A Perfect Marriage?
In the introduction to Vita and Harold, son and editor Nigel Nicolson writes this: "My main purpose has been to show the companionship of two very different people developed over these fifty years, and how their marriage survived crises, sexual incompatibility and long absences to become a source of profound happiness to both" (4). I just don't know about that. Vita and Harold seemed to be good companions for each, but wife and husband? Not so much. There are letters when Vita even mentions her frustration at society, for insisting that everyone be married off -- she would have been perfectly happy just living with Harold, rather than being his wife.I suppose they were happy. It's hard to tell from letters. They went long months without seeing one another. They took separate holidays with other people. At times they both seem unnecessarily cloying with one another -- Harold's letters are at times extremely simplified, as if he doesn't believe Vita of comprehending what he has seen and his experienced. And in Vita's earlier letters, she is constantly referring to "how nice" Harold is. I don't see how Vita could have possibly seen "nice" as a good quality.
Of course I am only halfway through the book. Maybe at the end of it all, after the affairs with Violet and Virginia Woolf, and Harold's indiscretions, their marriage will indeed seem ideal.
I'll end with a random Harold excerpt:
"Virginia is quite right about your ridiculous diffidence. It is the same part of you that makes you shy at parties, makes you creep into corners and hide there, and stay there all evening so as not to be seen. But it is absurd you being diffident about your writing since you have such a compelling literary gift. I think you are a late flowering plant in the sense that it will be your fruit which will be important rather than your blossom" (205)
posted by Empress Girl @ 3:59 PM
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