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Vaslav Nijinsky: A Leap Into Madness
Recounts the life of the Russian ballet dancer from his ascent to fame to his leap to madness, and looks at his relationship with his sister, Bronislava Nijinska, herself a notable dancer and choreographer
372 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 1, 2020
[my copy is signed "To Patricia" from Nijinsky's daughter Tamara]
This is an excellent biography of a very difficult subject, the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who "went mad" at the age of 30 and spent the second half of his life essentially mute. Even before that, Nijinsky was notoriously bad at communicating except through dance, so most of what Ostwald has to work with is what other people said about him. This is particularly problematic in the case of Nijinsky's wife Romola, who set herself up as the authority on all things Nijinsky and wrote two books about him, but who was demonstrably untruthful. Ostwald does a marvelous job of combing through Nijinsky's incomplete medical records and other sources both to assess Romola's narrative and to piece together an alternative story.
Not that there's a great deal of story to be had. Nijinsky's inner life remains inaccessible. Once he ceased to dance, it seems likely that that inner life was cruelly impoverished. This is a very sad biography, the story of someone whose enormous talent went largely wasted, in no small part, as Ostwald points out, because of his inability to work with others. His dreadful communication skills and his perfectionism combined to make him a nightmare for other dancers trying to work with him on his own (radically innovative) choreography, while his "temperament"---his depressive apathies and manic temper tantrums, both signs of his underlying psychological problems---made him equally a nightmare for those trying to get him to work, to perform regularly and to schedule, necessary for anyone wanting a career as a dancer. There's no doubt that Nijinsky was a genius, equally no doubt that that genius was something Nijinsky's flawed and tragically fragile psyche could not maintain without the help of the people (like his sister Bronislava) whom he drove away.
This is an excellent biography of a very difficult subject, the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who "went mad" at the age of 30 and spent the second half of his life essentially mute. Even before that, Nijinsky was notoriously bad at communicating except through dance, so most of what Ostwald has to work with is what other people said about him. This is particularly problematic in the case of Nijinsky's wife Romola, who set herself up as the authority on all things Nijinsky and wrote two books about him, but who was demonstrably untruthful. Ostwald does a marvelous job of combing through Nijinsky's incomplete medical records and other sources both to assess Romola's narrative and to piece together an alternative story.
Not that there's a great deal of story to be had. Nijinsky's inner life remains inaccessible. Once he ceased to dance, it seems likely that that inner life was cruelly impoverished. This is a very sad biography, the story of someone whose enormous talent went largely wasted, in no small part, as Ostwald points out, because of his inability to work with others. His dreadful communication skills and his perfectionism combined to make him a nightmare for other dancers trying to work with him on his own (radically innovative) choreography, while his "temperament"---his depressive apathies and manic temper tantrums, both signs of his underlying psychological problems---made him equally a nightmare for those trying to get him to work, to perform regularly and to schedule, necessary for anyone wanting a career as a dancer. There's no doubt that Nijinsky was a genius, equally no doubt that that genius was something Nijinsky's flawed and tragically fragile psyche could not maintain without the help of the people (like his sister Bronislava) whom he drove away.
August 8, 2022
When Soviet soldiers entered Budapest in 1944, having liberated it from the Nazis, Vaslav Nijinsky, the greatest dancer in history, confined to an insane asylum and who had not spoken a word for over a decade, shouted out "Comrades!" What Einstein was to physics and Wittgenstein to philosophy Nijinsky was to dance. HIs nimble body and fragile mind emboldened him to make both mental and physical leaps heretofore thought impossible. (His ancestry may have played a role as well. Nijinsky was born in Kiev, Ukraine to parents of Polish descent but always conducted himself the proud Russian). Peter Oswald, a medical doctor, suggests in this superb biography that Nijinsky's madness was the cause of his genius, not its decline. Psychosomatically, his brain enabled his body to soar, twist and conquer the air in ways no rational person could. Since the memoirs of his wife Romula are unreliable (for some reason she left out his bisexuality) and Nijinsky had already been certified mad before composing his "Diary" Ostwald relies on medical records of the great one's stay in various mental clinics to prove "the clown of God", as Nijinsky called himself, lost his mind for his art.
