra con la nuestra; también unos liberales años veinte tropezándose en las faldas del fascismo.
El almanaque de las mujeres es un misterioso pero divertido texto que constituye dos ejercicios literarios a la vez: por una parte, es una roman à clef que encripta las pasiones y tribulaciones acontecidas en un salón literario de mujeres durante la época del París-Lesbos; y por otra, para esto toma la forma de un almanaque medieval, narrando la vida y muerte de su protagonista en capítulos que son los meses del año, e incorporando elementos típicos de este formato como el santoral o el horóscopo.
Esta es una de esas obras que me recuerdan lo entretenido que puede ser escribir. Barnes hizo lo que quiso con esta obra: hizo las ilustraciones de época que acompañan la narración, reescribió un cahuín sobre sus colegas, imaginó un mundo solo para las lesbianas; todo esto con las palabras de un inglés arcaico y pomposo. Las traductoras de la edición que encontré hicieron un muy buen trabajo en volver este texto uno inteligible. Ellas advertían que, pese a sus esfuerzos, habían apartados que no era posible comprender - muy en la línea de las declaraciones de su autora, que posteriormente confesaría tampoco recordaba qué quiso decir.
Además, El almanaque... tiene ya casi cien años, pero las temáticas que discuten sus personajes siguen igualmente vigentes. En sus páginas, ellas debaten sobre el matrimonio igualitario, la potencia y diferencia hombres y mujeres, el significado del género como categoría, y así hartas conversaciones más. Me resulta difícil no contrastar la época de publicación de esta obra con la nuestra; también unos liberales años veinte tropezándose en las faldas del fascismo.
August 11, 2016
Almanaque satírico das bobagens direcionadas para mulheres de um século atrás (ó céus, que ainda persistem!), com linguagem clássica e direcionada às "entendidas" dos salões parisienses da década de 20. Finíssimo.
August 1, 2018
so much lesbians
September 24, 2021
I’ve read three books to be able to read this book and still I was not prepared. The jokes that I did get were funny, and I want to believe that the ones that I did not would also be. I have no idea what to make of this.
I’m not Catholic enough to understand Djuna Barnes (which is not saying much given my atheism) but I don’t think ANYONE is Catholic enough to understand Djuna Barnes.
Again, great sense of humor, but there are times that her opinions just have me thinking: “Omg. Wtf Djuna Barnes. Why is she like this?”
Edit:
Original review and rating saved for posterity.
At last I finally understand this a bit better and appreciate it more. In order to appreciate this book fully, I have a reading list with a suggested order:
1. Wild Heart : A Life - Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris by Suzanne Rodriguez (book)
2. No Modernism Without Lesbians by Diana Souhami (book)
3. Nightwood - by Djuna Barnes (book)
(If you don’t understand Nightwood at first, go back and read some other books first. This is just a personal opinion regarding what should be read on a bare bones level to get the jokes and get proper enjoyment out of Ladies Almanack without even taking an academic class on it, so your mileage may vary. I enjoy Nightwood more now too.).
4. Women Lovers or the Third Woman / Amants féminins ou la troisième by Natalie Clifford Barney (book)
5. Ray, Chelsea D. 2010. "Mythology and Ideology: Literary Depictions of Natalie Clifford Barney in L'Ange Et Les Pervers, Ladies' Almanack, and Amants Féminins Ou La Troisième." Women in French Studies (Article)
(Supplement with other articles as necessary upon reading.)
6. The afterward of Ladies Almanack. Keep a list of characters and who they represent alongside a refresher of the No Modernism Without Lesbians book if necessary.
FINALLY:
Ladies Almanack by Djuna Barnes
I’m not Catholic enough to understand Djuna Barnes (which is not saying much given my atheism) but I don’t think ANYONE is Catholic enough to understand Djuna Barnes.
Again, great sense of humor, but there are times that her opinions just have me thinking: “Omg. Wtf Djuna Barnes. Why is she like this?”
Edit:
Original review and rating saved for posterity.
