A Perilous Advantage: The Best of Natalie Clifford Barney

by Natalie Clifford Barney, Anna Livia (Editor, Translator, Afterword), Karla Jay (Introduction)

Finally, the writing of one of the century's most notorious lesbians is available in English. Though best known for hosting the avant garde of Paris for thirty years, Colette, Renee Vivien, Marcel Proust and Gertrude Stein, to mention a few, she was also a writer who challenged the male-dominated literary establishment both in the content and the form of her work. Now we can discover her views on the people, places and events of that exciting and stimulating era for ourselves. Here is a spirited translation of Barney's thought-provoking work by one of Britain's most interesting writers.

Genres: Lesbian, Nonfiction, LGBT, Memoir, France, Queer, Poetry

198 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Natalie Clifford Barney (31 October 1876 – 2 February 1972) was an American expatriate who lived, wrote and hosted a literary salon in Paris. She was a noted poet, memoirist and epigrammatist.

Barney's salon was held at her home on Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years and brought together writers and artists from around the world, including many leading figures in French literature along with American and British Modernists of the Lost Generation. She worked to promote writing by women and formed a "Women's Academy" in response to the all-male French Academy while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote.

She was openly lesbian and began publishing love poems to women under her own name as early as 1900, considering scandal as "the best way of getting rid of nuisances". In her writings she supported feminism, paganism and pacifism. She opposed monogamy and had many overlapping, long and short-term relationships, including an on-and-off romance with poet Renée Vivien and a 50-year relationship with painter Romaine Brooks. Her life and love affairs served as inspiration for many novels, ranging from the salacious French bestseller Sapphic Idyll to The Well of Loneliness, arguably the most famous lesbian novel of the 20th century.[3]

Reviews

[au]

2nd read: I adore Natalie Barney. I reread at least one of her books every year (usually Women Lovers, aka my favorite book of all time) on what I call a "pilgrimage" to her Temple of Friendship. I can't recommend this enough if you are getting into the whole 1900s-lesbian-Paris circle. The first chapter, while mainly focusing on Renee Vivien, also serves as an early autobiography on Natalie's life. This is my favorite chapter of the whole book; haunted by death, lilies, and Renee's legacy. I also like that this collection includes Natalie's English writings, such as 'The Woman Who Lives With Me' and her introduction to one of Gertrude Stein's book, quite rare as she mainly wrote in French. You will also find Natalie's most famous quotes ("Barneyisms") here.

Though I found that Livia abridged some of the writings (on cross reference with the original French), which wasn't stated in this book. (Ex. excluding some lines of the pensees from Éparpillements, abridging the chapters of Cinq petits dialogues grecs) Other than that, highly recommend.

"Unable to live either with or without her, I do not know what I found more painful: our endangered meetings, our separations or our attempts at fidelity. Like so many other lovers, we had not finished with those "bitter farewells which do not last" and those exhilarating but short-lived reconciliations. Separated from each other, then irresistibly drawn towards one another, losing ourselves once again. Our abiding love went through all the phases of a mortal attachment. Perhaps death was the only thing which would end it." (48: Renee Vivien)

1st read: Second thing I've read from Natalie Barney. Her life and the lives of her circle is just so fascinating; all these love affairs and the connections between people. I enjoyed Women Lovers, or The Third Woman just a bit more, but both, though translations, are rich in character with beautiful sentences. I like that there are passages of poetry and prose from other authors that Natalie includes. The epigrams I couldn't exactly get into, but Natalie's portraits on the people she knew were lovely. I especially enjoyed the chapters of Renee Vivien and Colette.

[Nikki]

“Being other than normal is a perilous advantage. And does one not need a more tempered courage to live one’s life than to sacrifice oneself to some duty or other?”
“The first novel, Adam and Eve’s, has been overprinted.”
“Does it not take more courage to dare to be oneself than to conform to contemporary morality?”

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Vivian Matsui]

Ok só porque estou meio que stalkeando a Renée Vivien, se é que é possível stalkear mortos, e tem um grande capítulo sobre ela aqui neste livro.
Fora isso, tem umas "máximas" da Barney, algumas que grifei, poucas. Então deu para aproveitar mesmo outras partes do livro. O capítulo sobre a Gertrude Stein também foi interessante, E da Colette.