January 19, 2020
Similar to my reading of Lucy Moore's Nijinsky: A Life, this is a great example of in-depth research. Ostwald left no stone unturned and his work is a boon to any future biographer or person interested in learning about Nijinsky. Unfortunately Ostwald's prose can be pretty dry, and the sheer amount of detail doesn't exactly make for light reading.
This book focuses mainly on Nijinsky's illness, and thus reads like the notes of a psychiatrist trying to figure him out. I have a love-hate relationship with books where the author makes it their mission to uncover the psychology of the long-dead-and-buried. On the one hand, the commentary offers fresh insight. (I was very interested in his comments about Nijinsky's early childhood and adolescent experiences, particularly his tumultuous relationship with his father, his emotional attachment to his sister, and the bullying he endured at school for his appearance, accent, ethnicity, and talents!) But since Nijinsky isn't around for Ostwald to actually study him, he's just relying on the notes of the doctors who did, and these sources, while interesting, are very vague.
In addition, Ostwald unfortunately fell into the same trap of constantly citing a single event (the death of Nijinsky's elder brother, who was left mentally retarded after falling out a window and was similarly institutionalized, was supposedly the cause of his own mental decline; this is based on an old theory that proposed Nijinsky's mental illness was genetic) that Brian Masters' invoked in his book The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, where the serial killer's extensive mental illness was blamed on a surgical operation he underwent at the age of four. I resented this kind of overly simplistic thinking then, and I resent it here. He briefly entertains the notion (shared by the first couple of doctors who examined Nijinsky) that he may have been "pretending" to be mad, imitating the behavior of other patients at the asylum and his brother, but this was quickly dismissed after Nijinsky was given four drugs to calm his mood swings. The drugs seem to have accelerated his illness rapidly, as he soon became raving and incoherent, then finally a chronic invalid, but Ostwald doesn't go too much into the details of how much this may have affected his mental state, probably because he was afraid of discouraging people from taking their meds.
Apart from that, there's the usual biases. Every biographer I've read so far has openly and unabashedly bashed the ever-unlikable Romola Nijinsky. Since Ostwald is a clinically trained psychiatrist by trade, we get the delightful addition of him psychoanalyzing her as well as her husband. Both Ostwald and Lucy Moore's biographies included inaccuracies (which are few, but I did pick up on them while reading) originating from info they took from Nijinsky's diary. I get that it's almost unreadable (I'm reading it now, what a mess) but since it's something you can buy as a paperback as opposed to a limited-access hospital record, they could have literally picked it up and looked up what they were referencing to make sure no details were misread or missed. It just seems lazy.
I checked this out from a university library. Along with coffee stains and food crumbs, there were quite a few pencil markings from students taking notes and quotes, so clearly people have found it useful in their psychology papers.
This book focuses mainly on Nijinsky's illness, and thus reads like the notes of a psychiatrist trying to figure him out. I have a love-hate relationship with books where the author makes it their mission to uncover the psychology of the long-dead-and-buried. On the one hand, the commentary offers fresh insight. (I was very interested in his comments about Nijinsky's early childhood and adolescent experiences, particularly his tumultuous relationship with his father, his emotional attachment to his sister, and the bullying he endured at school for his appearance, accent, ethnicity, and talents!) But since Nijinsky isn't around for Ostwald to actually study him, he's just relying on the notes of the doctors who did, and these sources, while interesting, are very vague.
In addition, Ostwald unfortunately fell into the same trap of constantly citing a single event (the death of Nijinsky's elder brother, who was left mentally retarded after falling out a window and was similarly institutionalized, was supposedly the cause of his own mental decline; this is based on an old theory that proposed Nijinsky's mental illness was genetic) that Brian Masters' invoked in his book The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, where the serial killer's extensive mental illness was blamed on a surgical operation he underwent at the age of four. I resented this kind of overly simplistic thinking then, and I resent it here. He briefly entertains the notion (shared by the first couple of doctors who examined Nijinsky) that he may have been "pretending" to be mad, imitating the behavior of other patients at the asylum and his brother, but this was quickly dismissed after Nijinsky was given four drugs to calm his mood swings. The drugs seem to have accelerated his illness rapidly, as he soon became raving and incoherent, then finally a chronic invalid, but Ostwald doesn't go too much into the details of how much this may have affected his mental state, probably because he was afraid of discouraging people from taking their meds.
