Pentimento

by Lillian Hellman

In this widely praised follow-up to her National Book Award-winning first volume of memoirs, An Unfinished Woman, the legendary playwright Lillian Hellman looks back at some of the people who, wittingly or unwittingly, exerted profound influence on her development as a woman and a writer. The portraits include Hellman's recollection of a lifelong friendship that began in childhood, reminiscences that formed the basis of the Academy Award-winning film Julia.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Autobiography, History, Womens

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Lillian Florence "Lilly" Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an American dramatist and screenwriter famously blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) at the height of the anti-communist campaigns of 1947–52.

Hellman was praised for sacrificing her career by refusing to answer questions by HUAC; but her denial that she had ever belonged to the Communist Party was easily disproved, and her veracity was doubted by many, including war correspondent Martha Gellhorn and literary critic Mary McCarthy.

She adapted her semi-autobiographical play The Little Foxes into a screenplay which received an Academy Award nomination in 1942.

Hellman was romantically involved with fellow writer and political activist Dashiell Hammett for thirty years until his death.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child manes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented," changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again."
Pentimento ~~~ Lillian Hellman



This is how Lillian Hellman starts her memoir ~~ what a beautiful start it is.

"That is all I mean about the people in this book. The paint has aged now and I wanted to see what was there for once, what is there for now." I read this as a teenager, and fell in love with Lillian Hellman. I was 15 and devoured everything I could find by Hellman that summer. Pentimento made for great summer reading.



Revisiting Pentimento was like catching up with a long, lost friend. Yes, I know the controversies surrounding the stories. Was Julia really based upon the life of Muriel Gardiner, a woman Hellman never met? Were other stories inventions of a dried up playwright's mind? Why did Hellman smooth over her Stalinist past? I know them all, but frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

Lillian, my old friend, Pentimento still makes for great reading, and I revisit you in these pages often.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept behind this memoir, as hinted by its title, is unique if not an original.

A pentimento (plural pentimenti) is an alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work, showing that the artist has changed his or her mind as to the composition during the process of painting. The word is Italian for repentance, from the verb pentirsi, meaning to repent.

Then the author applied it to her life by writing this memoir of the people she used to know. Really used to know.

Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) was an American author of plays, screenplays and memoirs, including this one. She was a Communist. She was the partner of Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), a popular author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories.

Hellman was 67 when she finished writing this memoir. Her memory was starting to fade and I am not sure if this was the reason why she was not certain of what she was saying in many parts of the book: "I don't know", "I believe" or "possibly" but for me that is part of the design - to convey honesty. As she peels off the old paint, as she tries to recall what exactly happened, she found herself struggling. However she was still clear on some aspects including this usual blunder that memoir writers are normally guilty of (p. 91):

"Childhood is less clear to me than to many people: when it ended it turned my face away from it for no reason that I know about, certainly without the usual reason of unhappy memories. For many years that worried me, but then I discovered that the tales of former children are seldom to be trusted. Some people supply too many past victories or pleasures with which to comfort themselves, and other people cling to pains, real and imagined, to excuse what they have become."

Lillian Hellman was one hell of a lady. Her most famous work was the play The Children's Hour (1934) about two lesbians who are high school teachers who fall in love with each other but are sacked by the school authorities when they discover the affair. One of them kills herself out of shame. The other is sacked afterwards.

The highlight of the book is her life-long friendship (Hellman wrote that they did not have sexual intercourse) with "Julia" who was an anti-Fascist woman in Russia during World War II. This chapter in the book became the basis of the 1977 movie that was nominated for 11 awards in Oscars and brought home three awards:

If you look closely at the caption of the above movie poster, it says "The story of two women whose friendship suddenly became a matter of life and death." This is true. You will hold your breath in that train scene. To think that this really happened and not some kind of spy fiction thriller.

This is a well-written memoir.

Again, just like the
, or

I would not have picked this memoir if this were not included in the

.

Thanks again to my brother for suggesting that we read all the books included in the 501 and 1001 book lists. My life becomes more meaningful having read so many wonderful books!

[Georgia Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many times I buy a book based on the first page. This is what I found in this book, why I read it and why I love it still:

"Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called 'pentimento' because the painter 'repented,' changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again."
-from the introduction to Lillian Hellman's Pentimento

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a 40 year old copy of this book in paperback. My Mother gave it to me. Lillian Hellman writes vividly of her life and times. She was a distinguished playwright during the era of Dorothy Parker and Tallulah Bankhead.

