An Impossible Woman: The Memoirs of Dottoressa Moor

by Elisabeth Moor, Graham Greene (Editor)

A rollicking memoir about an independent woman doctor in Italy, especially the island of Capri, during and after WWII. "For forty years the peasants had come to her, and the fishermen, to have their pulses taken in the street, or in her house to have their blood pressure measured, and she would say to them, 'Everything is in order. Could also be better. Don't drink so much and eat less salt,' and next day the patients would bring a fee in the form of a fish, some salad or fruit, a sweet cake, sometimes a bottle of wine which would last her for weeks...She remembered this song from her childhood as she departed Capri for the last time after having lived there for forty years.

And when I have sold my house,
And when I have sold my house,
And have drunk all the lolly,
Then my father says
I was a soldier, who drank it all.

Where does one end up, with the drink?
Where does one end up, with the drink?
In Heaven,
Where Peter will be,
Who'll pour us a slivowitz,
Who'll pour us a slivowitz.

Who'll be at my funeral?
Who'll be at my funeral?
The dishes, and knives and forks,
The wine and the beer,
And the pub-keeper's wife will crawl along with
me,
And the pub-keeper's wife will crawl along with
me.

And who will sweep the streets for us now?
And who will sweep the streets for us now?
The most honourable gentlemen,
With the golden star,
They'll sweep the streets for us then.

Graham Greene "She had lost her last lover as she was approaching seventy, but the passion of sex was always ready to wake." From her list of lovers headed, simply, "

(6) On the third floor of our house there was a businessman. I had to sit on his knee. I sat, I was kissed and I was given sweets.

(12) In Millstadt, at the tennis tournament there was Szenes, I think an Hungarian, seventeen years old, with whom I went mountaineering and so on...

(17) Doctor Munt was an assistant, a medical assistant, a mild Pole, very melancholy, took everything seriously, and even wanted to marry me. And that's why I finished with him very quickly."

Published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Britta · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love Graham Greene you may be interested in this book, as he was the editor and found the Dottoressa very intriguing and unique. The book is a loosely edited spoken memoir in her own words. She was a liberated woman at a time that didn't readily make space for them, but she lived her life fully and on her own terms. She had a great sense of humor and live and let live attitude which really comes across in her accounts of her life. A very quick read.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading Greene on Capri, I was ready to read a number of the novels or other works mentioned by the author. An Impossible Woman sounded the most intriguing. The combination of autobiography and editorial comments by Graham Greene, proved to be as interesting as implied. The Dottoressa was a doctor when there were few women in the field; that caused many challenges. In addition, she was a tart-tongues, strong-willed person who expected to do as she wished, when and where desired. She also made some poor choices in marriage. Having many lovers – as she did – may enhance life, but doesn’t make it easier.
She seems also to have experienced many tragedies which simply descended on her. As a feeling person, those tragedies eventually wore her down.
Yet, what an amazing life in many countries, during eras of great drama, particularly the Second World War. She had many narrow escapes. From her birth in Vienna to her exile in neutral Switzerland during the war, to her life in beloved Italy, particularly Capri, she was vibrant.
The life as she lived it, and the people she knew, are still fascinating. Graham Greene finished the book with an epilogue when she could not finish, and the previous editor died; Greene was very fond of her.
It is a life worth the retelling, worth reading in this book.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

For something less than 30 years, Graham Greene spent several weeks or months in his villa on the Isle of Capri. During that time, he not only became a part of that community itself, he got to meet and know many of the local characters and visiting nabobs. Of them all (and this includes the exceedingly memorable Norman Douglas) Dottoressa Moor has to stand out. Greene says of her that she “possessed…a quality of passionate living which I have known in no other woman…” – and that is saying a lot from Greene who knew a lot of women.
The book itself was encouraged and edited by Greene and he has written an epilogue which is also a tribute to the Dottoressa. Her memories were recorded in German and then translated into English. Greene says that he wanted to try, with the English translation, to keep her cadence and verbal mannerisms as much as he could – and I think he has masterfully succeeded. He also confesses in his prologue, in a curious double negative, that he has inserted some memories: “Nor have I hesitated on occasion to insert memories which did not appear on the tapes because the right question was not asked.”
For the quality and the value of the book itself, I will leave it for other readers to discover. For myself, I was intrigued by craziness of her life. I forget, even now, how crazy and uninhibited those days were in the 1920s and the teens before them. What interests me is that Graham Greene, the undisputed great author of that time, took the time to get to know this wild and imaginative local woman doctor in his summer vacation home and published her memoirs, with care and love. It is a side of Greene that I suspected was there but had not seen in all my reading.
Wobbe includes this edited book in his bibliography as an “A” item (A61), but Wise correctly moves it to “Contributions by Graham Greene to Books” as B67. The book was originally published in September 1975 by The Bodley Head in London and subsequently by Viking Press in New York the next year in April 1976. The original manuscript of this book was sold by Sotheby’s in London in December 1996 and there is a significant discussion of Greene’s extensive editorial work in the catalog of the collection of Clinton Ives Smullyan, Jr. It makes interesting reading.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read a 'memoir' like this one before!
Quite an unusual comment from a voracious reader like me to make indeed.
Elisabeth Moor, 'the impossible woman', slowly reminisced in 1948, & in German, onto a series of recordings to Kenneth Macpherson, a friend; Graham Greene, while passing the days at his hideaway in Capri, becomes acquainted with a very individualistic Austrian doctor with some very difficult character traits & an extraordinarily-complex life behind her, over the early & mid-20th century of a Europe in the throes of war & tragic self-damage - not unlike Dottoressa Moor herself - & the celebrated English novelist has them translated into English, while obviously editing & improving their almost manic, haphazard delivery.
It is a story of a young woman from Vienna who barges her way through life in a whole calvacade of mad encounters & experiences as she suffers loss & estrangement with family, lovers & colleagues as she becomes a fully-qualified doctor in Italy. She settles eventually on the island of Capri, in the bay of Naples, where she confronts all kinds of prejudices & perversions of humaity, including violent attacks by the crazy locals, still steeped in superstitions, religion & wild excess.
I cannot capture the spirit of this 'autobiographical', vaguely accurate avalanche of Dr Moor's life in a brief summary, but it is both entertaining & tinged with a certain psychological dislocation from what really happened to the amazing woman, as if her memory was already passing through a phase of reconstruction, trying to come to terms with her past tragic losses & personal failures...& successes! - she saved many lives & suffered for the efforts she made to balance her hectic life with her essential need for stability & calm.
An impossible woman? So many women seem so...but under all the personal conflicts of one of Capri's most celebrated foreign residents, a real sense of common humanity prevails.