Apart from that, there's the usual biases. Every biographer I've read so far has openly and unabashedly bashed the ever-unlikable Romola Nijinsky. Since Ostwald is a clinically trained psychiatrist by trade, we get the delightful addition of him psychoanalyzing her as well as her husband. Both Ostwald and Lucy Moore's biographies included inaccuracies (which are few, but I did pick up on them while reading) originating from info they took from Nijinsky's diary. I get that it's almost unreadable (I'm reading it now, what a mess) but since it's something you can buy as a paperback as opposed to a limited-access hospital record, they could have literally picked it up and looked up what they were referencing to make sure no details were misread or missed. It just seems lazy.
I checked this out from a university library. Along with coffee stains and food crumbs, there were quite a few pencil markings from students taking notes and quotes, so clearly people have found it useful in their psychology papers.
March 29, 2016
I have read all published biographies of Vaslav Nijinsky and all gave me something unique. Thanks to Peter Oswald's medical expertise,this biography reads like a medical mystery, trying to unearth evidence of Nijinsky's mental illness and it tragic impact. Oswald is also willing to offer his own, contemporary explanations of what befell the God of the Dance. I found it irresistible.
March 17, 2020
What a fantastic dive into the life of Vaslav Nijinsky. Reading Ostwald's carefully curated stories about the life of this dancing genius, we see the tragic tale of his rise to stardom and heart-wrenching decline into madness. The book was dense at times, but it was as good a biography as you could expect.
June 6, 2009
Ostwald's biography is meticulous, sensitive, and extremely interesting. He has a very good sense of his subject, especially the psychological/psychiatric concerns which dominated the last thirty years of Nijinsky's life but also influenced his early life (and superstardom). Sometimes Ostwald makes assertions about emotional connections without seeming to have proven the interpretation he prefers - for example, he will explain the many interpretations of Nijinsky's emotional relationship with Diaghilev but fail to elaborate on why he finds one more convincing - which is confusing. His commentary on dance is less capable than his commentary on mental health, although it is never dull, and some of the literary flourishes fall flat. This is still a good biography - it doesn't attempt to simplify or blame anyone.
December 15, 2025
Impressive effort at a combined biography and posthumous psychiatric evaluation. Some of Ostwald’s speculations about Nijinsky’s psychology are a little Freudian, and obviously we have no way of verifying whether Ostwald’s psychiatric diagnosis is correct, but by and large the account of his brief yet brilliant professional life and subsequent years of institutionalization is compassionate and thorough.
A Leap Into Madness manages to be, in addition to a portrait of Nijinsky himself, a harrowing account of treatment for mental illness in the twenties and thirties. Ostwald notes that Nijinsky was receiving what was considered cutting-edge treatments for schizophrenia at the time — among them, insulin shocks and various medications he was forced to take — but it is worth noting that these treatments would be considered inhumane today, not to mention ineffective and even counterproductive. After reading Ostwald’s analysis of Nijinsky’s treatment and comparison to how someone with his symptoms would be treated today, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Nijinsky had received proper screening and treatment. A full recovery seems doubtful, but at least he might not have been put through so much misery, after an already stressful and possibly traumatic childhood and youth.
