Autobiografia

by Edith Sitwell, Margherita Guidacci (Translator), Lina Angioletti (Contributor)

Memories of the author's own life and of the many renowned contemporaries who were her friends or targets for her pen.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History

195 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell, DBE, was a British poet and critic.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The one thing that surprised me for some reason, is that Edith Sitwell's quotes Arthur Rimbaud's poetry a lot in her memoir "Taken Care Of." For some reason, I didn't think the Prince of French punk poetry's work would get along in the eccentric world of Edith Sitwell - but there you go! This is a book of little and not too many major surprises. For instance, I didn't know she lived at the Sunset Tower on the Sunset Strip, nor that she had a great admiration for Dylan Thomas. She didn't like D.H. Lawrence and is quite snooty towards a lot of people. On the other hand, it seems she adored Marilyn Monroe.

The memoir started off strongly in a narrative way with her relationship with her parents when she was a child, which wasn't so hot. After that, the book jumps around time-to-time with no strong narrative impulse. Sort of whatever entered Sitwell's head at the time of writing, is what stayed in the final version of the book.

I wished she wrote a larger chapter, or even a whole book on her experiences in America, especially Hollywood. Still, this is a nice portal or entrance into the brain of Sitwell, but it's not the great memoir that one would hope for.

[Sparrow .]

If this were a hat, you couldn’t stop staring at it, with its decorations of ostrich feathers, gold ringbolts, tiny anchors, porcelain grapes, velour Xs, netting, a miniature flute, fins, a working camera – all piled into a companionable chaos.

Opening at random:

“Upstairs, in her small room, standing before the strip of stained and dull looking-glass, Annie by day and Greta by night, with her hair released from the restrictions imposed by “that damned old cat,” was curving her neck and blinking her eyes at the image she saw reflected in the glass; she looked admiringly and lovingly at the glamorous creature who lay hidden so mysteriously behind the pale face with the long nose and the light eyes, the undergrown body with its youthful flat bosom.”

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful English eccentricity. There's a gem of brilliance, madness or wit on every page.

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the section she wrote about her childhood and parents. After that it became a long list of mostly snarky comments about the literary figures of her day, mostly cryptic remarks and wearying. I wanted to know more about her life, not about what she thought of others. This was lacking for the most part. I will read her autobiography by another biographer who specializes in this genre. Sitwell had Marfan’s syndrome. That is why she was so tall and unusual in appearance. Her family estate is now a tourist attraction. Well maintained and lovely grounds.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, especially read in conjunction with her brother Osbert's memoirs. This is even less of a linear account, apart from a section about her childhood being near the beginning: jumps about all over the place, and is very selective. There are some strange photographs (which are interesting) and there are quite a few rants about people who were unpleasant to or about her - some of them famous,also some who were not at all famous and/or annoyed her in some way. The passage about Dylan Thomas is a charming tribute and worth reading for anyone interested in him (somehow I wouldn't have thought of these two together but it seems they were friends, as a result of admiring each other's poetry). Altogether, very odd, but shines some light on another corner of the twentieth century English literary landscape. It is occasionally funny too, but one feels the "hell" of the Sitwell childhood was a more obviously bitter experience for Edith than for her brothers, who were able to escape the family home a bit more.

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an unusual autobiography. It does not attempt to be a complete or thorough narrative of the author's life, but is rather a compilation of reminiscences and anecdotes, some chapters focusing on famous writers and artists she has known (DH Lawrence, Pawel Tchelitchew, Wyndham Lewis), some turning into a rather technical description of her poetry. Early on there are some tantalising insights into her eccentric family - I wished there had been more (though Osbert Sitwell's autobiographical writing gives an excellent portrait, especially of his father, Sir George Sitwell). Edith swings between a rather pompous (even if deserved) regard for her own importance as a modernist poet and mentor, and a thinly veiled 'settling of scores', in which she sets out to explain from her point of view the ruptures in various relationships such as that with her companion Helen Rootham. There are also several bitter remarks about her parents that she refuses to elaborate on, thereby rendering them acerbic, self-pitying and ultimately uninteresting, rather than thoughtful and compelling insights into family dynamics and the generational divide. The book ends, quite abruptly, with a chapter on Hollywood; but rather than the glamorous world of movies, it presents an appalling vision of the slums, leaving the reader both disgusted and confused.

[Priscilla King · Rating 4 out of 5]

You have to read it, that's all...Dame Edith Sitwell, author, artist, arts patron, and society queen of her day, describes her painful early life (feeling "in disgrace for being female") and her career as a glamorous if not beautiful, brilliant, rich socialite who knew all the famous Edwardian writers and artists--as colleagues. Writing toward the end of her life, she didn't live long enough to feel that she'd finished this book, but as it stands it's an enjoyable read. She sniped back at people who'd sniped at her and her brothers, shared pleasant memories of famous people, reminisced and philosophized. She was someone everyone wanted to know. You'll probably enjoy meeting her through her most personal book, too. If you've not already read any of her biographies, her autobiography may make you add them to your wishlist. (If you have, the ones you've not read are already on the list.)

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’d love to read a good 200-300 page biography of Edith Sitwell, one that places her life in context with the end of the Victorian era, the excesses of the Edwardian era, The Great War and WWII, the Bloomsbury group, into the 1960s; one that explains her miserable early life, her often challenging living conditions, and how she chose to live with such assurance and theatricality.

This isn’t that book. This is a scattered, erratic heap of free-floating memories, incomprehensible self-justifications of her poetry, and prideful score-settling.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edith Sitwell was a Plantagenet ... a strange and wonderful creature belonging to another age and almost another world. She was an opinionated writer and critic - a poet and a woman of great sensitivity. She was almost one of the Bloomsbury set - but always an outsider. I loved this book for its spirit and sense of adventure. Not an easy read - but if you're interested in literature and how the other half lived at the tail end of the 20th Century, this book is fascinating.

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange book. I scored a first edition hardback! Well ok, its an old battered ex Minneapolis public library copy, unearthed in a charity shop for 50 cents. Not so much an autobiography as Dame Edith settles her scores. Some scathing sections, Lady Chatterley's Lover for example 'a very dirty and completely worthless book, of no literary importance'. Many rambling chapters on seemingly random parts of her life. Often (unintentionally) hilarious.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Think of this more as the story of an aesthetic rather than the chronology of a life. Sure, Sitwell starts with some stories of childhood, but ultimately the arc here is about her artistic vision rather than the events per se. Some funny tales of poetic jerks as well as those Sitwell adored, as well as an intriguing moment of discussing poetry with Marilyn Monroe, and overall a disarming and odd memoir from a writer who too was disarming and odd.

[Pri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t care that Edith Sitwell goes off on tangents or that Taken Care Of says more about the world than it does about her. I just like being in her head. She’s witty, snarky, and curious in a way that makes me want to keep reading just to see how she’ll think about the next thing.

[Christine Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unusual in all aspects. Though once famous, now sadly maybe a figure of declining interest

[Alvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A charming memoir full of great anecdotes about dotty English eccentrics. (Also full of meditations on poetry which I skipped.) Sitwell's prose careens wildly between brilliance, opacity, and weirdness. Occasionally quite funny.