At last I finally understand this a bit better and appreciate it more. In order to appreciate this book fully, I have a reading list with a suggested order:
1. Wild Heart : A Life - Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris by Suzanne Rodriguez (book)
2. No Modernism Without Lesbians by Diana Souhami (book)
3. Nightwood - by Djuna Barnes (book)
(If you don’t understand Nightwood at first, go back and read some other books first. This is just a personal opinion regarding what should be read on a bare bones level to get the jokes and get proper enjoyment out of Ladies Almanack without even taking an academic class on it, so your mileage may vary. I enjoy Nightwood more now too.).
4. Women Lovers or the Third Woman / Amants féminins ou la troisième by Natalie Clifford Barney (book)
5. Ray, Chelsea D. 2010. "Mythology and Ideology: Literary Depictions of Natalie Clifford Barney in L'Ange Et Les Pervers, Ladies' Almanack, and Amants Féminins Ou La Troisième." Women in French Studies (Article)
(Supplement with other articles as necessary upon reading.)
6. The afterward of Ladies Almanack. Keep a list of characters and who they represent alongside a refresher of the No Modernism Without Lesbians book if necessary.
FINALLY:
Ladies Almanack by Djuna Barnes
August 27, 2016
What is this? I honestly don't have a clue, all I know is that it's quite awesome and it involves lots of lesbians - which I suppose is the same as saying that it's quite awesome so I'll leave it at that.
Read
January 8, 2023rah so fun !! lesbian shit in the 20s!!!!!! absolutely batshit and incredible !!! we love !!!! ps the intro to this was great am now obsessed with trying to obtain the rest of the series
July 22, 2016
So I had no idea who in Djuna Barnes's circle of friends was which character, and at first, I tried to search various key phrases to find the list of who is who, but I couldn't find it until tonight when I reached the end and saw that the book itself tells you in the afterward. Wtf, it should have been in the foreward!
Still, the book is a huge inside joke and I didn't care that I didn't entirely get it.
I loved it for these reasons, poorly explained:
1) the drawings made to look like woodcuts
2) the organization of the book by the months in a year
3) the subtitle: "showing their Signs and their tides; their Moons and their Changes; the Seasons as it is with them; their Eclipses and Equinoxes; as well as a full Record of diurnal and nocturnal Distempers"
4) Barnes's pseudonym: "A LADY OF FASHION"
5) the archaic language & its poetry
6) and as I am currently trying to plagiarize this style to write the cast and crew bios for Daviel's film adaptation (it's here! link), it's like, hard to do, and I don't have a satirical tone, and trying to copy anyone makes you realize how hard it is/how great the person is or something. Right? Well now that I'm done reading this, I will be referencing it a ton, and trying to nose my way into some contemporary lesbian gossip.
AND I will revisit Nightwood and read it again
Still, the book is a huge inside joke and I didn't care that I didn't entirely get it.
I loved it for these reasons, poorly explained:
1) the drawings made to look like woodcuts
2) the organization of the book by the months in a year
3) the subtitle: "showing their Signs and their tides; their Moons and their Changes; the Seasons as it is with them; their Eclipses and Equinoxes; as well as a full Record of diurnal and nocturnal Distempers"
4) Barnes's pseudonym: "A LADY OF FASHION"
5) the archaic language & its poetry
6) and as I am currently trying to plagiarize this style to write the cast and crew bios for Daviel's film adaptation (it's here! link), it's like, hard to do, and I don't have a satirical tone, and trying to copy anyone makes you realize how hard it is/how great the person is or something. Right? Well now that I'm done reading this, I will be referencing it a ton, and trying to nose my way into some contemporary lesbian gossip.
AND I will revisit Nightwood and read it again
February 8, 2021
Sweet May stood putting on her last venereal Touches while Patience Scalpel held forth in that divine and ethereal Voice for which she was noted, the Voice of one whose Ankles are nibbled by the Cherubs, while amid the Rugs Dame Musset brought Doll Furious to a certainty.
“What”, said Patience Scalpal, “can you women see in each other? Where is the Parting of the Ways and the Horseman that hunts? Where”, she reflected, “there is Prostitution and Drunkeness, there is bound to be Immorality, or I do not count the Times, but what is this?”
“And”, said Dame Musset, rising in Bed, “that’s all there is, and there is no more!”
“But oh !” cried Doll.
“Down Woman”, said Dame Musset in her friendliest, “there may be a mustard seed!”
