Reviews for Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The average rating for Charlotte Perkins Gilman based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-08-20 00:00:00 Robert Harris Savigneau's biography is a great introduction to the life and writing of Carson McCullers. The book follows a logical timeline and tries to explore different angles of McCullers' personality. However, there are some questions that I have acquired from reading McCullers' works that are not addressed or are only glanced at, and this describes one of the problems I have with this biography. Much of my interest in McCullers is derived from her writing, and while Savigneau's book is a solid biography, it didn't go deep enough into McCullers' work for my taste. The second problem I have with the book is that it is now out-dated. The book was originally published in 1995 (28 years after McCullers' death) and one would have thought that enough research into her life and writing would have been done by 1995, but not so. McCullers own, tho unfinished, autobiography Illuminations and Night Glare was not published until 1999, and there is at least one other book (Schwarzenbach's Das Wunder des Baums / The Miracle of the Tree) that is referred to in Savigneau's work that was published after this biography. Still, this is a good basic reference to McCullers' life and work.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-09-04 00:00:00 Joseph King By all accounts Carson McCullers was a complicated woman. Opinions of her personal life tend to be curiously polarized so that her acquaintences portray her either as an angel with gossamer wings or else a despotic bitch. Mme. Savigneau endeavors with this biography to present an apologia for Ms. McCullers. Yes, Carson could be at times an alcoholic wretch. But, as Savigneau rightly points out, Ms. McCullers was part of a generation of hard-drinking enfant teribles from the South. Substance abuse was part of being a writer at the time. If Carson was a pariah, or was narcissistic or self-destructive then she was in good company with Truman Capote and her personal friend and mentor Tennesee Williams. Mme. Savigneau posits that Carson was a remarkably progressive woman for her time, and as such she was misunderstood, and continues to be misunderstood by her critics. The "Carson is so great" tone of the book got a little old after two hundred pages or so. This is not an objective biography. At times it felt like I was reading a giant fan letter written from Savigneau to her subject. * * * I picked up this biography to learn more about the twenty-three year old author who penned the most beautiful book I have read this year, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. What I learned is that Carson grew up to become the cliche of the Unhappy Author: suicidal, sick, neurotic, chasing her problems to the bottom of a bottle. I am currently reading a biography of John Cheever, and I find the fates of these apparently disparate writers to be sadly similar: constantly drunk, desperate, self-absorbed, locked into destructive relationships. I set down this book wondering if this is the inevitable plight of the serious artist. Is there any way to create a masterpiece without sacrificing your sanity, not to mention the sanity of your friends and family? Does the pursuit of greatness ultimately end in destruction? Blerg. I will now go out happily into the afternoon sunshine to purge myself of the raincloud that this book left in my brain.