Every time I read it, I am transported back in time.

[Dvora Treisman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a re-read. I knew I liked the book but couldn't remember much about it except that Dashiell Hammett had been persecuted by Joe McCarthy. Now I know why I liked it. It's a gem. It presents numerous people from Hellman's life -- well drawn but with details missing, as they would be in normal life; we never know everything about another person. Hellman doesn't fill in those gaps. She lets us see for ourselves and judge for ourselves. There are hilarious parts (the condoms!) and wrenching ones (Julia) and intriguing and fascinating parts. This is a wonderful book.

[Debs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Every single page of it. It's not about Hellman's great successes and failures, her great loves or her true heart breaks. It is about people that touched her life at times when she, for whatever reason (too young, too busy, too worried, too heartbroken, too drunk), could not figure them out. Which is to say, she didn't understand at the time of the relationship what motivated these people to do what they did, or how they did what they did or why. Mixed in with actual people is also her relationship with the theater, which was indeed as fickle a lover for Hellman as Hammett ever was.

The book is so lovely because she merely describes what she saw at the time she saw it, without saying, "Now, that I have lived, I understand why." She simply lets the stories float on the page, as they float in and out of her own memory throughout her life. The stuff of history she is best known for, The Children's Hour as well as her love of Hammett and her ruin at the hands of the McCarthy hearings are just background to the narratives of these other people she loved and misunderstood and pondered.

It's like a B-side record. Not the billboard hit, but the other side, which sometimes you end up loving even more than the popular song. I think more people SHOULD write books like this: Leave the big brush strokes to the critics, and write about people who really changed how you thought, even if it's years after they are dead when you realize it. It made me think about people I've known who were mysteries to me at the time, but who I look back on every now and again. And now, I will always think of Hellman when I think of them.

[Mommalibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented," changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice is a way of seeing and then seeing again."

This book consists of several long sketches from the author's past. The pieces are informal. She is scrupulously honest in only recording what she is certain she remembers. This means big areas are not discussed. You can see this tendency in the opening lines of the book above, "sometimes", "it is possible", "in some pictures". She is very careful. She is not an easy person to understand. Her point of view is not simple and she does not represent herself as being consistent over time. The main time period covered is before WWII although there is some from her childhood as well. I wanted more. I wanted to know more about her life and her point of view. She is amazingly honest in her observations.

Here is another bit that really grabbed me. She has had a surprising conversation with a man she thought of as a friend. "I had not slept much that night, waking up to read, and to think about Arthur. I was what he wanted to want, did not want, could not ever want, and that must have put an end to an old dream about the kind of life that he would never have because he didn't really want it. We have all done that about somebody, or place, or work, and it's a sad day when you find out that it's not accident or time or fortune but yourself that kept things from you."

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir by Lillian Hellman is one of my all time favorite. I still cherish my original copy from the 1980's. Each chapter reads like a short story. She was a fabulous writer. I first heard of her in medical school. Some friends and I went to Hancher Auditorium to see a woman who did a one-person show based on the book (like Hal Holbrook doing Mark Twain).

[Karen Wellsbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book so much. I first read it when I was 16, obsessed with the relationship between Hellman and Dashiell Hammett.

This is a snapshot into her life, people who touched her emotionally at varying times. I have read this pretty much every year, and it always moves me.

[Sketchbook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let brevity be the soul of this crit : pimento in baloney.

[Janellyn51 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe 5 stars is a little over the top, but I'm on a Lillian Hellman bender at the moment. I did really love this book. I love the style of her writing and the way she speaks. You feel like you're sitting in a room with her having a drink and listening to her. Turtle made me laugh out loud. I'm not in any way shape or form into harming turtles you understand, it's the conversations between her and Hammett. "the turtle's gone"! "you drink too much in the morning". I loved the one about Arthur Cowan, maybe because it's impossible to read about him, and not remember poor old Billy Ruane, who was actually filthy rich, but nutty as a fruitcake. Of course, they differed in that Arthur drove a Rolls and Billy an old jaguar. Julia was quite good and then I watched it again on Netflix, ad quite enjoyed the film, and comparing the screen play with the short story. Jane Fonda was too pretty maybe, and not raspy or rude enough, and still she did a pretty good job. Mary McCarthy may have caused herself no end of trouble when she said on Dick Cavett that nothing Lillian Hellman said was true including and, and the....maybe you have to take this memoir with a grain of salt as to whether things happened or didn't. Hellman says more than once that she doesn't exactly remember what happened when, but reading Pentimento just for itself, I would find it hard not to enjoy her observations on the Theater, tales of Tallulah, and drunken back and forths with Hammett.

