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Bid Me to Live: A Madrigal
hard to find first edition
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
About the author
H.D.
123 books351 followersAn innovative modernist American writer, Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961) wrote under her initials in a career that stretched from 1909 to 1961. H.D., most well known for her lyric and epic poetry, also wrote novels, memoirs, short stories, essays, reviews, a children’s book, and translations. An American woman who lived her adult life abroad, H.D. was engaged in the formalist experimentation that preoccupied much of her generation. A range of thematic concerns resonates through her writing: the role of the poet, the civilian representation of war, material and mythologized ancient cultures, the role of national and colonial identity, lesbian and queer sexuality, and religion and spirituality.
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August 27, 2017
This is in actuality a roman a clef; a novel involving real people who have been given invented names. HD was the pen name of Hilda Doolittle, an American Imagist poet and novelist who moved to London in 1911. Doolittle is a fascinating character. Initially she was part of a group centred on Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. This novel is set in the First World War (about 1917), after Doolittle had married Aldington and it charts the disintegration of the marriage.
Doolittle was bisexual and later lived with the English novelist Bryher (Annie Ellerman). From the early 1920s until 1946 they lived together. They both also had male partners/husbands, sometimes sharing the same one. HD had a lifelong struggle with her mental health and in the 1930s travelled to see Freud for psychoanalysis. She has written a memoir of this.
Bid Me to Live, as well as being a roman a clef is also a war novel, charting the experiences of wartime London and the community of writers who revolved around Doolittle. Julia is Doolittle herself and Julia’s husband Rafe Ashton is Richard Aldington. Rafe’s mistress, Bella Carter (who lived on the floor above Julia and Rafe) is Dorothy Yorke. Vane, with whom Julia goes to Cornwall towards the end of the novel is Cecil Gray, father of Doolittle’s only child. Rico is DH Lawrence and Rico’s wife Elsa is Frieda Lawrence. There was a period in 1917 when Lawrence and Frieda shared Doolittle’s flat in Mecklenburgh Square. The creative spark of the novel centres on the relationship between Lawrence and Doolittle. They were close friends, but very different and ideological opponents; attracted and repulsed at the same time. It is a complex relationship which Doolittle explores very effectively. There is homage as well as love/hate. Lawrence wrote about the relationship in Aaron’s Rod. Bid Me to Live was not published until 1960 and was rewritten many times. The naming is interesting. Julia is the name Lawrence gives to his caricature of Doolittle in Aaron’s Rod and here Doolittle reclaims it for herself. The name Rico, given to Lawrence is also significant. In Lawrence’s novel St Mawr, Rico is the name of the artist-husband of the heroine Lou Witt; he fails her and she abandons him to find her true self. Doolittle also takes the opportunity to look at the way Lawrence writes;
“Rico could write elaborately on the woman mood, describe women to their marrow in his writing; but if she turned around, wrote the Orpheus part of the Orpheus-Eurydice sequence, he snapped back, “Stick to the woman-consciousness, it is the intuitive woman mood that matters.” He was right about that, of course. But if he could enter so diabolically, into the feelings of women, why should not she enter into the feelings of men.”
Julia has rescinded this concession to Lawrence by the end of the book. Rico “had shouted his man-is-man, his woman-is-woman at her; his shrill peacock-cry sounded a love-cry, death-cry for their generation.” Julia responds, “that was his problem. It was a man’s problem, the man-artist. There was also the woman, not only the great mother-goddess that he worshipped, but the woman gifted as the man, with the same, with other problems. Each two people making four people. As she and Rafe had been at the beginning.” Julia concludes: “So, Rico, your puppets do not always dance to your pipe. Why? Because there is another show!” The focus is on female creativity.
This is a modernist novel where all the action takes place in the consciousness of the central character. There is an experimental feel to it and the opening paragraph illustrates this;
“Oh, the times, oh the customs! Oh, indeed the times! The customs! Their own specifically, but part and parcel of the cosmic, comic, crucifying times of history. Times liberated, set whirling outmoded romanticism; Punch and Judy danced with Jocasta and Philoctetes, while wrestlers sprawling in an Uffizi or Pitti flung garish, horizon-blue across gallant and idiotic Sir Philip Sidneyisms. It was a time of isms. And the Ballet.”
The frame of the action; the first eight of the eleven chapters is the room where Julia and Rafe lived (Rafe only when he was on leave). Doolittle muddles genres and genders. The influence of Freud is clear and there is a fascinating couple of pages about Van Gogh. The whole is a well-crafted account of a time and place and a good corrective to some of the myths around Lawrence
Not sure why this isn’t on any of those 1001 lists, it should be!
