Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson

by Nigel Nicolson

Book Overview

Vita Sackville-West, novelist, poet, and biographer, is best known as the friend of Virginia Woolf, who transformed her into an androgynous time-traveler in Orlando. The story of Sackville-West's marriage to Harold Nicolson is one of intrigue and bewilderment. In Portrait of a Marriage, their son Nigel combines his mother's memoir with his own explanations and what he learned from their many letters. Even during her various love affairs...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226583570
• ISBN13: 9780226583570
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The Great Adventure Is Never Over

Both those unfamiliar with the extraordinary life of British aristocrat Victoria (Vita) Sackville - West and those who have read Victoria Glendinning's compelling Vita (1983), Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928), or Sackville -West's own multiple published works of fiction, poetry, or nature and travel writing will thoroughly enjoy Portrait Of A Marriage (1973). Composed around a posthumously discovered confessional manuscript Sackville - West wrote and hid away in 1920, the book's chapters alternate between portions of Vita's nuanced, forthright manuscript and son Nigel Nicholson's more objective recounting of the facts in the lives of his parents, Sackville - West and her spouse, author and diplomat Harold Nicholson. Chiefly remembered today for her garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent and for being the romantic ("Better to gloriously fail than dingily succeed"), daring, and bisexual inspiration for Woolf's historical, gender-addressing novel Orlando, Sackville - West was a temperamental, multifaceted, and deeply emotional woman who followed the dictates of her heart and defied the conventions of her era to what many would think an alarming degree. As her manuscript clearly reveals, Sackville - West was a very human, self - honest individual who was conscious of her moral and ethical weaknesses and who continually struggled with her wayward nature and its debilitating affects on her husband, children, and extended family. Today a hero to some and a somewhat ridiculous figure to others, readers of Portrait Of A Marriage are likely to come away with more than a modicum of sympathy for the not - entirely enigmatic Vita; throughout her life she managed to straddle a great number of seeming paradoxes and today remains potent proof that many Western conventions concerning love, marriage, parenthood, sexuality, and friendship are as not as tightly mapped out as most would generally like to believe. Unlike fellow writers and contemporaries Hilda Doolittle, Djuna Barnes, or Jean Rhys, her excesses, dependencies, and emotional vacillations did not ultimately undo Vita, either psychically, artistically, or socially. Admittedly, Sackville - West was a child of privilege and remained financially comfortable most of her life. However, her managerial skill, expert monetary planning, and her own hard work as an author, radio broadcaster, lecturer, and internationally acclaimed gardener went a long way towards securing that position. Portrait Of A Marriage and the story of Sackville - West's life may be the ultimate romantic tale of the twentieth century, though one in which the glamour of wealth, palatial family estates (365 - room Knole), creative talent, international fame, and steadfast love were offset by dark episodes of betrayal, spousal abuse, transvestitism, emotional violence, and apparent child abandonment. Remarkably, Vita's story was ultimately a happy one, and the end of her life, relatively serene. Increasingly a loner with age, Sackville - West se

a compelling must-read

Despite the fact that Vita Sackville-West was the subject of Virginia Woolf's Orlando as well as her lover, the author of numerous books, and a world famous gardener, she still manages to be a somewhat enigmatic character. This unusual and engrossing portrait, written by her son, contributes a great deal to bring substantial light on Vita's very interesting life and loves. Nicolson is generous in quoting her verbatim from her diaries, the most compelling of which recounts her wild affair with Violet Trefusis, during which the two women fled to Paris pursued by their husbands, where Vita passed as a man by dressing as a wounded soldier. This is one of the most passionate accounts of any love affair I have read. Nicolson's act of documenting his parents' intimate passions is a great contribution to literary history. He did us a great service by writing this book and in quoting liberally from their own writings, in many ways lets his parents speak for themselves. Any one interested in Bloomsbury, women of the left bank, passing women, feminism, gay/lesbian/bisexual history should make this part of their library.

A Remarkable Journey

I have had a copy of "Portrait of a Marriage" since it was published in 1973. For me, it has been a revelation on marriage, but it is also a story of two remarkable people: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. Nigel Nicolson relates the story of his mother's Sapphic affair with Violet (whose mother was the mistress of Edward VII) with great detachment, allowing Vita to speak for herself in the form of a secret diary. The non-conformity of this marriage was the reason for its success and that it survived love affairs and differing interests speaks to us of the toleration, forgiveness and understanding that is lacking between so many married people. This book was not put together by Nigel Nicolson as a guide to married life but is a story of the adventure of living. It was from reading this book that I gained a deep interest in Vita and Harold. I have read many of their books and paid the ultimate pilgrimage of a visit to Sissinghurst. So, I highly recommend "Portrait of a Marriage" for the writing, an enlightening account of two people and a unique experience for the reader.

It's a small world

I ordered this book by chance. I did not know it was a true story until they mentioned Virginia Woolf and the book she was writing called Orlando(inspired by Vita). Reading this book took on a whole different meaning because I had seen the movie in 1993 called Orlando. I thought that was interesting how things connect years later. The movie was fictional and is worth watching.I loved the book because I liked Vita and I loved Harold. Neither was perfect but who is. I like her candor in the book and I am glad I read the book. Marriages these days should take a page from this book and hold it close.

A poetic examination of a very special relationship.

What a shame that this book is out of print! Portrait of a Marriage is perhaps the most eloquent examination of the possibilties and limitations of marriage as it occurs in our culture today. The story of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West as told by their son, Nigel, Portrait of a Marriage illuminates the intimate mechanics of one of the most unusual of relationships, a marriage in which each partner has his or her dalliances on the side, but to which each returns as a ship to its home port. A reading of Portrait of a Marriage puts to shame the base, simplistic rhetoric so often bandied about around marriage, sexuality, and relationships, and instead allows the reader clearly to see into the complex and wonderful world of two unusual people in love. And what is wonderful about Nicolson's writing is that he makes telling the truth about relationships seem so easy and natural, as if all anyone has to do to tell a good love story is to step out of the way. Would that those praters debating the morality of that kind of relationship or this kind of marriage or such and such kind of life-style choice could read Portrait of a Marriage. In its wake, the idea of love being subject to logic or laws dissolves. If you are at all interested in the history of marriage, or if you just like a good romance, read this book. On the sea of writing about love and relationships, it's one of the buoys.