[Jan C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another set of memoirs from Lillian Hellman. Probably another pack of lies and half-truths from what I have read and heard in the last few years. This is the book the story "Julia" came from.

Somewhere along the way I figured out that by comparing this and her previous book of memoirs you could figure out what Julia's real name was or at least who she was in the first book. Because when she first wrote the first book, she may not have known that she was going to write the second book.

[E.M. Murren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this many years ago... back in the early 80s. It was nice to rediscover this work. It is a series of stories that Hellman claims were autobiographical, but there is question about whether it is or not at this point. Anyway, they are great stories and I enjoyed the read.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book with historical value. Remarkable woman who showed courage during a time when most men hid their tails and ran.

[Jakub · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Pentimento in our hotel lobby in Cancun, at the same time as Memoirs of a Geisha.

The first chapter was a bit hard for me to get through. Having just finished Memoirs of a Geisha, which transported me into a lost and slow paced time, Lillian Hellman's life was anything but slow, and I wasn't sure I liked her pace. Needless to say, I didn't give up, and this turned out to me a wonderful and educational dream I entered.

The book is broken up into chapters about specific people or aspects of her life:
Bethe, Willy, Julia, Theater, Arthur W. A. Cowman, "Turtle", and finally Pentimento.

For me the last four chapters stood out to me the most, don't even remember anything about the first two.

Julia was one of Lillian's best friends growing up. They really loved each other, were in love, really. Julia was wealthy, and during WWII used her money to save as many people from the Nazi's as possible, sacrificing her life in the process. It was a truly touching story of selflessness and a wonderful example of how some people use their wealth for extreme good.

Julia once told Lillian that "People are either teachers or students." This quote immediately jumped out at me. It was like something clicked and suddenly I understood that just as Lilian "[is} a student," I am a teacher. I have always hated "studying" and always loved teaching. Really it is through teaching that I learn the most.

The chapter on theater was very interesting for me from the perspective of being an artist. I feel that it is always very beneficial when artists talk about their insecurities and struggles, as it gives mine more meaning. I feel that successful writers, actors, authors, and artist of any kind are so often presented in this untouchable, perfect light that it makes it seem like something achievable. I guess it makes them more sellable, untouchable, desirable. I love when people are not afraid to talk about their journey transparently.

Arthur W. A. Cowman seemed to be a fascinating character. He makes me think about how we never really know who anyone is. I find it so interesting to think about the fact that as many people as I know, are as many versions of me that exist in the world. Each of those people had a unique experience with me that will never be lived again, and they have their own lens that they were looking at me through. It's so interesting to me that we all have the sense of self, how we see ourselves, but that probably is far from how we are precised. With Arthur, this truth was particularly well explored by Hellman.

Poor turtle.

Finishing the last chapter, I immediately opened my William Webster's app to find Pentimento. It was a very unique an powerful way to finish her book, impact-full ending.

Overall, this isn't a book I will probably feel the need to return to, but I also wouldn't be surprised if I did. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys biographies or who is an artist.

[Michelle Manuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intimate conversation with a sometimes brutally honest Hellman—that’s how this book read to me. The title, Pentimento, refers to the “original lines: a tree will show through a woman’s dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea” that appear once old paint fades and reveals what was drawn or painted under the painting. Hellman writes that it is a “way of seeing and then seeing again.” She uses this analogy to describe the way she looks back on her experiences with special people in her life.

One of the more poignant stories in the book was that of the snapping turtle that unbelievably survived being shot in the head and having his head nearly severed by the blow of an axe wielded by Hellman’s longtime boyfriends and author Dashiell Hammett. In a particularly lurid description of the turtle leaving a trail of smeared blood as it managed to move itself from the stove to somewhere in the bushes on the property, Hellman creates an unforgettable image of this horrific, yet heroic, fight for life. It causes her to question what life is. It causes the reader to do the same. So profoundly impacted, she refuses to allow Hammett to cook the turtle, instead burying the turtle herself. The idea that such a visceral fight to preserve one’s life should be honored is the impetus for Hellman’s burying of the turtle.

Just as pentimento is a “way of seeing and then seeing again,” I suspect that I will read this book again at another time in my life and see it through the lenses of greater maturity and richer life experiences that hopefully come with advanced age.

[Maite Mateos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este es uno de los tres volúmenes de memorias publicado en 1973 de una autora que nació en Nueva Orleans y creció en el contexto del esclavismo del sur de USA, entre Nueva Orleans y Nueva York. Lilian Hellman participó del mundo efervescente de Hollywood como dramaturga y guionista y vivió muy de cerca conflictos europeos como la Guerra Civil Española o la Segunda Guerra Mundial, mantuvo contacto con varios personajes memorables como Samuel Goldwyn, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Eisenstein… Entabló también una duradera amistad con Dorothy Parker y mantuvo una larga relación amorosa con Dashiell Hammett.
Como intelectual simpatizante de ideas catalogadas de izquierdistas, Lilian Hellman fue investigada e incluida en la lista negra de la caza de brujas del senador McCarthy. Difamada y acosada se vió forzada a vender sus propiedades para sobrevivir.
Lilian Hellman era una acérrima defensora de las minorías raciales. Era una rebelde que renegaba de la hipocresía, de las falsedades, los convencionalismos, el amor romántico y los sentimentalismos, con una aguda percepción de la realidad que le tocó vivir.
Pentimento es el relato de una vida en la que avanza a saltos, hacia atrás y hacia adelante, alejándose de los formalismos narrativos, sin trazos de una estructura. Desde lo anecdótico, lo particular, desde el escepticismo y el desencanto, Lilian Hellman se aproxima al relato de los grandes fenómenos históricos, buscándose a sí misma sin cesar.
Una de las anécdotas más entrañables e interesantes de Pentimento se centra en el relato de la relación de Lilian Hellman con una amiga de toda la vida, Julia, relato llevado al cine en 1977, precisamente con el título de Julia, por Fred Zinnemann e interpretado por Vanessa Redgrave.

[ジェシカ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the Julia and Bethe stories, cause her other character portraits were kinda chaotic, like a whimsy and manic pixie dream girl. It’s weird how her writing on memory, recognizing she’s speaking from hindsight and misremembering, still comes off as pretentious??? Think that’s why I like Bethe a lot, she knows how annoying she was as a teen, cause she writes about it with sympathy and cringe.

I will say 5 starts for this paperback’s sweet smelling pages.

[Christian Engler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pentimento: A Book of Portraits is electrfying in its earnestness and candor, incisive in its tone, acerbic in its wit and picturesque in its mental imagery - a memoir (unlike An Unfinished Woman) that is a bit more honed and focused and less formless in how the recollections and diary entries jump from one to the next. Be that as it may, let it not mitigate the merit of An Unfinished Woman, for in its own right, it is a very worthy read and most deserving of its National Book Award. Each chapter in Pentimento is framed, each segment representing a person, place or experience that had a certain signifigance to Lillian Hellman's life and development not only as a playwrite but as a person. The book chapters are listed as thus: Bethe, Willy, Julia, Theatre, Arthur W.A. Cowan, Turtle, and Pentimento. The writing fluidity is fragmented, almost jarring, but the fierce, explicit prose enhances the flavor of the volatile, broken mishmash of truth and hyperbole, a choice style that is not a detriment to what Hellman has to say. With magnetic intimacy, the portraits all have something meaningful to declare; they range from the profound to the wittily bizarre. The latter is best represented in the portraits entitled "Arthur W.A. Cowan" and "Turtle." It is in these two portraits where Hellman's mordant humor especially shines.
From Arthur W.A. Cowan:

I said, "Oh, shut up, Arthur."
And he did, but that night as he paid the dinner check, he wrote out another check and handed it to me. It was for a thousand dollars.
I said, "What's this for?" "Anybody you want."
I handed it back.
He said, "Oh, for Christ sake take it and tell yourself it's for putting up with me."
"Then it's not enough money." (P.235)

And

From Turtle:

Toward afternoon I telephoned the New York Zoological Society of which I was a member. I had a hard time being transferred to somebody who knew about turtles. When I finished, the young voice said, "Yes, the Chelydra serpentina. A ferocious foe. Where did you meet it?"
"Meet it?"
"Encounter it?"
"At a literary cocktail party by a lake." (P.278)

Considering the period, the one-liners are quite sharp; the portrait that obviously stands out the most is "Julia," the 'supposed' friendship that developed between Hellman and a Freud disciple who happened to be an anti-facist supporter - a 'friendship' that later formed the basis for the Academy Award-winning film of the same title. Whether the story is fact or fiction, that is up for the reader to decide. Whether "Julia" represented a single woman or a group of dedicated individuals fighting to stop/lessen the evils of war whom Hellman truly admired and who thus wanted her name associated with, may also never be known. But what can be said of the Julia portrait is that it is a written down homage to a person or persons who tried to make a positive difference in that dark epoch of our global history.

[Tristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. The title itself is so brilliant - "pentimento" being when you are able to see the ghost traces of previous work in a painting, showing that the artist has changed his/her mind and painted over a previous idea. The word is Italian for "repentance," and in this book, Lillian is looking back and trying to find the old traces of memories of her past and the people she interacted with. There is a kind of repentance present, as well as a deep care for showing all sides of these complicated characters in her life.

Her writing style is a perfectly delicious blend of Dashiell Hammett and Dorothy Parker, all while listening to New Orleans jazz during high tea at Oxford. I loved the beginning, when she wends her way back to her childhood and tickles us with the exploits and adventures of a young, wild Lillian. Things go a bit darker as she ages and has to face the heartbreaking darkness of dealing with Nazism, alcoholism and the McCarthy Hearings, but even then, her brilliantly witty voice guides us through it all and helps us remember that we all can get through our own darkness. I had never read anything of hers before, and I'm going to remedy that right away. She's truly a treasure of an author.

[Alpha Bet · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented," changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again. That is all I mean about the people in this book. The paint has aged and I wanted to see what was there for me once, what is there for me now."

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child manes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented," changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again."
Lillian Hellman ~~ Pentimento.

A beautiful way of looking back, which is what this book does.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2023
Prompt: book you read more than 10 years ago

There's always a risk when I go back and re-read a book that you have fond memories about. I read "Pentimento" in 2006 and absolutely loved it. In 2023 I still love it but there are now parts where Lillian Hellman's white privilege is strong. This book reminds me of Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" because Hellman's book is a book about her experiences with other people. And it's also jumpstarted a Lillian Hellman/Dashell Hammett obsession.

[Russell Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written, compellingly told. The book is less an autobiography than it is a collection of personal essays. While I found it interesting to read about her fascinating life, further research says that most of this book is a lie. The famous tale of Julia (made into the wonderful movie with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave) apparently is total fiction, with Hellman appropriating a woman's persona (whom she didn't even know) and calling her Julia, then fabricating a story.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always wanted to read this book, since seeing the movie Julia 30 years ago. It did not disappoint. It was nice seeing a glimpse of Dash and Lillian's life together, plus the many eccentric characters from her family and circle of friends, especially from the literary and theater folk from the 40's.

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book after taking Southern Lit in college and loving the movie "Julia." Since I remember nothing about this book now, I'm giving it a relatively low rating. I'm starting to realize that if I read a book a while back and have no memories of it, it must not have been a good book IMO. So, that's my story & I'm sticking to it!

[Lynne Carlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable memoir. I often find them dry but Hellman is a compelling writer and had a crazy life full of interesting characters. I suggest enjoying her memory rather than looking for accurate facts (hence a memoir not an autobiography). She seems to have been a fascinating though difficult person. I wish some of her plays would be revived as I would like to see them.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure if it’s her writing or her life that would not let me put the book down. She was a most unusual woman that mixed with some history makers. She made some of that history herself.

I’ll have to reread An Unfinished Woman now and watch a few of her movies.

[Caryatid · Rating 1 out of 5]

What rubbish. Another New Yorker carried to heights merely by being from New York. Fortunately now forgotten. But given her mistakes, lies and messy experiences I must read someone else's biography of her for the gossip value.

[Xitlali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lillian Hellman, why did you find me? What can I learn from your life that is honest, but not generous, and doesn't succumb to my nagging instinct to hate you?

Pondering: A complaint which has "justice" but is nonetheless "provocative"