“What”, said Patience Scalpal, “can you women see in each other? Where is the Parting of the Ways and the Horseman that hunts? Where”, she reflected, “there is Prostitution and Drunkeness, there is bound to be Immorality, or I do not count the Times, but what is this?”
“And”, said Dame Musset, rising in Bed, “that’s all there is, and there is no more!”
“But oh !” cried Doll.
“Down Woman”, said Dame Musset in her friendliest, “there may be a mustard seed!”
April 26, 2023
A bit incomprehensible but good nonetheless
July 22, 2013
Nothing like it in English literature. The great lesbian romp through Paris in the Twenties. All the girls are present and accounted for in Natalie Barney's salon and bedroom, submitting to scrutiny under Barnes's powerful microscope.
To avoid censorship (and to please her patron, Miss Barney), Djuna Barnes disguised her cutting-edge material in Rabelaisian cloaks. It's like reading Chaucer on muff-diving. More than just wicked satire, this is enduring literature that stands up to every new reading.
And there's good reason to pick it up again now and re-read it.
This book pairs best with a newly-published French roman à clef destined to become a lesbian classic: Amants féminins ou la troisième by Natalie Barney. Too hot to handle in 1926, when Barney finished her double helix of a "novel" about two ménages à trois that she was simultaneously involved in, it never saw the light of day until now, more than 80 years later and over 40 years after Barney's death.
Turns out, Djuna Barnes was the person Natalie Barney turned to for advice on her tricky domestic problems. At the time, Barnes was in the early stages of sketching Ladies Almanack while Barney was pouring her heart out over love lost between herself, Liane de Pougy and Mimi Franchetti. It was a rough patch for Barnes, too, forced by Barney's raw confessions to rethink her own disintegrating love affair with Thelma Wood.
Djuna and Natalie's regular cafe visits--along with Djuna's forceful Socratic enquiries--are recounted in full force in Amants féminins, giving readers new insights into Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack and the friendship that gave birth to it.
To avoid censorship (and to please her patron, Miss Barney), Djuna Barnes disguised her cutting-edge material in Rabelaisian cloaks. It's like reading Chaucer on muff-diving. More than just wicked satire, this is enduring literature that stands up to every new reading.
And there's good reason to pick it up again now and re-read it.
This book pairs best with a newly-published French roman à clef destined to become a lesbian classic: Amants féminins ou la troisième by Natalie Barney. Too hot to handle in 1926, when Barney finished her double helix of a "novel" about two ménages à trois that she was simultaneously involved in, it never saw the light of day until now, more than 80 years later and over 40 years after Barney's death.
Turns out, Djuna Barnes was the person Natalie Barney turned to for advice on her tricky domestic problems. At the time, Barnes was in the early stages of sketching Ladies Almanack while Barney was pouring her heart out over love lost between herself, Liane de Pougy and Mimi Franchetti. It was a rough patch for Barnes, too, forced by Barney's raw confessions to rethink her own disintegrating love affair with Thelma Wood.
Djuna and Natalie's regular cafe visits--along with Djuna's forceful Socratic enquiries--are recounted in full force in Amants féminins, giving readers new insights into Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack and the friendship that gave birth to it.
October 14, 2024
I've known of Barnes as a challenging read, so I didn't expect anything less, but it's a short work that celebrates (and lampoons, at the same time) lesbianism through the women that Barnes knew in real life. Though largely impenetrable, particularly because I only did surface reading, there are few funny jibes on traditional roles of women: "And at fifty, what has a Man but his wisdom, and what has a Woman, but more suddenly and therefore more pleasantly, that Wisdom also, for to man it comes with the stealth of a deep Sleep, and in a Sleep he is when he nods that he has it bagged, but to Woman it comes when she has no cause for Children and no effect for Babes! Then is she wise!" (p. 74)
For most men, indeed, wisdom comes stealthily: across a life of poor decisions and revelry, wisdom finally smacks him in the head and knocks him sensible. In contrast, Barnes argues, women would have wisdom were it not for their concerns for children. In one sense, I'd agree: motherhood is a challenging and difficult chore that is poorly remunerated and is often thankless. There will be a lot of time for the lady to pursue herself and her independence if she chooses not to have children, which is something the modern-day woman is also open to.
