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Truly Wilde: The Unsettling Story Of Dolly Wilde, Oscar's Unusual Niece, by Joan Schenkar
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A "born writer" who never completed the creative life promised by her famous name and gorgeous imagination, Dolly Wilde was charged with charm, brilliantly witty, changeable as refracting light, and loaded with sexual allure. She made her career in the salonsand in the bedroomsof some of London's and Paris' most interesting women and men. Attracting people of taste and talent wherever she went, she drenched her prodigious talents in liquids and chemicals, burnt up her opportunities in flamboyant affairs, and created continuous sensations by the ways in which she seemed to be re-living the life of her infamous uncle. In this revolutionary and very modern biography, Joan Schenkar provides a fascinating look at what it means to live with the talents but not the achievements of biography's usual subjects: those obliterating "winners"like Dolly's uncle Oscarwhose stories have almost erased riveting histories like Dolly's own. And she uncovers never-before-published evidence of the hidden life of the Wilde family and of the extraordinary salon society of Natalie Clifford Barney, Dolly Wilde's longest and most fatal attachment.
- Sales Rank: #2136958 in Books
- Published on: 2000-11-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.28" h x 6.50" w x 9.56" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 400 pages
Amazon.com Review
She was lovely, sophisticated, and famous for her witty conversation, even in a social circle that was known for its fabulous talkers. The only child of Oscar Wilde's dissipated older brother Willie, Dolly Wilde (1895-1941) led a life as scandalous and glittering as her uncle's: she, too, loved her own sex, and her longest romantic relationship was with American heiress Natalie Clifford Barney, who was host of the most important Parisian literary salon of the 20th century. Unfortunately for Dolly's posthumous reputation, she "was an artist of the spoken word" whose only written legacy was her marvelous correspondence. Quoting liberally and perceptively from those letters, American playwright Joan Schenkar brings Wilde to life in a modernist biography that is written in prose as sparkling as Dolly's fabled bons mots. Schenkar eschews conventional chronology to consider Wilde's life thematically, from her lesbianism to her taste for smart society to her self-destructive identification with Uncle Oscar. She reminds us just how remarkable and accomplished were the women at Barney's salon (journalist Janet Flanner, novelist Djuna Barnes, and artist Mina Loy, among them) and how much they esteemed Dolly Wilde. Yet, her biographer downplays neither Wilde's addiction to drugs nor the sad loneliness of her death (possibly from a drug overdose) at age 45. This is essentially a tale of "squandered gifts and lost opportunities," Schenkar acknowledges, but she successfully provokes readers to share her admiration for Wilde's prodigal generosity with both her talent and her affections. --Wendy Smith
From Publishers Weekly
Dolly Wilde, born the year Oscar Wilde went to prison, bore a striking resemblance to her famous uncle and spent her life both burdened and animated by his legend. She inherited much of his charm, a portion of his wit and none of his genius. Consequently, she left behind little of substance save the fond recollections of her friends and lovers, among them salon hostess Natalie Clifford Barney, New Yorker Paris correspondent Janet Flanner and Russian actress Alla Nazimova, and several bundles of love letters. Such a dearth of achievement leaves a biographer at a considerable disadvantage. The playwright Joan Schenkar, who appears to have fallen as much under Dolly's spell as any of her contemporaries, resolves these difficulties by approaching Dolly's life thematically, inventing and dramatizing in the absence of fact, interpreting what facts there are from a variety of perspectives. Such an approach requires her to ignore chronology and with it whatever impact the larger historical and political context may have had on Dolly's development. What emerges is a flamboyant sketch of that glittering, often frantic, sometimes brilliant society of rich lesbians that flourished between the wars in London and Paris. In this milieu, Dolly seems a kind of lesbian Zelda Fitzgerald, self-destructive, addicted, often foolish and, by the end of her brief life, quite sad. Schenkar strives valiantly to make of Dolly's life a tragic work of art. While she is able to convey Dolly's charm and attractiveness, she is not quite as successful in convincing the reader that her subject is sufficiently consequential to merit a full-length biography. Illus.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"The book is an absolute winner." -- -Simon Callow, The Mail