Doolittle was bisexual and later lived with the English novelist Bryher (Annie Ellerman). From the early 1920s until 1946 they lived together. They both also had male partners/husbands, sometimes sharing the same one. HD had a lifelong struggle with her mental health and in the 1930s travelled to see Freud for psychoanalysis. She has written a memoir of this.
Bid Me to Live, as well as being a roman a clef is also a war novel, charting the experiences of wartime London and the community of writers who revolved around Doolittle. Julia is Doolittle herself and Julia’s husband Rafe Ashton is Richard Aldington. Rafe’s mistress, Bella Carter (who lived on the floor above Julia and Rafe) is Dorothy Yorke. Vane, with whom Julia goes to Cornwall towards the end of the novel is Cecil Gray, father of Doolittle’s only child. Rico is DH Lawrence and Rico’s wife Elsa is Frieda Lawrence. There was a period in 1917 when Lawrence and Frieda shared Doolittle’s flat in Mecklenburgh Square. The creative spark of the novel centres on the relationship between Lawrence and Doolittle. They were close friends, but very different and ideological opponents; attracted and repulsed at the same time. It is a complex relationship which Doolittle explores very effectively. There is homage as well as love/hate. Lawrence wrote about the relationship in Aaron’s Rod. Bid Me to Live was not published until 1960 and was rewritten many times. The naming is interesting. Julia is the name Lawrence gives to his caricature of Doolittle in Aaron’s Rod and here Doolittle reclaims it for herself. The name Rico, given to Lawrence is also significant. In Lawrence’s novel St Mawr, Rico is the name of the artist-husband of the heroine Lou Witt; he fails her and she abandons him to find her true self. Doolittle also takes the opportunity to look at the way Lawrence writes;
“Rico could write elaborately on the woman mood, describe women to their marrow in his writing; but if she turned around, wrote the Orpheus part of the Orpheus-Eurydice sequence, he snapped back, “Stick to the woman-consciousness, it is the intuitive woman mood that matters.” He was right about that, of course. But if he could enter so diabolically, into the feelings of women, why should not she enter into the feelings of men.”
Julia has rescinded this concession to Lawrence by the end of the book. Rico “had shouted his man-is-man, his woman-is-woman at her; his shrill peacock-cry sounded a love-cry, death-cry for their generation.” Julia responds, “that was his problem. It was a man’s problem, the man-artist. There was also the woman, not only the great mother-goddess that he worshipped, but the woman gifted as the man, with the same, with other problems. Each two people making four people. As she and Rafe had been at the beginning.” Julia concludes: “So, Rico, your puppets do not always dance to your pipe. Why? Because there is another show!” The focus is on female creativity.
This is a modernist novel where all the action takes place in the consciousness of the central character. There is an experimental feel to it and the opening paragraph illustrates this;
“Oh, the times, oh the customs! Oh, indeed the times! The customs! Their own specifically, but part and parcel of the cosmic, comic, crucifying times of history. Times liberated, set whirling outmoded romanticism; Punch and Judy danced with Jocasta and Philoctetes, while wrestlers sprawling in an Uffizi or Pitti flung garish, horizon-blue across gallant and idiotic Sir Philip Sidneyisms. It was a time of isms. And the Ballet.”
The frame of the action; the first eight of the eleven chapters is the room where Julia and Rafe lived (Rafe only when he was on leave). Doolittle muddles genres and genders. The influence of Freud is clear and there is a fascinating couple of pages about Van Gogh. The whole is a well-crafted account of a time and place and a good corrective to some of the myths around Lawrence
Not sure why this isn’t on any of those 1001 lists, it should be!
March 2, 2007
I first read this book in a class at SLU taught by Dr. Ferrari and absolutely fell in love with it. Out of print, I guarded my Xeroxed copy that was supplied to us in class and searched for a bound copy of this gem for years and finally, thanks to the interweb, found one that I've treasured. It's a story of World War I and its impact on a group of thinly veiled real ex-pat writers, like Ezra Pound. It focuses on Hilda Doolittle's alter ego - Julia - and her struggle with continuity and finding a path in a life altered by war. Fascinating, lyrical, depressing, and beautiful, this book is one that made quite an impact on me and is an eternal favorite. I owe this love entirely to Dr. Rita Ferrari who was also a devotee of H.D. and so enraptured by this novel that she photocopied her copy for all of us to read. This is how amazing a book it really is, loves.
