By Heart: Elizabeth Smart A Life

by Rosemary Sullivan

"The price of life is pain, since the price of comfort is damnation." 

Sensuously beautiful, intensely passionate, generous to a fault — and one of the century's most brilliant writers of poetic prose — Elizabeth Smart carved her own destiny through sheer determination, strength and perserverance. In By Heart , the first biography of Smart, Rosemary Sullivan recounts the author's childhood in Ottawa as the second daughter of an affluent and well-connected family. Inspired by romantic notions of rebellion, Smart rejected what she perceived to be a colonistic literary community and entered a long period of self-imposed exile, desperate to escape family and country, and willing to sacrifice both wealth and propriety in favour of freedom. 
     During her frequent trips to Europe, New York, California and Mexico, Smart came to know many of the important writers of the day, including W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and Lawrence Durrell. While browsing in a London bookstore, she discovered the poetry of George Barker and instantly fell in love with the married poet. They met. Thus began one of the most intense, extraordinary and scandalous love affairs of our time. 
     Their passionate and troubled relationship inspired Smart's By Grand Central Station, I Sat Down and Wept , which critic Brigid Bronphy has called one of the world's half dozen masterpieces of poetic prose. Partly because of the difficulties in single-handedly raising the four children she had with George Barker, and partly because of her own lack of confidence, it would be thirty-two years before Smart published a second novel. 
     By Heart explores the career of a woman writer in the 1940 the struggle to speak when silence is seductive, the battle against a profound sense of inadequacy, the release and elation that comes out of the pain of writing. The life of Elizabeth Smart is a story of extremes, of life as the supreme fiction. As Smart asks in her final journals, "Can I be contented with my lot? Well, I danced."

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

432 pages, Paperback

Published February 4, 1992

About the author

Rosemary Sullivan is a Canadian poet, biographer, and anthologist. She is also a professor emerita at University of Toronto.

Reviews

[David]

I might call it a sad story, but despite everything that went wrong in her life, Elizabeth Smart probably wouldn't agree with me. Definitely a story of persistence. Also of someone who wanted to define her own way, and yet was frequently very troubled by people who refused to accept her own way, not least of whom was her mother. Smart's own life as a mother is full of challenges as well. She did always seem to be finding something to learn. She appears to have never lost the desire to keep her mind open, even if, on some days, it was hard to find the will to do so. One of her Canadian contacts is quoted as having said "a person like Elizabeth is better to read about than to cope with in the flesh." That describes the way a lot of people reacted to her. That's not fair, but it may be accurate.

[Becky Wolsk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because I'm interested in anything that Rosemary Sullivan writes, and because I was interested in Elizabeth Smart's obsession with George Barker. I liked how much of Smart's writing was quoted, but like most biographies I read, I wish this had been shorter.

[Kate M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed this book, it was simply too long.

[Karin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried. Really I did. I tried to understand how Elizabeth's early life experiences shaped her. But I had difficulty getting past all the dysfunction. She was presented as thinking she could do whatever she wanted without having to face any consequences of her actions. It was perfectly rational that she hate her lover's wife or have crazy parties while her small children were upstairs trying to sleep...so many poor decisions that hurt her and those around her. Two stars because the writing was decent...I just couldn't get on board with the main character.

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent biography of Elizabeth Smart. I can't get enough of this lady!