[cryptid jade]

around a year or two ago I fell into a hole where I needed to read everything I could about Natalie Barney and Renee Vivien this helped me fill that never-ending desire, now I need to read all of Renees work that has been translated

[Rosie]

I thought this was interesting. Not fantastic, and very fragmented, but certainly worth the read. That aphorism of Barney’s which mimics Wilde—that she put her genius into her life not into her writing, or something along those lines—feels very accurate, as I think a biography or a memoir would be more compelling than her writing itself. I didn’t like the introduction; it was too postmodernist and it felt obnoxious in its word play and its use of parentheses to seem clever and subversive. The afterword by the translator, Anna Livia, was interesting in what it discussed, but not really in the way the writing was formatted; again, it was postmodernist. Or postmodernist-influenced. Why, oh why, is all writing on women from the 90’s afflicted by this terrible curse?? I didn’t like how she skirted around saying what her meaning was. She seemed to be trying to say something, to make some point, but never said it outright. It was confusing and annoying. Anyway, the bulk of the work in this book is by Barney, not by the woman who introduces the book, nor by the one who translates it, so I shouldn’t let my enjoyment be tainted by them. I think I liked the beginning the best, with the recountings of the love affairs Barney had. (Well, only 2 of them.) The witticisms were fun, but got a little boring, and not all of them were great. One of my favorite parts was her commentary on Gide—that was fascinating to me, since I’ve read some things by Gide and find him interesting. Also, her encounter(s) with Alfred Douglas and Olive Custance. I was pleasantly surprised by how feminist (in some senses—in others she seemed to be mimicking chauvinist males) she was. Overall, anyway, this was okay.

Quotations:

“Although he enjoyed the protection of a cousin at the English Embassy, my parents would not allow me to receive him. I was therefore reduced to driving him in my carriage through the surrounding woods. I had to advise him to leave this hostile country and return to Opale, who loved him still, whereas I had no desire to get married on any condition despite Opale’s insistence. She reproached me for not considering her ‘Prince Charming’, her ‘golden boy good enough for me’.
“As he listened, Lord Alfred nervously twisted a little ring which Opale had placed upon his finger. He soon returned to her and she, on a sudden impulse, ran away with him.
“Unable to attend their wedding, or the birth of their son—whose godparents Freddy and I were to be—we wondered what present to give the child. We decided upon a set of opals which he could use as marbles.
“This unfortunate child, handsome but half-mad, had no need of those unlucky stones to go the way of another Douglas, for he killed himself upon reaching puberty. Opale and ‘Bosie’ continued to live together, more for worse than for better.” (35)

“Gide’s version of the medieval cult of the Madonna and the Lady, or the Lady and the Madonna, is characterized by his lack of attention to women in general and to his own wife in particular, for whom he felt an unbounded respect, so that he could indulge in his innate taste for boys without hindrance. Given his ‘perverse’ personality, he was perhaps never so fond of his wife as when he was cheating on her.” (82)

“Gide, while proclaiming the right to homosexuality, has done nothing to raise it above the level of heterosexuality, quite the reverse! People have told me that Gide is to be praised for playing an important role in destroying the sense of sin which has weighed on the conscience of innumerable young men with homosexual tendencies. Does this good deed offset the bad example Gide set them of promiscuity reduced to the level of erotic need? This example, which too many pederasts have followed, tends to degrade what is intended to elevate above contemporary morality and would be a good argument in favour of conformity.” (83-4)

“How many men want to be our lovers who are not worthy to be our valets.” (104) Ha! I bet the women of today would love this.

“‘Staying young,’ trying to arrest one’s development instead of evolving, keeping one’s person free of personality. Faces, tell your secrets, become ‘human documents’ worthy of our study.” (116)

“He accumulated a wide vocabulary and waited all his life for an idea.” (119)

“It is time for dead languages to keep quiet.” (120) Pfft.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)]

DNF on page 40. Oh how impressed with ourselves we are. All of us.
Yawn.
If this is "the best" I'd hate to see the worst.
Pretentious, thy name is Natalie.

[Richard Cressey]

Natalie Clifford Barney was one of many Americans living in Paris during the interwar years. Rich and clever she held her Friday salon at her  home, 20 rue Jacob in Paris's Left Bank for more than 60 years. Over the years she was able to bring together writers and artists from around the world, including many leading figures in French literature along with American and British Modernists of the 'Lost Generation' She worked to promote writing by women and formed a "Women's Academy" (L'Académie des Femmes) in response to the all-male French Academy while also giving support and inspiration to male writers from Remy de Gourmont to Truman Capote. In this book, translated from the French by Anna Livia, she gives accounts of some of her acquaintances.including Collette, Gertrude Stein, Remy de Gourmont. Worth a read.