The Real Isadora

by Victor Seroff

HARDBACK

Genres: History, Nonfiction

480 pages, paperback

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt morally obligated to read an in-depth biography of the dancer for a variety of reasons. This book took me a good six months of slogging, slowly, painfully, through the incredibly messy life of Duncan. Perhaps I chose the wrong book for my education. Seroff's book is sort of a reaction to other biographies of the dancer, so there was a lot of, "In this biography, they say this, but it's not true because I knew her and she would never do this or that." According to Seroff, her "My Life" was written for cash, and is a huge exaggeration of her exploits.

After finishing the book, Ducan is still very much an enigma. I still can't figure out if I would have liked her in person if I had met her. Her behavior at times seems horrifically self-centered, which can be excusable--after all she is an artist. At other moments though, it verges on really, really weird. She was so careless with her life and with the way she treated others. Sometimes I wonder if she suffered from a lack of self-reflection, instead using the public as a forum to test out her ideas to great aplomb, or astonishing failure. For example, she was banned in Boston for taking of her top off on stage and pointing at her breasts saying, "This. This is art!"

At other moments, I felt very sorry for her, as many of people she surrounded herself were sycophants, or users and manipulators.

One this is clear though. Although she made a great hash of her life, she possessed an incredible amount of charisma: the power to whip audiences into a fervor that caused them to hate her or worship her. Charisma is a huge part of dance. As is musicality, which I imagine she had in spades. She also seemed to have this supernatural power with men of all types: the sewing machine heir, the non-english speaking Russian poet, the set designer.

Now that I'm done, I think I'm safe to answer any questions about Ducan, if pressed. But I'm certainly not planning on reading another biography of her. I'm exhausted.

[Myra Breckinridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps this biography would be worthwhile if Seroff took Duncan’s insights about the impossibility of truth to heart.

Instead, it is a pompous mix of needless commentary and a fact-checking full of so much ego that his deductions don’t feel any more reliable or accurate.

[Christie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up because I read Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women and wanted to learn more about Isadora Duncan. Unfortunately, I don't know that I know anymore about her after reading this 400+ page book. It is written by Victor Seroff, who was a friend of Isadora's for the last few years of her life and it mainly seems written as a defense against other people who were also Isadora's friends and wrote books about her. As with a lot of things, the truth about Isadora is probably somewhere between all of the stories. It didn't make for a good biography, because most of the time it just seemed to be filled with rants about how everyone wronged Isadora, as well as lots of homophobic language (many of the people Seroff is defending himself and Isadora against were homosexuals).

All that being said, I did learn a few things about Isadora in these pages: her ideology, her passion for dance, and her dream of building a school for children (a dream that was never realized the way she wanted it to be). There was a great deal of tragedy and romance in her life. Her death was untimely and tragic. She was a complex and interesting woman and I think I will be investigating other books about her to try to get a better portrait of her.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Victor Seroff is obnoxious, homophobic, and has not idea what he's talking about. Clearly. Why this little known pianist has any authority in writing a 'tell-all' biography of Isadora Duncan was never quite clear to me, but his unvarying habit of deriding all other figures in Duncan's life as terrible influences on her in contrast to himself decreased any credence he might have. His tendency to talk about 'parasitic lesbians' and other evil homosexuals preying on innocent Isadora's good nature made me want to throw the book at the wall. Mercedes d'Acosta, anyone?

[Eliot Fiend · Rating 3 out of 5]

like reading gossip from 100 years ago. i appreciated seroff's good research and debunking myths about duncan; overall, i learned a lot about the life of this pioneer of modern dance. focused more on her life and travels and challenges than her philosophy, and the author is quite homophobic...i would have liked to read more descriptions of her philosophy of movement, though perhaps there is not a lot of documentation available. it's very readable (and quite long).