Joan Acocella writes in her essay on Nijinsky’s unexpurgated diaries, “Never was so much artistic fame based on so little artistic evidence: one eleven-minute ballet, Faun, plus some photographs.” I would argue, though, that if that is so, it was because the women of Nijinsky’s life devoted enormous amounts of energy to making sure that his legacy was not forgotten. Ironically, Nijinsky’s wife Romola, who had fallen in love with him at the height of his fame, was forced to spend the rest of her marriage commemorating his glory years through biographies, exhibitions, and the publication of his diaries because it was the only reliable way she could generate income for his institutional stays. To a large extent, then, Nijinsky’s enduring reputation owes itself to Romola’s efforts. Nijinsky’s sister Bronislava (a renowned dancer and choreographer in her own right) also played a huge role in helping him succeed and, later, carrying on his legacy: she did his homework for him when he was failing out of school, smoothed over many of his difficult relationships, sacrificed her own career for a time when Vaslav wanted to found his own dance company, and eventually staged many of the ballets that her brother had wanted to work on before his illness. His daughters Kyra and Tamara and niece Irina wrote their own memoirs and contributed personal stories and archival materials to the biography; it was with their blessing that Ostwald was able to write with such candor about Nijinsky’s institutional stays and past relationships. If there is some kind of a silver lining to be found in Nijinsky’s story, then, it is that people truly are not gone until they are forgotten.
A Leap Into Madness manages to be, in addition to a portrait of Nijinsky himself, a harrowing account of treatment for mental illness in the twenties and thirties. Ostwald notes that Nijinsky was receiving what was considered cutting-edge treatments for schizophrenia at the time — among them, insulin shocks and various medications he was forced to take — but it is worth noting that these treatments would be considered inhumane today, not to mention ineffective and even counterproductive. After reading Ostwald’s analysis of Nijinsky’s treatment and comparison to how someone with his symptoms would be treated today, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Nijinsky had received proper screening and treatment. A full recovery seems doubtful, but at least he might not have been put through so much misery, after an already stressful and possibly traumatic childhood and youth.
Joan Acocella writes in her essay on Nijinsky’s unexpurgated diaries, “Never was so much artistic fame based on so little artistic evidence: one eleven-minute ballet, Faun, plus some photographs.” I would argue, though, that if that is so, it was because the women of Nijinsky’s life devoted enormous amounts of energy to making sure that his legacy was not forgotten. Ironically, Nijinsky’s wife Romola, who had fallen in love with him at the height of his fame, was forced to spend the rest of her marriage commemorating his glory years through biographies, exhibitions, and the publication of his diaries because it was the only reliable way she could generate income for his institutional stays. To a large extent, then, Nijinsky’s enduring reputation owes itself to Romola’s efforts. Nijinsky’s sister Bronislava (a renowned dancer and choreographer in her own right) also played a huge role in helping him succeed and, later, carrying on his legacy: she did his homework for him when he was failing out of school, smoothed over many of his difficult relationships, sacrificed her own career for a time when Vaslav wanted to found his own dance company, and eventually staged many of the ballets that her brother had wanted to work on before his illness. His daughters Kyra and Tamara and niece Irina wrote their own memoirs and contributed personal stories and archival materials to the biography; it was with their blessing that Ostwald was able to write with such candor about Nijinsky’s institutional stays and past relationships. If there is some kind of a silver lining to be found in Nijinsky’s story, then, it is that people truly are not gone until they are forgotten.
January 19, 2025
I rated this as "really liked" mainly because of the subject matter, Vaslav Nijinsky. I had read his sister Bronislava's book Early Memoirs many years ago, which did not go into his later life as much as this book does, and I appreciate it for that reason. One quibble I have with it is that it relies a lot on Vaslav's wife, Romola, as a source. I don't trust her recounting of events and took much of what she related with a grain of salt. There are the observations from doctors, nurses, and attendants which often contradict Romola's reports of her husband's behavior. These I put more stock in. The last few chapters were hard to get through--depressing actually. Such a beautiful and exquisite dancer no longer interested or capable of dancing--a true tragedy.
March 8, 2019
Sad, sad, sad
April 12, 2017
Exceptional, one of the best possible biographies ever written about such an enigmatic and legendary artistic figure as Nijinsky, his early life, his training to become one the greatest dancers in history, his sentimental life, his struggles, his decay. Peter Ostwald offers a unique vision of the life of a man who knew how to earn the title of "God of dance"
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews