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Frances Partridge: A LifeEditions
ReviewI intended to spend only a few minutes with this biography: since I was sure we would sell a lot, I wanted to form some opinion. But from the start I was fascinated, and remained so until the end. Chisholm had full access to Frances Partridge’s archives and conducted many hours of interviews with her but, although she is obviously interested by her subject, she maintains a degree of detachment. Her account of Ralph Partridge’s transformation from ebullient Edwardian soldier to ‘third leg’ of the ménage with Lytton Strachey and Carrington at Ham Spray is itself a valuable contribution to the literature about Bloomsbury, and Frances’s tolerance, and gradual integration into the Ham Spray household is intriguing. She comes across as tenacious and self-possessed. Chisholm is careful in her treatment of their upbringing of their son, Burgo. It is left to the reader to consider how good the Bloomsbury Group were with their children, and to assess Frances’s pacifism in the light of the Second World War. Partridge was already old by the time she started publishing her diaries From this point the narrative becomes constrained by the regular publications, and a weariness creeps in as she just goes on and on, still seeing her friends and writing as she always has done. In fact most of the published work, which is what she is remembered for, occupy little more than fifty pages at the end of the book. The real interest, which is considerable, lies in the Partridge angle on Bloomsbury. - review by John de Falbe |
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