Bloomsbury recalled /

Bell--a painter, sculptor, potter, writer, and art critic--is perhaps best known as the biographer of Virginia Woolf (Virginia Woolf, CH, Feb'73), his aunt. In that book he presents a riveting portrait of a group of intellectuals and artists that have become known as Bloomsbury--a much-written-about coterie that was influential in forming English opinion and taste and that still draws the attention of scholars and general readers. Born in 1910, a generation later than most of the subjects of this memoir, Bell treats himself as a figure on the margins--observant, sympathetic, but not averse to showing how his sensibility differs from that of those he modestly calls his "betters." He presents his gallery of eccentrics in their full human dress even as he honors the importance of their work and is careful to distinguish between the different levels of their achievement. Several reviewers have already wondered if Bell could really add much to the avalanche of books on Bloomsbury. The answer is yes. In this book he continues a conversation with his departed family without ever forgetting that he must re-create them for both Bloomsbury aficionados and neophytes. All collections. C. Rollyson Bernard M. Baruch College, CUNY

Curiosity about the Bloomsbury group seems to fluctuate capriciously, but for readers who are aficionados, this book by Virginia Woolf's nephew and biographer will doubtless be of interest. Bell mentions that he set out to write an autobiography but thought better of it, opting instead to portray the literary figures and visual artists he knew so well through a series of vignettes. Reminiscence is key to Bell's prose portraits of his parents, Vanessa and Clive Bell, as well as Leonard Woolf, Ottoline Morrell, and other luminaries and lesser-known members associated with Bloomsbury. There is a bit of autobiography, but mainly Bell recalls encounters and events with individuals who, although they have been subjected to much prior scrutiny, are shown here in the more intimate, albeit brief, character studies derived from Bell's memories. --Alice Joyce

One of the last surviving members of the Bloomsbury circle, Bell, painter, sculptor and art critic, offers a disarmingly candid portrait gallery of major and peripheral Bloomsbury figures. His father, Clive Bell, married the author's mother, Vanessa Stephen (Virginia Woolf's sister) in 1907 but "from 1916 Clive was hardly part of the family." He pursued love affairs while Vanessa, after a clandestine affair with art critic Roger Fry, lived openly with bisexual painter Duncan Grant, with whom she had a daughter, Angelica. Clive, Duncan and Vanessa were reunited under one roof in 1939, and the author conveys a sense of the emotional strain of growing up in "a multi-parent family." Acclaimed biographer of his aunt, Virginia Woolf, Bell here defends her as a feminist and pacifist. Along with chapters on John Maynard Keynes, Ottoline Morrell and art historian/spy Anthony Blunt, there are glimpses of Lytton Strachey, novelist David Garnett (Angelica's husband) and Dame Ethel Smyth, who fell in love with Virginia Woolf. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Bell is an artist, art critic, academic, and writer whose biography of his aunt, Virginia Woolf (LJ 11/1/72), was highly praised. He has now written a collection of anecdotal biographical sketches of the members of Bloomsbury, the group of London artists, writers, and intellectuals who lived and worked together from about 1900 to 1940. His subjects include Vanessa and Clive Bell, Leonard Woolf, Duncan Grant, Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster, David Garnett, and a new non-Bloomsbury folk-art historian and reputed spy, Anthony Blunt. Bell does not provide comprehensive biographies but rather personal reflections and memories, some very funny, of people he knew from his childhood. One learns much about these people and about Bell himself. His work is such a pleasure to read that it is recommended to everyone and is essential for British literature collections.‘Judy Mimken, Boise P.L., Id. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Brief, disjointed autobiographical remembrances of Bloomsbury's great and not-so-great from one of its last surviving members. From Maynard Keynes to the Stracheys, the gang's all here, but broadly sketched with a handful of usually unremarkable anecdotes that rarely reflect novelist and biographer Bell's (The Brandon Papers, 1985; Virginia Woolf, 1972; etc.) unique access. Instead of insights, we are treated to reminiscences of pleasant picnics and visits to art museums or a party where someone behaved not quite appropriately. Bell is a little more revealing when he turns to the members of his extended family and their byzantine relationships. He includes sketches of them all: His parents, critic Clive Bell and painter Vanessa Bell, and both her lovers, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant, as well as Grant's lover David ``Bunny'' Garnett, who later married Vanessa's daughter by Grant, Angela. Bell treats all this potentially prurient material in a formal, no-sex-please-we're- British manner that comes across not so much as tactful as strangely detached. His emotional tone is the same whether he is writing about distant acquaintances, such as the notorious traitor Anthony Blunt, or about his father's many infidelities. In fact, the tone throughout tends toward a cool, low-key flatness, though there are moments of wit and perception, even revelation. Usually Bell is a first-rate biographer. His book on Virginia Woolf is sympathetic, incisive, and cogently coherent. Perhaps this book's fatal flaw is its structuring device, an awkward mix of autobiography and biography. But nothing hangs together. It is like flipping through an artist's sketchbook, everything raw and disordered. Or worse, like sitting in someone's living room and being forced to go through their family photo albums. (18 b&w illustrations)