Stevie Smith

The biography of Stevie Smith by Frances Spalding is somewhat dull and I'm not sure if that's the fault of the biographer or of Stevie. Once Stevie moved from Hull to a suburb of London her love of that suburb, Palmers Green (it was a suburb at the time), grew by long acquaintance and little distraction, so she hadn't much to measure it against. For the biographer not a lot happened therefore much had to be made of what little there was, but still I think she's a bit dry and dull with her statistical details of the economics and social history of the area.

It does bear out the truth that in order to be a great novelist or poet it isn't necessary to travel far from home or live through exciting times. I'm quite fond of the work of George Mackay Brown who rarely left his home on Orkney. His close-lived knowledge of the skies, the seas, the winds and the people hold a multitude of dimensions - they hold and voice all his thoughts. For Stevie the house she lived in with her mother and grandmother is a 'being of warmth' and it's perfectly obvious this isn't just a clever image she has imposed on the house, it has been given to her by the house itself over the long years of their partnership. She uses a cast of characters and even animals to express her thoughts so although her books are autobiographical they never feel as if they are . Spalding says 'Her writing upholds the importance of inconsistancy and paradox' which I thought was a shoo-in for Pseuds Corner until I let it wash around a bit.

I also like the quote from Yeats that Spalding chose to emphasise what she wanted to say about Stevie: 'A poet is by the very nature of things a man who lives with entire sincerity , or rather, the better his poetry the more sincere his life. His life is an experiment in living and those who come after him have a right to know it.'

Spalding substitutes the feminine gender but I have no problem with the original wording.