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating but Tragic
By Verbena Reverb
Yes, 4 stars means I liked it. It was a fascinating age, the early 20th Cent in Paris, no matter who the subject matter is. This Wilde seems to have been almost a mistake on the part of the profligate father and the deer-in-the-headlights mother. She was soon shoved off to boarding school. So yes, she looked more like Oscar than Oscar's kids. Interesting, and she had his way with words. But she was a lost soul, taken in by those who loved her, other women.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
I loved the book
By sLy
I loved the book. I had an interesting perspective on a subject that there is literally nothing about. My only issue was that there were formatting problems and some places had typos. Other places the font conversion seemed to mess up whatever effect was trying to be produced. Maybe the Author could work on fixing the formatting/usability issues and it would be more enjoyable. Thank you.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Writer's style provokes opposite, intense reactions
By DAMwriter
I've read with some interest the previous reviews of "Truly Wilde," and am not at all surprised that the author and her book would inspire such diverse -- no, opposite -- responses in readers. In this review, I thought I would try to explore the reasons behind those responses, in others and in myself.
To be frank, it took me several months to work my way through this book, an amount of time I rarely dedicate -- or need to dedicate -- to any book on the first read (unless I'm being paid to read and review it!). I was frequently driven to verbal expressions of frustration with the repetitive, coy, repetitive, acrobatic, repetitive prose style used by the author. I would put the book down on the nightstand, swearing not to pick it up again.
Then curiosity would get the better of me. Dolly is, after all, a fascinating, complex person, one who clearly suffered personal, public, and familial demons with amazing grace, while failing to profit from the many natural advantages granted by her personality, wit, style and physical resemblance to her famous uncle. She had it all, yet she had nothing, and in fairness to her I somehow felt it important to keep reading and, thus, pay tribute to her place in history.
And in fairness to the author, her prose is often brilliant. Whether or not she sat down and wrote the book from first page to last, in that order, she certainly seems to find her mark by the second half of the book. Her initial, clumsy and often annoying verbal acrobatics become -- by the final chapters -- a graceful ballet. It's a style that isn't always successful even when done well, and the contrast between the early chapters and the latter chapters may go some way in explaining the varied responses given by the reviewers here on Amazon.
The author quite consciously and freely admits in the introduction to having defied the traditional, chronological method of biography. Her chapters are not arranged in order of the major events in Dolly's life; rather, they are organized according to various themes, and in some respects this works. Unfortunately, the themes are not always so different from each other that they justify a separate chapter. As a result, stories and events are often told more than once, gossipy tidbits about the primary (and secondary) personalities are repeated throughout the book -- as if we needed reminding -- and descriptions of Dolly's physical, emotional and mental characteristics and states are given again and again.
All of which gives the feeling that you're riding on a carousel. The scenery starts to look awfully familiar.
I understand that the author's desire to take this unique approach was inspired by Dolly's own 'mode de vie.' Dolly lived in the moment, and each moment was as valid as any other, regardless of when it occurred. I admire the author's willingness to take a risk and tell Dolly's story in a thematic, rather than chronological, fashion. However, this method places additional burdens on the writer to make sure that she is properly guiding the reader along on an unfamiliar ride -- and unfortunately, Shenkar's all-over-the-map, alternately-flying-and-crashing prose makes this trip a difficult one, at least at the beginning.
To sum up, I'd suggest that anyone who is interested in the story of Dolly Wilde should read this book. It IS a fascinating story, and a window onto a world of women artists that we have rarely been offered. Try to get past the repetition and fireworks until you're at least into the second half of the book, when the author really hits her stride.
On the other hand, if the topic alone is of only moderate interest to you, you are likely to find yourself quickly bogged down and disappointed. Summer reading this is not!
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