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Caitlin: a warring absence
Life with Dylan Thomas - A Warring Absence
1 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 16, 2018
I love the writing of Dylan Thomas ,also loved this mad passionate book about their wild life in the voice and memories of Caitlin Thomas. Madly in love and young right at the start ,moving from house to house to friends houses finally to the beloved Boat House on the estuary beautiful.They never had much but they did have poetry, beautiful children,friends ,family,patrons and their companionship always deep in drinking. The more Famous he became the more upturned their life was ,all the money went to drink and parties ,so they often went without much clothes and food and schooling. very chaotic and sometimes violent with some beautiful moments. I enjoyed this book so much ,very honest and painful with such deep love anyway.
February 14, 2010
Read this book over 20 years ago. I'm hoping to travel to Wales in the fall so I decided to reread this book about the wife of its most famous poet. I have always been interested in the wives of creative people, especially in the early part of the 20th century. Their lives were not easy. This is basically written as Caitlin spoke. I found it fascinating, if not for what these women put up with, but also what she dished out.
January 1, 2022
Clearly being a wife of a genius is no walk in the park, and when Caitlin bitterly admits in the end that her life was probably better because Dylan Thomas died when he did — you just can't judge her or even be surprised.
She is an intelligent, wilful, strong woman and her memoire makes for an interesting read, as she is brutally honest about her life, even when it doesn't make her look good. Not that DT deserved good, for that matter. He was and remains one of the greatest poets ever to write in English, an undisputed genius and one of my personal favourites, but omg he was a dreadful husband, a barely passable father and a complete alcoholic on top of everything else.
Despite everything she loved him until the end and she thinks he loved her too. After all these years, in the end, as Metallica said so very wisely, nothing else matters.
She is an intelligent, wilful, strong woman and her memoire makes for an interesting read, as she is brutally honest about her life, even when it doesn't make her look good. Not that DT deserved good, for that matter. He was and remains one of the greatest poets ever to write in English, an undisputed genius and one of my personal favourites, but omg he was a dreadful husband, a barely passable father and a complete alcoholic on top of everything else.
Despite everything she loved him until the end and she thinks he loved her too. After all these years, in the end, as Metallica said so very wisely, nothing else matters.
May 2, 2012
I was eager to read about the “raw, bleeding meat” of a relationship between one of my favorite poets and the love of his life (or twin soul) Caitlin. When he described his relationship as raw and bleeding, I thought lusty/passionate/intense when I really should have took it in a more literal way...his wife would honestly beat the piss out of him. He would whimper, cry and then crawl into bed which was the “time out” zone for quiet and milk with salted bread.
It took me about a hundred pages to warm up to Caitlin. She is very blunt and I wondered in the first pages if this were an airing of grievances rather than sharing her story, or if she was trying to shock the reader as she did to myself when she just flatly explains how her Father’s friend raped her. Eventually I warmed up to her. There is an intimate feel to the book as if sitting down to coffee with Caitlin and I needed a while to feel comfortable with her. I am not one of those please shield me from the truth sorts and really appreciated by the end the very thing that put me off at the start. I know that many of the things that Caitlin says makes her quite unlovable, but her confessions not only of Dylan but her often uninhibited descriptions of her own behaviour made it clear to me that she was not just out to sink Dylan but that their story is quite a sad one, she is mourning their love still and that it was nearly as painful to live with Dylan (or herself) as it was to be apart.
The only thing I have difficulty reconciling is that he was so damn short and that he was such a crappy lover. I suppose this is why I he needed so many lovers but I would have thought this would have increased his skills & confidence. Maybe he needed to hold Caitlin in a different sort of way, it seems as though he needed her like a little boy cries for his Mother. It would make sense too, when you read his poetry and all that flesh/blood/birth/tomb business. Women are scary.