July 17, 2018
'Bid Me To Live' is a roman à clef, although H.D's (Hilda Doolittle) daughter, Perdita Schaffner, said that it was: "a roman à clef only technically. The names have been changed. Otherwise it is straight autobiography, a word-for-word transcript." (Quoted on page xv of the introduction by Caroline Zilboorg.) It was written in 1928, but wasn't published until 1960.
The story is that of Julia Ashton (who is H.D. herself), World War One and the end of her marriage to Rafe Ashton (who is Richard Aldington, a writer probably best known now for his post-World War One novel, 'Death of a Hero' - of which more later.) It's a novel that tells the story of how war affected women at home and how their husbands changed, but it is also the story of a woman suffering from her own wounds growing towards independence (28/11/2024) as both a person and as an artist. If the two can be separated.
It is also about people who are involved in the arts. Julia is a writer, so is Rafe. They hang out with writers - D.H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, John Cournos are all here (amongst others) in fictional form. It is packed full of references that thankfully this edition helps you to understand.
It's well-worth reading because a lot of the stories of World War One are men's stories. This would make an interesting companion piece to Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Youth' (although both stories are about the reasonably well off even if one of them is more 'bohemian' than the other.) Apparently, despite never having heard of H.D. it is interesting to discover that she and Aldington crop up in lots of fiction of the period - D.H Lawrence's 'Aaron's Rod' for example - and, of course, there is Aldington's own roman à clef 'Death of a Hero'. (28/11/2024) It is excellent on the way Rafe isn't the same person now. And neither is Julia after the loss of a child. They're both dealing with trauma, but Julia's trauma seems less important - to others - because there is a war that is going on.
(28/11/2024) I also noticed on this re-read how much H D is infused with the classics of Greece and Rome. Characters get Homeric epithets. There's an echo of Eurydice and Orpheus in the departure of Rafe to the front with the look back. Or not looking back. A lot of HD's poetry is translations of or new version of the Classics. But even with that classical infusion this is a modernist work. It plays with time and lines recur over and over: "the war will never be over" is one. But there's also aspects of 'A Room of One's Own' here. How can a women have creative independence when she's never given the space for creativity?
Someone somewhere should publish a joint edition of 'Bid Me To Live' and 'Death of a Hero' as the latter helps fill in some of the gaps of the former. (28/11/2024 - New Note) Someone at Penguin Classics should make this a Penguin Classic. If 'Death of a Hero' is a Penguin Classic so should this be.
This isn't an easy book to read but it is worthwhile. The final chapter in particular where Julia justifies (and discovers?) her own artistic 'soul' is brilliant. (28/11/2024) On re-read I actually struggled with the final chapter a little. It seems to be a letter to Rico (aka D H Lawrence) and whilst she is finding herself she still seems attached to him. She says, "We have gone away together, I realise your genius in this place. I would like to serve your genius, not only because it is personally your genius, but because it is part of this place." That "I would like to serve your genius" feels like an awkward note after what has gone before. Now, I am a bear of very little brain, so I might have misunderstood that final chapter completely, although I love the way she criticises Rico for his writing and calls on him to write like Van Gogh paints.
The story is that of Julia Ashton (who is H.D. herself), World War One and the end of her marriage to Rafe Ashton (who is Richard Aldington, a writer probably best known now for his post-World War One novel, 'Death of a Hero' - of which more later.) It's a novel that tells the story of how war affected women at home and how their husbands changed, but it is also the story of a woman suffering from her own wounds growing towards independence (28/11/2024) as both a person and as an artist. If the two can be separated.
It is also about people who are involved in the arts. Julia is a writer, so is Rafe. They hang out with writers - D.H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, John Cournos are all here (amongst others) in fictional form. It is packed full of references that thankfully this edition helps you to understand.
It's well-worth reading because a lot of the stories of World War One are men's stories. This would make an interesting companion piece to Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Youth' (although both stories are about the reasonably well off even if one of them is more 'bohemian' than the other.) Apparently, despite never having heard of H.D. it is interesting to discover that she and Aldington crop up in lots of fiction of the period - D.H Lawrence's 'Aaron's Rod' for example - and, of course, there is Aldington's own roman à clef 'Death of a Hero'. (28/11/2024) It is excellent on the way Rafe isn't the same person now. And neither is Julia after the loss of a child. They're both dealing with trauma, but Julia's trauma seems less important - to others - because there is a war that is going on.
