Reviews for Spoils of Poynton

The average rating for Spoils of Poynton based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-03-07 00:00:00 Patrick Daniels "My name is Fleda Vetch and I'm the main character of The Spoils of Poynton. That is to say, I appear to be the main character but the truth is, Mrs Gereth of Poynton Hall takes firm possession of that status early in the story. Mrs Gereth likes taking possession of things and I like giving them up. In fact, if my overly developed sense of humility didn't prevent it, I would claim my place as the most put-upon character in literary history, for not only has my main character status been usurped, I've also been saddled with an atrocious name and an impossibly rigorous sense of duty, one which invariably forces me to choose the stony path instead of the smooth one. Henry James must have been in a grey mood the day he decided to insert me into his Poynton tale. I've read his notes for the story and I'm fully aware that I was an afterthought, not part of the original plan. He needed someone to act as a go-between, and so, sadly for me, I was brought into existence. I started out life in a rather promising way; I was an artist, with a well developed aesthetic sense, and I had plans to go to Paris to study painting. I was excited about that life when I first heard about it but then I discovered that James had made me completely penniless, so his dangling that possibility before me became just another of his cruelties. Any chance of going to Paris, even to starve in a garret, was soon written out of the story in any case. On the third page, as I was sitting in an obscure corner of a friend's garden, minding my modest business as usual, Henry James allowed Mrs Gereth of Poynton Hall to descend upon me in all her pent-up fury. Like me, she was a guest at the friend's house and she hated everything about it, the wallpaper, the furniture, the ornaments, but especially the people who owned it. It didn't help that her son appeared to be romantically interested in one of the daughters of the house. For some odd reason, Mrs Gereth thought I felt the same way about the house and the people as she did. She never actually asked me, she just presumed I shared her feelings completely. A few pages later, I'd been whisked off to stay with her at Poynton Hall, and that's how I came to be the unhappy go-between in the conflict that arose when Mrs Gereth's son announced he was getting married to the girl from the house with the wallpaper Mrs Gereth couldn't abide. When I got to Poynton, I understood about the wallpaper of course. Mrs Gereth had been a collector of art all her life. Her home was a mini museum full of paintings, tapestries, precious artifacts, antique furniture, in short, beauties beyond my wildest dreams. Collecting and caring for her treasures had been her life's work and she loved them more than anything, certainly more than her only son. However, the late Mr Gereth had left his property to the son, and in accordance with English law, Mrs Gereth was obliged to leave Poynton Hall, together with all its treasures, as soon as her son decided to marry. If you think you can imagine the trauma that ensued thereafter for everyone concerned, you're wrong, and certainly don't count on me to fill you in; I lived through it once, I could not bear to live through it again. So if, if, you still want to know what happened to the Spoils of Poynton, you'll have to read the book for yourself. The single mercy Henry James granted me was to make it short."

Review # 2 was written on 2007-09-27 00:00:00 Koichi Yanaga Virginia Woolf in a letter to Violet Dickinson, 25 August 1907 : "Well then, we went and had tea with Henry James today…and Henry James fixed me with his staring blank eye ' it is like a childs marble ' and said 'My dear Virginia, they tell me ' they tell me ' they tell me ' that you ' as indeed being your fathers daughter - nay your grandfather's grandchild ' the descendant I may say of a century ' of a century ' of quill pens and ink ' ink ' ink pots, yes, yes, yes, they tell me ' ahm - mm ' that you, that you, that you write in short.' This went on in the public street, while we all waited, as farmers wait for the hen to lay an egg ' do they? ' nervous, polite, and now on this foot now on that."