This is less story-like than the remnants I recall from Nightwood, but is a lot more upbeat and a significantly shorter book. Nevertheless, the linguistic complexity and abstruse allusions that Barnes makes in this book make it rather impenetrable for most readers. I don't even claim understanding: I do claim amusement.
For most men, indeed, wisdom comes stealthily: across a life of poor decisions and revelry, wisdom finally smacks him in the head and knocks him sensible. In contrast, Barnes argues, women would have wisdom were it not for their concerns for children. In one sense, I'd agree: motherhood is a challenging and difficult chore that is poorly remunerated and is often thankless. There will be a lot of time for the lady to pursue herself and her independence if she chooses not to have children, which is something the modern-day woman is also open to.
This is less story-like than the remnants I recall from Nightwood, but is a lot more upbeat and a significantly shorter book. Nevertheless, the linguistic complexity and abstruse allusions that Barnes makes in this book make it rather impenetrable for most readers. I don't even claim understanding: I do claim amusement.
February 18, 2022
I can't say that this was a "good" or "enjoyable" read but it does end with the Natalie Clifford Barney character's tongue, which survived her cremation, placed upon an altar and still "flicker[ing] to this day'
October 8, 2024
Termino este libro en el tren, de madrugada. Es un libro sobre mujeres a las que les gustan otras mujeres, sin romanticismos. Un libro sarcástico e irónico, con sorprendentes referencias —casi actuales— a situaciones que una reconoce desde dentro y, por lo visto, desde cualquier época. Qué importante es escribir sobre la diversidad, sobre todas las realidades, la nuestra, porque —como dice este libro— ‘provocar el sentimiento de no existencia o de existencia dramática no deja de ser una buena estrategia para la aniquilación’.
December 31, 2024
I think I mostly just didn't get it. Apparently this is a lot of inside jokes between Barnes and her friends so it makes sense that I wouldn't get a lot of it; and perhaps I need more historical context to understand the other pieces. However, the pieces that did make sense were interesting.
April 3, 2024
me encanta el concepto del libro, pero en realidad no tiene sentido, ni siquiera la propia djuna barnes cuando lo leyó en su vejez entendió lo que pretendía decir cuando lo escribió, creo que simplemente fue una coña entre amigas (lo cual tampoco está nada mal)
Puntuación real 7/10
Puntuación real 7/10
October 28, 2020
lebanese <3 xx
August 13, 2011
While I did find this book to be very amusing, the archaic style that Barnes uses here makes for a lot of plodding reading, much of the time spent thinking, "what the hell does that mean?" I had the same feelings reading Nightwood long ago. The complexity of language is certainly not a bad thing, but it definitely puts a little more of a strain on the reader.
The structure of the book is both comical and interesting. The sections, for instance, which explain the hooscope, the antiquated illustrations, and theage as passing months motif combine in a novel way here.
Overall, if you like experimental writing in general, this is an enjoyable read. Otherwise, you might become frustrated by the word-play and seeming nonsense passages.
The structure of the book is both comical and interesting. The sections, for instance, which explain the hooscope, the antiquated illustrations, and theage as passing months motif combine in a novel way here.
Overall, if you like experimental writing in general, this is an enjoyable read. Otherwise, you might become frustrated by the word-play and seeming nonsense passages.
June 30, 2009
I found this silly little book in the stacks of the UGA library, and read it in about an hour. Some of the women mentioned in its pages were followers of G.I. Gurdjieff in Paris in the twenties, and it is mostly because of my interest in them that I picked it up. As spoofs go, I prefer the one of Milne's When We Were Six, anonymously written and published in the twenties under the title of When We Were Rather Younger.
I know Barnes did not write hers as a spoof of a particular book, but it still fits the general parameters. Not bad to fill an odd hour, but not good enough to invest much more than that.
I know Barnes did not write hers as a spoof of a particular book, but it still fits the general parameters. Not bad to fill an odd hour, but not good enough to invest much more than that.
June 23, 2008
I found this buried in a dark corner of the Brooklyn library. It is a weird little story written with lots of old-fashioned language about the goings-on among this group of ladies with funny names. It has a chapter for each month of the year and also a cute illustration for each one, but I got the feeling that it was all a big inside joke with the people in her circle who were supposed to be the models for the characters. The introduction said it was not really written to be published and I was feeling that. Stick to Nightwood. And her short stories.