(28/11/2024) I also noticed on this re-read how much H D is infused with the classics of Greece and Rome. Characters get Homeric epithets. There's an echo of Eurydice and Orpheus in the departure of Rafe to the front with the look back. Or not looking back. A lot of HD's poetry is translations of or new version of the Classics. But even with that classical infusion this is a modernist work. It plays with time and lines recur over and over: "the war will never be over" is one. But there's also aspects of 'A Room of One's Own' here. How can a women have creative independence when she's never given the space for creativity?
Someone somewhere should publish a joint edition of 'Bid Me To Live' and 'Death of a Hero' as the latter helps fill in some of the gaps of the former. (28/11/2024 - New Note) Someone at Penguin Classics should make this a Penguin Classic. If 'Death of a Hero' is a Penguin Classic so should this be.
This isn't an easy book to read but it is worthwhile. The final chapter in particular where Julia justifies (and discovers?) her own artistic 'soul' is brilliant. (28/11/2024) On re-read I actually struggled with the final chapter a little. It seems to be a letter to Rico (aka D H Lawrence) and whilst she is finding herself she still seems attached to him. She says, "We have gone away together, I realise your genius in this place. I would like to serve your genius, not only because it is personally your genius, but because it is part of this place." That "I would like to serve your genius" feels like an awkward note after what has gone before. Now, I am a bear of very little brain, so I might have misunderstood that final chapter completely, although I love the way she criticises Rico for his writing and calls on him to write like Van Gogh paints.
April 10, 2012
H.D was Hilda Doolittle an American imagist poet. She published this novel in 1960 a year before her death. It is a deeply autobiographical novel the characters thinly veiled recreations of her friends and lovers.
Set in London and Cornwall in 1917 – Julia Ashton is married to Rafe (representations of H D and husband Richard Aldington) who returns on leave from the trenches, leaves writes letters to his wife and returns again. Among their friends are Frederick and Elsa (DH and Frieda Lawrence) Bella (Dorothy Yorke) and Vane (Cecil Gray).
Julia is still mourning the loss of her baby, as she tries to come to terms with her husband’s infidelity. The world of the people surrounding her is a peculiar one – one of a dreamlike unreality – like actors on a stage they play out their relationships to a background of war. When Frederick arrives on the scene he persuades Julia to go to Cornwall, and it is here that she is finally able to make sense of what has happened, and start to face the future.
The novel has a rather claustrophobic and dreamlike quality; the writing is very beautiful, the prose having a very poetic feel to it – which is not surprising given that the author was best known as a poet. There are some very poignant moments – the scenes between Julia and Rafe as their marriage is ending were brilliantly portrayed and quite obviously hugely personal to the writer.
Interestingly in the afterword to this edition H.D’s daughter Perdita Schaffer describes how she came to meet her natural father Cecil Gray in 1947 – she was the result of the brief liaison between H.D and Cecil Gray after H.D’s marriage to fellow poet Richard Aldington came to an end. This is part of the story, of the people who are behind the characters in the novel.
Set in London and Cornwall in 1917 – Julia Ashton is married to Rafe (representations of H D and husband Richard Aldington) who returns on leave from the trenches, leaves writes letters to his wife and returns again. Among their friends are Frederick and Elsa (DH and Frieda Lawrence) Bella (Dorothy Yorke) and Vane (Cecil Gray).
Julia is still mourning the loss of her baby, as she tries to come to terms with her husband’s infidelity. The world of the people surrounding her is a peculiar one – one of a dreamlike unreality – like actors on a stage they play out their relationships to a background of war. When Frederick arrives on the scene he persuades Julia to go to Cornwall, and it is here that she is finally able to make sense of what has happened, and start to face the future.
The novel has a rather claustrophobic and dreamlike quality; the writing is very beautiful, the prose having a very poetic feel to it – which is not surprising given that the author was best known as a poet. There are some very poignant moments – the scenes between Julia and Rafe as their marriage is ending were brilliantly portrayed and quite obviously hugely personal to the writer.
Interestingly in the afterword to this edition H.D’s daughter Perdita Schaffer describes how she came to meet her natural father Cecil Gray in 1947 – she was the result of the brief liaison between H.D and Cecil Gray after H.D’s marriage to fellow poet Richard Aldington came to an end. This is part of the story, of the people who are behind the characters in the novel.
February 21, 2008
Bid me to Live on an airplane to San Diego to get my mind off the fact that I didn't want to die amidst the buildings you land on and on the beach with Paul's cousins, great aunts and uncles, mom and sister. Where I tried surfing and failed to surf and read Bid Me to Live burning and burning my legs and neck, burning my back on the board, putting everything on sidewise, like the sea does, when falling asleep. *Git er dun.* Which isn't exactly what H.D. had in mind.
