History With its Eyes Wide Open

Sitting in the green little park across from Diocletian’s Palace a few summers ago, I remarked to an English lady with whom I was sharing one of those cool melons that keep Balkan food from being an unrelieved demand for strength of character, that Yugoslavia, like Greece, was as transparent to the mind as it was opaque to the eye. Before I could explain why, she said, “Yes, of course. Rebecca West.” She, too, had read Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Behind her understanding nod was the diligent relentlessness whereby Rebecca West analyzes whatever comes under her gaze until she can lay before the reader a report that astonishes and satisfies. Where our paths have crossed (the trial of the alleged lynchers of Willy Earle, the oratory of Oswald Mosley), I have been able to gauge her preternatural sight for myself. Even when she is tediously thorough, indulging her penchant for digressions that outdigress Laurence Sterne (James Joyce never understood why she combined a long review of Ulysses with an account of trying on hats in a Parisian boutique), she is still the most painstaking reporter of them all, and the wisest.

And much more. Dame Rebecca West, C.B.E. (born Cicily Isabel Fair-field on Christmas Day 1892, known to the income-tax collector as Mrs. Henry Maxwell Andrews), is apt to be known as the sole member of the world press who witnessed the first attempt on Verwoerd’s life, by many who do not know her as Yugoslavia’s historian. Or as a literary critic (she wrote the first book on Henry James) by many who do not know her as the biographer of St. Augustine. Or as the foremost student of treason in our time by many who do not know her as a novelist. Who remembers her as an actress? As an Ibsenite? As a captain under Emmeline Pankhurst? As a color sergeant for H. G. Wells? She is obsessed with hats and puts them everywhere in her writing. One sees why.

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Guy Davenport

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Sitting in the green little park across from Diocletian’s Palace a few summers ago, I remarked to an English lady with whom I was sharing one of those cool melons that keep Balkan food from being an unrelieved demand for strength of character, that Yugoslavia, like Greece, was as transparent to the mind as it was opaque to the eye. Before I could explain why, she said, “Yes, of course. Rebecca West.” She, too, had read Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Behind her understanding nod was the diligent relentlessness whereby Rebecca West analyzes whatever comes under her gaze until she can lay before the reader a report that astonishes and satisfies. Where our paths have crossed (the trial of the alleged lynchers of Willy Earle, the oratory of Oswald Mosley), I have been able to gauge her preternatural sight for myself. Even when she is tediously thorough, indulging her penchant for digressions that outdigress Laurence Sterne (James Joyce never understood why she combined a long review of Ulysses with an account of trying on hats in a Parisian boutique), she is still the most painstaking reporter of them all, and the wisest.

And much more. Dame Rebecca West, C.B.E. (born Cicily Isabel Fair-field on Christmas Day 1892, known to the income-tax collector as Mrs. Henry Maxwell Andrews), is apt to be known as the sole member of the world press who witnessed the first attempt on Verwoerd’s life, by many who do not know her as Yugoslavia’s historian. Or as a literary critic (she wrote the first book on Henry James) by many who do not know her as the biographer of St. Augustine. Or as the foremost student of treason in our time by many who do not know her as a novelist. Who remembers her as an actress? As an Ibsenite? As a captain under Emmeline Pankhurst? As a color sergeant for H. G. Wells? She is obsessed with hats and puts them everywhere in her writing. One sees why.