December 27, 2007
I can only really summarize by quoting the back cover - "an affectionate lampoon of the expatriate lesbian community in Paris...in 1928...in a robust style taken from...Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy..." - a quick and amusing read, a keepable artifict, mostly courtesy of Barnes' illustrations - reads a bit like the kind of undergraduate in-joke on some semi-illicit subject - start with Nightwood or Ryder of course.
January 23, 2008
When I read the book jacket for this, I totally thought I'd love it. After all, satire of a lesbian expatriot community in the form of Elizabethan ladies almanacs? It had all the makings of something grand.
Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into it. It was only once I got to the endnotes that I discovered the comparisons to James Joyce. They should have put that on the jacket!
Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into it. It was only once I got to the endnotes that I discovered the comparisons to James Joyce. They should have put that on the jacket!
February 15, 2008
this is kind of a parody of women's magazines of barnes' time period, combined with a satirical lesbian conversion narrative. pretty awesome. great illustrations. lots of inside jokes that i didn't get, but that i recognized as having had the potential to be very very funny, had i, in fact, gotten them.
February 20, 2013
As far as smugly witty Shakespeare-inspired depictions of the 1920s Paris lesbian scene go, this probably the pinnacle. Barnes, a 1920s Parisian lesbian, makes fun of all the other lesbians she knows, good-naturedly overall, mind you. Ribald and hilarious, but little here for the wank bank, people, get your minds out of the gutter! This is art!
April 5, 2013
I throughly enjoyed this. It was like a glimpse into an in-joke among lesbian life in Paris. It was a very amusing style and the descriptions were fun. I particularly like the part where the Radclyiff Hall character and her partner were complaining that they weren't able to get married in England. It's nice that that's finally changing.
July 26, 2015
A short, personal tongue-in-cheek pamphlet valorize and lampoon the expatriate lesbian scene in Paris. Each 'chapter' is of a calendar and the writing is a collection of aphorism and fragments of fables. The language is some pidgin of overwrought Victorianism and playful medieval singsong. Kind of a short Finnegans Wake with lesbians. Pretty awesome.
September 10, 2013
I don't know, had to read it over again with a list of who is who etc. Clearly not meant for a very large audience, tak.
August 4, 2022
What the fuck did I just read?
Before I started this book, I feel it should've been prefaced with a warning: in order to understand the oncoming story, you must be familiar with every lesbian who ever graced Natalie Barney's saloon with her presence.
On the surface, the novel sounds accessible; a queer romp throughout the sapphic world of 1920s Paris, filled with satirical digs and lewd references which cared little for the decency laws they flouted.
AND YET.
Every character is based on someone Barnes knew in her lifetime. The author of the first explicitly lesbian novel to be published in English modernism - The Well of Loneliness' Radclyffe Hall - makes an appearance as Barnes' 'Lady Buck-and-Balk', who is involved in a discussion of queer fidelity and the lack of legal protections for sapphic lovers ('What has England done to legalize these Passions? Nothing!)
Whilst this must've been very amusing for Barnes contemporary readers (who were either within the Parisian queer inner circle, handed one of the thousand privately printed copies on the city's streets, or reading a version smuggled across the American border), it did result in my feeling that I was constantly missing the crux of the joke.
You know when you're invited to an event, only to realise in horror that everyone else attending already knows each other? That is how this book feels. You're sitting in a room full of friends outwardly smiling, internally asking WHAT IS GOING ON?
However, despite this unknowability, once you give yourself away to it you can start to enjoy the (confusing) ride. Serious matters of discussion lurk behind this satirical piss-up.
I found the references to the intersections between gender and sexuality particularly modern in comparison to other contemporary texts. In the time when lesbian inclinations were viewed to equal a 'third sex' (thanks, sexology!), seeds of this mentality remain: Musset contemplates how she had been 'developed in the womb of her most gentle mother to be a boy', yet when 'she came forth an Inch or so less than this, she paid no Heed to the Error.' Despite her love of women, Musset declares that she had 'never [...] that Greek Mystery occurred to me, which is known as the Dashing out of the Testicles, and all that goes with it!', proving to be as radical as she is lewd. (Considering that Hall is actually characterised in this book, three guesses as to who shes taking shots at here...)