I imagine the detachedness of her physical gestures, as I suggested to Charles, that she really worked hard to not be a tight ass. That she was threading through her life a kind of transparency, a miserable transparency because it was not the truth, it was not subject to any rules of conversation, it was a kind of swimming pool at night throwing light all over. That she desired very little on the surface of her life. Desired nothing to come to her, nothing wrapped up or overhead, not one of her beautiful things in the upstairs apartment. That her desire lay beneath her and reflected an image of herself upwards. That she was never sure what moved her. That her desires, as herself, could be this reflection of light. That loving D.H. Lawrence was a manifestation of both jealousy and disgust. That her love was more formally a misunderstanding, a tension of readership, an inability to see what made him and not her.
I imagine the detachedness of her physical gestures, as I suggested to Charles, that she really worked hard to not be a tight ass. That she was threading through her life a kind of transparency, a miserable transparency because it was not the truth, it was not subject to any rules of conversation, it was a kind of swimming pool at night throwing light all over. That she desired very little on the surface of her life. Desired nothing to come to her, nothing wrapped up or overhead, not one of her beautiful things in the upstairs apartment. That her desire lay beneath her and reflected an image of herself upwards. That she was never sure what moved her. That her desires, as herself, could be this reflection of light. That loving D.H. Lawrence was a manifestation of both jealousy and disgust. That her love was more formally a misunderstanding, a tension of readership, an inability to see what made him and not her.
February 25, 2025
I hate change, but I also hate Amazon and evil rich men. I am currently setting up an account on Storygraph if anyone would like to follow me there! ✨
"He would come back... and she would think (not thinking in these words) now for this moment, it's perfect. It will be perfect. She would find herself listening, as one listening far, far off, to echo of an echo; echo in a shell? What was she listening for? The preliminary cricket-trill of the kettle, just before it actually comes to a boil, she would tell herself. She was listening to his voice in his voice, a voice in a shell; his actual voice was coarsened, his throat hardened, but in his voice was his voice, echo" (15).
Do not take this review the wrong way. I am an admirer and defender of H.D.—yet, if you're seeking brilliant modernist prose on psychology within interiors, you are better off reading Virginia Woolf or Katherine Mansfield. H.D.'s roman à clef is a thinly-veiled autobiographical account of 1918: the year of the emotional dissolution of her marriage with Richard Aldington as he takes a lover, the air raids of Blitz London, and H.D.'s short-lived escape to Cornwall with musicologist Cecil Gray, which would lead to the birth of her daughter, Perdita. Julia (H.D.'s character) is haunted by prior miscarriage and the shadow of death that hovered over war-torn England.
I know some scholars like to harp on modernism as the birth of secularism / death-blow of Christianity, etc. but here is a case where H.D.'s writerly argument would fall short without the resonance of its biblical references. After all, H.D. grew up in the Moravian church, one of the oldest Protestant denominations. She likens her suffering to a saint's martyrdom, to the passion of Christ: "I spared you what I went through, you do not spare me. I did not tell you; my agony in the Garden had no words" (46). Further down the page, "You are all but submerged, is there any use any longer sweating agony in the Garden? I had my crucifixion. I can't go back." A Devonshire jug by the door is said to "absorb light, not give out light, like a jar in the Marriage of Cana, touched with the aura of a miracle. It was all miracle" (165). At Christmastime, their artist coterie of messy love triangles puts on a play of Genesis: Julia is Eden's Tree of Life.
"You are a living spirit in a living spirit city. Yes, she was that" (58).
Not exactly a light or always pleasant read, but the book did help me feel that I understand H.D. better and linked to knowledge gleaned about her from Francesca Wade's Square Haunting and Diana Souhami's No Modernism Without Lesbians. Likely as a result of Fry's Post-Impressionist exhibition, H.D. alludes to Van Gogh, which is nice. The title, Bid Me to Live, references a poem ("To Anthea, who may Command him Anything") by Robert Herrick with these lines: "Bid me despair, and I'll despair, / Under that cypress tree; / Or bid me die, and I will dare / E'en death, to die for thee. / Thou art my life, my love, my heart, / The very eyes of me." Interesting parallels there!
"'I was thinking of Michelangelo... I was thinking that our hands had run over that marble torso as they said Michelangelo's did after he had gone blind.' Yes, that was it, the very touch of the fingers of Michelangelo had been transferred to theirs. Their feet, their hands were instilled with living beauty, with things that were not dead. Other cities had been buried. Other people had been shot to death and something had gone on. There was something left between them" (72).
