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A Stranger on Earth: The Life and Work of…
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A Stranger on Earth: The Life and Work of Anna Kavan (2006. Auflage)

von Jeremy Reed (Autor)

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361681,260 (3.75)1
Reed’s new biography draws on new material to map out the enigmatic life and times of one of Britain’s most extraordinary novelists. This biography of novelist Anna Kavan, draws on newly discovered material about a visionary writer who renamed herself after a character in one of her own novels and did everything she could to resist biography. It documents Kavan's addiction to heroin, her failed marriages, her bond with her psychiatrist, her suicide attempts, her strange, unforgettable paintings, her devotion to gay men, her obsessions, phobias, reclusiveness, and indomitable artistic courage. Of Reed's biographical fiction of the Marquis de Sade, When the Whip Comes Down.… (mehr)
Mitglied:malkelly
Titel:A Stranger on Earth: The Life and Work of Anna Kavan
Autoren:Jeremy Reed (Autor)
Info:Peter Owen Publishers (2006), 240 pages
Sammlungen:Deine Bibliothek, Lese gerade, Wunschzettel, Noch zu lesen, Gelesen, aber nicht im Besitz, Favoriten
Bewertung:****
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A Stranger on Earth: The Life and Work of Anna Kavan von Jeremy Reed

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I'd like to have liked this book – Anna Kavan certainly had a life that screams out for a biography – but this isn't quite the biography I wanted. Huge swathes of her life are passed over entirely unexamined: the biography seems to kick off when she's about twenty, and we learn in passing, that she had a son, and we find out that he's dead twenty years later, but there's little to no examination of what that experience might have meant to her or how it might have influenced her books. (Or, if it didn't, why it didn't, which would be an equally interesting question.) The author who chooses to rename herself after one of her own characters is obviously an interesting subject – one could write a whole book about that situation – but that isn't particularly dwelt on.

Possibly the problem is that there isn't a lot of primary material on Kavan's life; possible because of this, much of the analysis seems to be considering her life as depicted in her novels, which seems like a questionable procedure. There is a fair amount of reference to a previously unseen diary covering her life during WWII, which is certainly interesting, and the reminiscences of people who knew her, but nothing's referenced in anything like a scholarly manner, which makes it difficult to go look for more information. (There are a number of interesting details that aren't followed up on: from the bibliography at the end, fore example, we learn that Kavan published a book with the Themersons' Gaberbocchus Press, but none of Kavan's interactions with their circle are described in the main text.) Most of Kavan's novels are given reasonably lengthy readings; most of these aren't substantively more than recountings of the plots, and I would have liked to see more close reading.

The problem of Reed's uncritical reading spills over into his discussion of her painting late in the book. (We're told she was showing paintings in fashionable London galleries in the 1930s; when discussion of her painting appears again, she's in her 60s.) Reed clearly isn't an art critic, and most of Kavan's paintings lack dates or histories, but that doesn't stop him from slapping psychology on them and declaring them to be great. Context might be useful: certainly most of the readers approaching this bio are likely to know Kavan's writing rather than her art, but it's hard to tell where (or if) Kavan's art fits into the history of British painting.

The most serious problem with the biography, to my mind, is Reed's attitude towards Kavan. Reed lionizes Kavan and her work; she's referred to by her first name throughout, which is odd for someone as standoffish as she appears to have been. Offhandedly he declares her to have been as important a writer as Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath (among others): this is a provocative assertion, and an argument that would be worth hearing out, but Reed doesn't elaborate on this. Reed groups her late work with that of the 60s "counterculture" (and finds her to be inherently important for this reason), but I'm not sure that this is convincing. I would have liked to see her influence traced out. Perhaps this is more important in the United States, where Kavan is largely unknown.

I haven't read D. A. Callard's biography of Kavan, though I'd be curious to see how that compares.
1 abstimmen dbvisel | Jul 23, 2008 |
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"I seem to be able to dream paractically anywhere. It really seems to have been my principal occupation throughout life, which probably explains why I've had so little success in the world.'

Anna Kavan, 'The Cactus Sign'
'When I'm rushing on my run

And I feel just like Jesus' sun'

Lou Reed, 'Heroin'
'When Anna would look out of a window, she could see more in a minute than most would see in a lifetime. She was extraordinarily perceptive, intuitive, visionary.'

Raymond Marriott
Widmung
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For Peter Owen, Anna's publisher, and for Lene Rasmussen and Stephen Barber
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The spring was early that year on the Cote d'Azur, the curve of the coast disappearing under a white sky, the abundant almond and cherry blossom lifting pink sleeves - and of course the privleged were there: not the fashionistas, directors and glitterati of the film festival but the rich expatriates who lived in the luxurious turreted villas or min-castles overlooking the bay and who engaged in the leisurely pursuit known as the Promenade des Anglais.
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Reed’s new biography draws on new material to map out the enigmatic life and times of one of Britain’s most extraordinary novelists. This biography of novelist Anna Kavan, draws on newly discovered material about a visionary writer who renamed herself after a character in one of her own novels and did everything she could to resist biography. It documents Kavan's addiction to heroin, her failed marriages, her bond with her psychiatrist, her suicide attempts, her strange, unforgettable paintings, her devotion to gay men, her obsessions, phobias, reclusiveness, and indomitable artistic courage. Of Reed's biographical fiction of the Marquis de Sade, When the Whip Comes Down.

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