Alone! Alone!: Lives of Some Outsider Women

by Rosemary Dinnage

In the course of over thirty years of writing about psychology, child development, biography, and fiction, Rosemary Dinnage has encountered a variety of outstanding women, all of whom, in one way or another, felt powerfully alone.

Here she brings together her reflections on some of the most memorable of them, including solitairies like the painter Gwen John and the philosopher Simone Weil; muses to partners of genius like Clementine Churchill and Giuseppina Verdi; unstoppable characters like the birth-control advocate Marie Stopes and the children's novelist Enid Blyton; literary survivors like Isak Dinesen and Rebecca West; and, along the way, an assortment of aristocrats, lawbreakers, manic-depressives, transvestites, and storytellers.

Some of these women knew isolation through their dedication to duty, and others through their immersion in writing, painting, or politics. Some juggled with fantasy worlds in which they could end up stranded. Others learned the fine art of survival, fighting illness, hard childhoods, or a hostile public. All of them, whether trying to construct a life or a work of art—or both—suggest ways in which women can choose, learn, laugh, invent, dare, and of course wholeheartedly love or hate.

These women make up a remarkable gallery of the famous, the infamous, the once famous, and the never famous. In telling their stories, Rosemary Dinnage considers what aloneness may really be, how it begins, how it feels, and, above all, how this crucial experience can teach and illuminate as well as hurt.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Essays, Womens

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Cor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a set of essays on women who lived in some way apart from society or have been identified as "outsider" (ranging from bohemian artists in the 19th century to prostitutes in modern France) mostly focusing on the UK. An important note is that this book is a collection of previous (biographical/memoir) book reviews Dinnage has written for various magazines, mainly the London Review of Books during the 1980s-2000s. Dinnage herself admits to being more interested in psychoanalysis and biographical review than feminist interpretation and I think it adds a refreshing view point to the often times unflinching look at these women's lives. That being said this book never really came together for me maybe because of it being a collection of book reviews.

I requested this book on a whim as I was searching my library for books on Simone Weil. I thought this book was going to be about what it means to be a woman outside of society from a historical, artistic, religious, and sociological perspective. In that way I was a bit disappointed but I don't blame Dinnage. A lot of the essays just didn't catch me and since I requested this book to read about Simone Weil and other women like her I was a bit let down because each chapter was so short and nothing felt particularly cohesive. While I found Dinnage's reviews on the women interesting I do wish there was at least some attempt to really define what an Outsider Woman was in a societal level as I disagree with the mixture of certain women as truly being Outsiders. But I understand that this book was a collection of her reviews rather than a book written from the topic.

[Nicola Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had this book for years and, the other morning, got a sudden urge to read it despite having promised myself that I'd read a novel next. Yeah, this just wasn't my cup of tea. The big names she covers, I had read about already along with the sources she quoted from. She didn't bring anything new to the table. Meanwhile, a couple of other chapters failed to interest me. However, my biggest problem was with Dinnage spouting her opinion and telling me how to respond to folk she herself disliked. For instance, referring to Enid Blyton as 'The woman was, in a nutshell, a tiresome, insecure, Thatcheresque queen of kitch'. Just give me the facts and I'll make up my own mind, thank you!

[Valerie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this but Dinnage was unnecessarily dismissive/snide about a lot of stuff; her chapters on E. Nesbit and prostitutes really rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't want to read further about any of her subjects, which is probably the opposite of what she wanted.

[alice carrick-smith]

read the chapters on gwen john and simone weil but they weren’t very good

[Rusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author took an unusual approach to writing about women out of the popular vein of life. Many were wives, sisters, friends, or in love with more famous people than themselves. Occasionally, I felt the author was more intrigued with a famous man than the woman of the narrative but this is true of only a few of the narratives.. The tales are divided in various classifications: Solitaries, Partners and Muses, Seers, Exotics, Reinventors, and Trapped. Most lived in a different time such as the Victorian era when women found it difficult to pursue careers. It's an interesting read about people such as Clementine Churchill, Dora Russell, Isak Dinesen and Margaret Oliphant. Many of the women were true individuals who lived their own lives as they chose. I enjoyed many of the stories.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biographies themselves are short but good, and Dinnage has the talent of supplying telling details of her subjects without seeming gossipy. Unfortunately, I had never heard of 2/3rds of the people she wrote about. Some are muses, mistresses, hangers-on, or petty artists in their own right; only a few are known beyond their own tiny sphere of time and place. I like that she chose to write about people who are otherwise unexamined, but given that all of them were artists it seems short-sighted not to include a painting or sample of writing. She reviews and critiques their art, but if I’ve never seen it, how can I participate? Ah well, now I have more writers on my "to read" list.

[Hila · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good collection of essays about an assortment of women, each isolated in one way or another. Occasionally the essay would be more about the man in the woman's life than the woman herself (if she was a mistress or muse to an artist for example). I hadn't heard of most of the women she wrote about (and there are many great ones she could have written about), but I did discover some interesting figures, and I do like how she sketches out the broader background to which they belonged - what was going on in the world politically and culturally during their lives.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a collection of articles, and I found some more engaging than others. More valuable for the information about interesting figures than for any overarching insights into the (female) human condition.

[Tanya · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit more academic than I hoped. I wanted a story-telling approach.

[Story · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather slapdash and boring.

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd book, collection of essays, many about unusual women, some a little dull, maybe a 3.3.

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too British.

[Fernmother]

oof :(