Other highlights include:
- Assuming every woman is a lesbian
- being bewildered at the existence of the 'straight friend' (sorry, Mina Loy)
- wanting to 'do away with man altogether!'
- wondered for paragraphs on end how to describe the perfection of femininity. ('I have tried all means, Mathematical, Poetical, Statistical and Reasonable, to come to the Core of this Distemper, known as Girls! Girls! And can nowhere find where a Woman got the Account that makes her such a deft Worker at the Single Beatitude. Who gave her the Directions for it, the necessary Computation and Turpitude? Where, and in what dark Chamber was the Tree so cut of Life, that the Branch turned to the Branch, and made of the Cuttings a Garden of Ecstasy?')
- The scene where Musset seduces Eve from the biblical origin story? At least, I think that's what happens?
But the best part has to be the funeral scene of Musset. I could not believe my eyes. A hundred women- from the openly queer to the 'women who had not told their husbands everything' - join the procession, praying to her. Yet when they take the ashes from the fire 'all had burned but the tongue', which remains atop of her urn, still 'flicking to this day.'
Damn, bitch went out with a bang.
Before I started this book, I feel it should've been prefaced with a warning: in order to understand the oncoming story, you must be familiar with every lesbian who ever graced Natalie Barney's saloon with her presence.
On the surface, the novel sounds accessible; a queer romp throughout the sapphic world of 1920s Paris, filled with satirical digs and lewd references which cared little for the decency laws they flouted.
AND YET.
Every character is based on someone Barnes knew in her lifetime. The author of the first explicitly lesbian novel to be published in English modernism - The Well of Loneliness' Radclyffe Hall - makes an appearance as Barnes' 'Lady Buck-and-Balk', who is involved in a discussion of queer fidelity and the lack of legal protections for sapphic lovers ('What has England done to legalize these Passions? Nothing!)
Whilst this must've been very amusing for Barnes contemporary readers (who were either within the Parisian queer inner circle, handed one of the thousand privately printed copies on the city's streets, or reading a version smuggled across the American border), it did result in my feeling that I was constantly missing the crux of the joke.
You know when you're invited to an event, only to realise in horror that everyone else attending already knows each other? That is how this book feels. You're sitting in a room full of friends outwardly smiling, internally asking WHAT IS GOING ON?
However, despite this unknowability, once you give yourself away to it you can start to enjoy the (confusing) ride. Serious matters of discussion lurk behind this satirical piss-up.
I found the references to the intersections between gender and sexuality particularly modern in comparison to other contemporary texts. In the time when lesbian inclinations were viewed to equal a 'third sex' (thanks, sexology!), seeds of this mentality remain: Musset contemplates how she had been 'developed in the womb of her most gentle mother to be a boy', yet when 'she came forth an Inch or so less than this, she paid no Heed to the Error.' Despite her love of women, Musset declares that she had 'never [...] that Greek Mystery occurred to me, which is known as the Dashing out of the Testicles, and all that goes with it!', proving to be as radical as she is lewd. (Considering that Hall is actually characterised in this book, three guesses as to who shes taking shots at here...)
Other highlights include:
- Assuming every woman is a lesbian
- being bewildered at the existence of the 'straight friend' (sorry, Mina Loy)
- wanting to 'do away with man altogether!'
- wondered for paragraphs on end how to describe the perfection of femininity. ('I have tried all means, Mathematical, Poetical, Statistical and Reasonable, to come to the Core of this Distemper, known as Girls! Girls! And can nowhere find where a Woman got the Account that makes her such a deft Worker at the Single Beatitude. Who gave her the Directions for it, the necessary Computation and Turpitude? Where, and in what dark Chamber was the Tree so cut of Life, that the Branch turned to the Branch, and made of the Cuttings a Garden of Ecstasy?')
- The scene where Musset seduces Eve from the biblical origin story? At least, I think that's what happens?
But the best part has to be the funeral scene of Musset. I could not believe my eyes. A hundred women- from the openly queer to the 'women who had not told their husbands everything' - join the procession, praying to her. Yet when they take the ashes from the fire 'all had burned but the tongue', which remains atop of her urn, still 'flicking to this day.'
Damn, bitch went out with a bang.
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