"He would come back... and she would think (not thinking in these words) now for this moment, it's perfect. It will be perfect. She would find herself listening, as one listening far, far off, to echo of an echo; echo in a shell? What was she listening for? The preliminary cricket-trill of the kettle, just before it actually comes to a boil, she would tell herself. She was listening to his voice in his voice, a voice in a shell; his actual voice was coarsened, his throat hardened, but in his voice was his voice, echo" (15).
Do not take this review the wrong way. I am an admirer and defender of H.D.—yet, if you're seeking brilliant modernist prose on psychology within interiors, you are better off reading Virginia Woolf or Katherine Mansfield. H.D.'s roman à clef is a thinly-veiled autobiographical account of 1918: the year of the emotional dissolution of her marriage with Richard Aldington as he takes a lover, the air raids of Blitz London, and H.D.'s short-lived escape to Cornwall with musicologist Cecil Gray, which would lead to the birth of her daughter, Perdita. Julia (H.D.'s character) is haunted by prior miscarriage and the shadow of death that hovered over war-torn England.
I know some scholars like to harp on modernism as the birth of secularism / death-blow of Christianity, etc. but here is a case where H.D.'s writerly argument would fall short without the resonance of its biblical references. After all, H.D. grew up in the Moravian church, one of the oldest Protestant denominations. She likens her suffering to a saint's martyrdom, to the passion of Christ: "I spared you what I went through, you do not spare me. I did not tell you; my agony in the Garden had no words" (46). Further down the page, "You are all but submerged, is there any use any longer sweating agony in the Garden? I had my crucifixion. I can't go back." A Devonshire jug by the door is said to "absorb light, not give out light, like a jar in the Marriage of Cana, touched with the aura of a miracle. It was all miracle" (165). At Christmastime, their artist coterie of messy love triangles puts on a play of Genesis: Julia is Eden's Tree of Life.
"You are a living spirit in a living spirit city. Yes, she was that" (58).
Not exactly a light or always pleasant read, but the book did help me feel that I understand H.D. better and linked to knowledge gleaned about her from Francesca Wade's Square Haunting and Diana Souhami's No Modernism Without Lesbians. Likely as a result of Fry's Post-Impressionist exhibition, H.D. alludes to Van Gogh, which is nice. The title, Bid Me to Live, references a poem ("To Anthea, who may Command him Anything") by Robert Herrick with these lines: "Bid me despair, and I'll despair, / Under that cypress tree; / Or bid me die, and I will dare / E'en death, to die for thee. / Thou art my life, my love, my heart, / The very eyes of me." Interesting parallels there!
"'I was thinking of Michelangelo... I was thinking that our hands had run over that marble torso as they said Michelangelo's did after he had gone blind.' Yes, that was it, the very touch of the fingers of Michelangelo had been transferred to theirs. Their feet, their hands were instilled with living beauty, with things that were not dead. Other cities had been buried. Other people had been shot to death and something had gone on. There was something left between them" (72).
Read
January 15, 2024She was listening to his voice in his voice, a voice in a shell; his actual voice was coarsened, his throat hardened, but in his voice was his voice, echo. She was listening to that; she would hear that, that was the reason for her marriage, had been the reason for her near-death; the reason for her escape, emancipation, inspiration.
March 22, 2025
Echoes from the past. Lovely, minute, and intense. Strangely, Rico reminds me more of Pound than Lawrence. But the tree of life is so Lawrence. And I like Perdita too though she's not part of the book itself.
August 9, 2023
H.D. has such a distinct voice and it comes through in her prose as much as in her poetry. I will admit that I found Bid Me to Live difficult at times to follow. Julia (the name that HD gives herself in this roman à clef) says at one point, "What I write really isn't anything, but I'm sure the mood comes through." While this is an overly modest claim on H.D.'s part, I do think that like many modernist writers, H.D. places less emphasis on the plot and more emphasis on the 'mood' of her prose through a writing style that is comparable to what has been called Virginia Woolf's stream of conscious writing.
March 17, 2026
A fun read esp. as someone who's a fan of H.D. and interested in the literary culture of the time.
Was kind of expecting something different from this. I think I was more aware of the later, even more sensational events of H.D.'s life, and was expecting this to be a full autobiography exploring things like WW2 and her relationship with Bryher and Sigmund Freud for example.