I would recommend having beside you a copy of “The Love Letters of Dylan Thomas” so that you can read his first letters to Caitlin: “write to me soon, very very soon, and tell me you really mean the things you said about you loving me too; if you don’t I shall cut my throat or go to the pictures”(so funny) to get a true taste of what she was dealing with on a daily basis and then you get more back story to his letters, which are amusing on their own but when you know why he gives little nicknames like “Marged Gin Woman” or “pudding faced Vera” it makes it all the more funny.
He was such a charmer stopping just short of “tuberculosis and orphans” (pg 111 of Love letters) to woo people into giving him nearly everything. My favorite story from the book is when Caitlin while at a grand party grew tired of watching Dylan swoon one of his (many) rich patronesses and so she decided to slip upstairs to the woman’s room and steal herself a dress as compensation.
It took me about a hundred pages to warm up to Caitlin. She is very blunt and I wondered in the first pages if this were an airing of grievances rather than sharing her story, or if she was trying to shock the reader as she did to myself when she just flatly explains how her Father’s friend raped her. Eventually I warmed up to her. There is an intimate feel to the book as if sitting down to coffee with Caitlin and I needed a while to feel comfortable with her. I am not one of those please shield me from the truth sorts and really appreciated by the end the very thing that put me off at the start. I know that many of the things that Caitlin says makes her quite unlovable, but her confessions not only of Dylan but her often uninhibited descriptions of her own behaviour made it clear to me that she was not just out to sink Dylan but that their story is quite a sad one, she is mourning their love still and that it was nearly as painful to live with Dylan (or herself) as it was to be apart.
The only thing I have difficulty reconciling is that he was so damn short and that he was such a crappy lover. I suppose this is why I he needed so many lovers but I would have thought this would have increased his skills & confidence. Maybe he needed to hold Caitlin in a different sort of way, it seems as though he needed her like a little boy cries for his Mother. It would make sense too, when you read his poetry and all that flesh/blood/birth/tomb business. Women are scary.
I would recommend having beside you a copy of “The Love Letters of Dylan Thomas” so that you can read his first letters to Caitlin: “write to me soon, very very soon, and tell me you really mean the things you said about you loving me too; if you don’t I shall cut my throat or go to the pictures”(so funny) to get a true taste of what she was dealing with on a daily basis and then you get more back story to his letters, which are amusing on their own but when you know why he gives little nicknames like “Marged Gin Woman” or “pudding faced Vera” it makes it all the more funny.
He was such a charmer stopping just short of “tuberculosis and orphans” (pg 111 of Love letters) to woo people into giving him nearly everything. My favorite story from the book is when Caitlin while at a grand party grew tired of watching Dylan swoon one of his (many) rich patronesses and so she decided to slip upstairs to the woman’s room and steal herself a dress as compensation.
January 31, 2009
This is an interesting read for anyone 1) familiar with Dylan Thomas' work and 2) fascinated by the bohemian/drunken lifestyle of artists and authors in London in the 40s and 50s.
August 6, 2024
This is such a revealing and absorbing tale told from the perspective of the wife of THE Dylan Thomas. Though the pair were miserably misled concerning Truth and Lifestyle, nevertheless their lives and the culture of the time make for a hypnotic re-telling.
April 1, 2018
Underbar!
February 1, 2021
Bought this from the bookshop in Laugharne, owned by the author. Called one of my daughters Caitlin.....this captured DT's life more than any other bio.
August 3, 2016
This book made me want to drink-in a melancholy and determined way, it made me want to read more dylan thomas, it made me want to never marry young, to never watch someone change away from me, never try and keep hold on someone or ever believe that people change. I like her complete commitment to the truth throughout-she does not shield either her or him from critiscism. I related to a lot of it, in that sickening way.
November 22, 2014
Read this years ago. Still remember vividly scenes in it where Dylan and Caitlin would leave their children alone in their house to go down the pub drinking till closing time every evening and the stew on the stove which would be continuously cooking for days (with the green skimmed off the top from time to time).
September 2, 2012
Dylan Thomas's widow's autobiography is raw, and unsparing.
December 28, 2012
What could be more enticing than the explosive amalgamation of genius, debauchery, and marriage? Fascinating and tragic. You'll get a hangover just from reading it.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews