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The life of Katherine Mansfield
The standard biography of Katherine Mansfield. A collaboration of a close friend and her husband and critic, John Middleton Murry. ILLUS. THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED Books for College Libraries.
- GenresBiography
349 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1975
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September 6, 2018
Oh dear. If you are going to write a biography, it is a good idea not to end it at the tender age of 20, lest your subject comes across as no more than a histrionic and self-absorbed teenage drama queen.
I did wonder initially why this bio was included in The Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (where I was reading The Garden Party and Other Stories). But now I can see, it is obviously an attempt to summarize KM’s early journals and letters without actually including them directly. Unfortunately it reads like a ghost-written autobiography, with her husband John Middleton Murry chipping in a final 10 pages containing a sanitized account of how they met, and ending with their first night together. All that’s missing is the five asterisks after they fell into each others’ arms.
Eye-rollingly uncritical to the point of adulation, it is absurdly disorganized and poorly written, and no detail was seemingly too insignificant to leave out. It’s often impossible to tell whether a passage is from KM’s journals, or from a story that was published years later, or even some thought that Mantz may have inserted herself.
Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Beauchamp, but she didn’t use the pen-name KM until she was about 19, and many of her stories are autobiographical where she often appears as “Kezia”. But Ms Mantz muddles all three names, and at all stages of her life, even before she started writing. Other characters flit in and out of the narrative as if we were as familiar with them as Mantz obviously was. The only kind thing I can say about this work is that it does provide context for many of KM’s short stories – that is, when you can tell real life from fiction.
This should be a 1-star bio, but it was written long ago in the early 30’s, soon after KM’s untimely death from TB, and I guess that florid style of writing wasn’t uncommon them.
I did wonder initially why this bio was included in The Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (where I was reading The Garden Party and Other Stories). But now I can see, it is obviously an attempt to summarize KM’s early journals and letters without actually including them directly. Unfortunately it reads like a ghost-written autobiography, with her husband John Middleton Murry chipping in a final 10 pages containing a sanitized account of how they met, and ending with their first night together. All that’s missing is the five asterisks after they fell into each others’ arms.
Eye-rollingly uncritical to the point of adulation, it is absurdly disorganized and poorly written, and no detail was seemingly too insignificant to leave out. It’s often impossible to tell whether a passage is from KM’s journals, or from a story that was published years later, or even some thought that Mantz may have inserted herself.
Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Beauchamp, but she didn’t use the pen-name KM until she was about 19, and many of her stories are autobiographical where she often appears as “Kezia”. But Ms Mantz muddles all three names, and at all stages of her life, even before she started writing. Other characters flit in and out of the narrative as if we were as familiar with them as Mantz obviously was. The only kind thing I can say about this work is that it does provide context for many of KM’s short stories – that is, when you can tell real life from fiction.
This should be a 1-star bio, but it was written long ago in the early 30’s, soon after KM’s untimely death from TB, and I guess that florid style of writing wasn’t uncommon them.
Displaying 1 of 1 review