Still very interesting from a historical perspective, especially seeing the attitudes that male authors had at the time towards women in the same field. And very interesting insight into the attitudes towards sexuality in this context. For example the way that H.D., a queer woman, expresses frustration at straight women "using" other women to add "a touch of exoticism" for men. And the many interconnected love triangles. Not something I would have expected in the time period. Also not something I typically enjoy reading about, but the writing style carried the story. And there was enough else going, for example really enjoyed the portrayal of the war and going out during an air raid.
Also really enjoyed the writing style, and the mix of the everyday and the profound that often characterises this era. At times I even wondered if Lispector was influenced by this writing, towards the end of the book, when H.D. talks about creating new words etc.
Loved the motif of "the war will never be over", the concept of repeated writing a story until it becomes true, and the ending acknowledging that one day the war will in fact be over. And the central tension of: miscarriage and needing to wait to have a child until the war is over, vs the war never being over. The way that H.D. talks about losing a child was very powerful. And I LOVED the final prologue by H.D.'s daughter, seeing what happened after the events of the book, and that one of the characters ends up being the father of H.D.'s child.
Quotes I liked:
- "You are right about man-is-man, woman-is-woman, I am wrong. But it's no good. My work is nothing. But... I will go on and do it. I will carve my pattern on an altar because I've got to do it"
- "I will write these notes and rewrite them till they come true"
- "They were just where they had been except for a gap in her consciousness, a sort of black hollow, a cave, a pit of blackness; black nebula was not yet concentrated out into clear thought"
- "'I think it would be so lovely to have a woman-lover', when how could Morgan say that? If she wanted women, let her have women, not use women, as Julia felt she did, as a sort of added touch of exoticism, something to stir and excite"
- "'I believe in intelligent women having experience' was then a very, very thin line to toe, a very, very frail wire to do a tight-rope act on"
Was kind of expecting something different from this. I think I was more aware of the later, even more sensational events of H.D.'s life, and was expecting this to be a full autobiography exploring things like WW2 and her relationship with Bryher and Sigmund Freud for example.
Still very interesting from a historical perspective, especially seeing the attitudes that male authors had at the time towards women in the same field. And very interesting insight into the attitudes towards sexuality in this context. For example the way that H.D., a queer woman, expresses frustration at straight women "using" other women to add "a touch of exoticism" for men. And the many interconnected love triangles. Not something I would have expected in the time period. Also not something I typically enjoy reading about, but the writing style carried the story. And there was enough else going, for example really enjoyed the portrayal of the war and going out during an air raid.
Also really enjoyed the writing style, and the mix of the everyday and the profound that often characterises this era. At times I even wondered if Lispector was influenced by this writing, towards the end of the book, when H.D. talks about creating new words etc.
Loved the motif of "the war will never be over", the concept of repeated writing a story until it becomes true, and the ending acknowledging that one day the war will in fact be over. And the central tension of: miscarriage and needing to wait to have a child until the war is over, vs the war never being over. The way that H.D. talks about losing a child was very powerful. And I LOVED the final prologue by H.D.'s daughter, seeing what happened after the events of the book, and that one of the characters ends up being the father of H.D.'s child.
Quotes I liked:
- "You are right about man-is-man, woman-is-woman, I am wrong. But it's no good. My work is nothing. But... I will go on and do it. I will carve my pattern on an altar because I've got to do it"
- "I will write these notes and rewrite them till they come true"
- "They were just where they had been except for a gap in her consciousness, a sort of black hollow, a cave, a pit of blackness; black nebula was not yet concentrated out into clear thought"
- "'I think it would be so lovely to have a woman-lover', when how could Morgan say that? If she wanted women, let her have women, not use women, as Julia felt she did, as a sort of added touch of exoticism, something to stir and excite"
- "'I believe in intelligent women having experience' was then a very, very thin line to toe, a very, very frail wire to do a tight-rope act on"
June 20, 2021
Begun in 1917 and finally published in 1960, this lyrical yet gripping 110 page novel covers the years 1917-18. Highly autobiographical, it deals with the traumatic events faced by the poet and writer HD, who lost a stillborn daughter, faced her much-loved husband heading off to war, and then dealt with the emotional fall-out of his affair with a good-looking neighbour (although their marriage was 'open' nominally). It also deals with her complex relationship with 'Frederico' (DH Lawrence) and the minor composer Cecil Gray. HD lost her brother and father in these years though the book doesn't touch on this. Deeply traumatised, she eventually finds some solace and peace in the natural landscape and botany of Cornwall. The book was her attempt to process the trauma over the years. Interior and deeply personal, it has wide resonance. It is the most deeply moving account of trauma and loss and fear in WW1 from the female perspective that I have read. The descriptions of how she felt as her husband Rafe Ashton (in real life, the poet and novelist Richard Aldington) returned to the war after his leave made me better understand my own great-grandparents. I knew my great-grandmother as a very old women when I was a child. My great-grandfather was killed in the war setting off a chain of difficult family events. HD is brilliant on the emotions of living through these tragic and terrible times and her book is an absorbing read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 26, 2023
I had to read this book at university, but I have little recollection of it. At that time, I didn't know that DH Lawrence had lived in Zennor, though I knew that part of Cornwall quite well; neither had I been to Italy. I am older, now, and know more, and this book has made a greater impression on me.
This small book is a uniquely subjective view of a particular time in Hilda Dolittle's life and is narrated, mostly, as an interior monologue, as she frets about the relationships in her life and ponders how to fit them in to her work as a writer. It cleverly repeats phrases and images, as she cycles through memories of events in an effort to make sense of who she is and how she relates to the three men who demand her attention and distract her from her writing. It is, in this way, an interesting comment on the experience of the female artist.
I entirely agree with the author's dislike of Lawrence's novels and his particular brand of toxic masculinity (what a pity that this particular phrase was unavailable to help her to describe him). Do people still read Lawrence? I hope not. Do people still read HD? I hope so. This book is worth the effort.
This small book is a uniquely subjective view of a particular time in Hilda Dolittle's life and is narrated, mostly, as an interior monologue, as she frets about the relationships in her life and ponders how to fit them in to her work as a writer. It cleverly repeats phrases and images, as she cycles through memories of events in an effort to make sense of who she is and how she relates to the three men who demand her attention and distract her from her writing. It is, in this way, an interesting comment on the experience of the female artist.
I entirely agree with the author's dislike of Lawrence's novels and his particular brand of toxic masculinity (what a pity that this particular phrase was unavailable to help her to describe him). Do people still read Lawrence? I hope not. Do people still read HD? I hope so. This book is worth the effort.
November 25, 2017
It's been a while since I finished this, but I've been too busy to write a serious review. Now, of course, the details are slowly slipping away. What remains are impressions, mostly of the words, the language, the poetic images, repetitions. H.D., poet, is a mistress of style. She lets the words speak up for themselves rather than tame them into submission to an authorial voice, a concept, a single, monolithic meaning. Nothing so banal. A relationship, then another, and another. A woman in transit. A marriage collapsing, people trying to feel something for each other as war seems to be draining all feeling out of everyone in the name of duty, danger, British stoicism. The one writer in protest of all that seems an answer, fails, becomes something of a mentor. Maybe it's all a sham. Maybe there's only her. Only the words. Human experience always in transit. No easy answers to the continual collapsing and restructuring of life, civilization. Legacy of the war-torn 20th century. Modernism.
October 9, 2025
A poet's novel through-and-through -- and to boot written not so much in English as in HD-speak. She has a way with words, which maybe goes without saying. I loved the way she would repeat a word or phrase, or tweak it from one clause to the next. What this lacks in clarity of incident it compensates for with richness of creativity when it comes to the language. But very often you are reading about events you don't know about featuring people you don't know about. This is a roman a clef, but even where you would expect HD's confessional side to blossom (this novel is about, largely, undisguised infidelity) she instead obfuscates. This is, like the work of all great artists, a personality seen through the idiosyncratic prism of their creation. A lot of it went through my brainsieve like sand.
June 6, 2021
I absolutely loved this novel by imagist poet H.D. it’s a Roman a clef of the time she lived in Bloomsbury, London during WW1, when she was married to Richard Aldington. H.D. had had a miscarriage and her husband was having an affair, so she was in a very vulnerable state. Then in walk DH and Frieda Lawrence. I loved the writing style - poetic, full of imagery as you’d expect, so claustrophobic in the London rooms and then free when she moves away to Cornwall. An honest and emotional portrayal of her feelings about free love. The novel about her life before this is called Her - I don’t know why they are both out of print because they’re brilliant.
July 16, 2022
About complicated relationships, creating art and sensing on World War I in London and Cornwall. I especially like the many repetitions. You can see the poetry there.
August 3, 2009
an interesting read if you are obsessed with the modernist writers as I once was....
October 28, 2010
H.D.'s writing in this book might as well be spoken poetry. If you like Virginia Woolf, you'll like H.D.
January 1, 2011
probably the most depressing book i have ever read.
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