Sarton, May

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Beautiful insight...
Excellent!
Inspiring
Spectacular.
"The War Against The Unregenerate Self Goes On"

Journal of a Solitude
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393309282

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful insight..........2007-05-11

This book was beautiful. I loved reading it. It felt delicate to me...the insights shared within the pages...but it was compelling. I picked it up and read a few pages whenever I had the chance. Loved it.

Excellent!.......2006-05-04

If you're into reading memoirs, this is exceptional. Her clarity of thought and her ability to portray her feelings into words is unsurpassed, in my opinion. I enjoy her prose so very much. I can find myself relating to so many of her feelings and thoughts despite the difference of age and time. This is a great read.

Inspiring.......2006-01-27

I read Journal of a Solitude shortly after giving birth to my first child. I was alone in a new neighborhood with few family and friends around me and felt completely estranged from my former life as a professional woman working in New York city. May Sarton's story - shared in such a real and heartfelt way - has always stayed with me. Where are the May Sarton's in today's world? She was an extraordinary woman who was able to connect with a broad audience of readers, through the authentic sharing of her thoughts, feelings and experiences. I miss her work but am thankful that she left behind a wonderful legacy.

Spectacular........2005-07-08

I've read most of Sarton's journals and this is by far the best. Her writing allows the reader to enter her mind. It's so honest, so raw. I've reread Journal of a Solitude a few times over the years; its one of those books to keep on your shelf, and read to get back in touch with the things that matter.

"The War Against The Unregenerate Self Goes On".......2003-04-29

Written over a period of twelve months, May Sarton's Journal Of A Solitude (1973) is a meditation on life, living alone, romantic love, and the creative process. Composed in diary form, the book was produced while Sarton was living alone in a small village in rural New Hampshire. By 1973, Sarton was fifty - eight years of age and an established novelist and poet who had known and corresponded with such literary luminaries as Virginia Woolf and Hilda Doolittle. Journal Of A Solitude is a warm, touching, very human book, which, after its successful publication, became the cornerstone upon which Sarton's uneasy reputation has settled. But Journal Of A Solitude also reveals Sarton to have been something of an odd duck modestly dressed in the clothing, mores, and mannerisms of a gentile Belgian lady. Sadly, what Sarton seems determined not to come to terms with is that she was a tepid, literal - minded poet as well as a less than first- rate literary novelist; this is important, because the lack of critical attention her work received ("What I have not had is the respect due what is now a considerable opus") is a constant theme of the book and source of tension. As a result, "ornery" Sarton shifts continuously between states of creative over appraisal and damning self - recrimination. Sarton's quoted poems clearly reveal a lack of lyrical skill and an absence of any visionary power whatsoever. Though she states, "Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world," Journal Of A Solitude also reveals a tender - hearted animal lover and enthusiastic gardener who nonetheless appears to lack a higher sense of nature as a symbol, sign, or metaphor for the transcendent forces evident in human reality.

Badly advised by friend and poet Louise Bogan to "keep the Hell" out of her work, Sarton, accepting Bogan's suggestion, struggles daily with a devastating, irrational temper, depression serious enough to drive her to suicidal states, loneliness, and, at only fifty - eight, a sense of herself as "old, dull, and useless." Sarton, who appears to have surprisingly little self - knowledge for a person of her maturity, is haunted by reoccurring image of "plants, bulbs, in the cellar, trying to grow without light, putting out white shoots that will inevitably wither," but doesn't consciously relate this image directly to herself or her difficult present. When a close friend visits for several days, Sarton is incensed when the woman makes an offhand comment about the faded state of a vase of flowers (though as the photographs included reveal, flower arranging was not among Sarton's talents). Clearly, some or most of Sarton's "hell" should have gone into and fueled her creative work, as it does in the case of most artists. Is appears that there were many things in her life that Sarton simply didn't want to confront or acknowledge.

Sarton makes contradictory statements about God and her religious beliefs, commenting first that writing poetry is her method of communicating with God, but later states, "I am not a believer." Though she frequently writes at length about the emancipation of women and the need for the abolition of gender roles, she also makes generalized statements like "nurturing is women's work," and believes that "blacks" have the "grace and instinct and intuitive understanding" necessary for the nursing profession. Today, Sarton's expression "we have so much to learn from them ("blacks")" sounds like well - intended but unconsciously smug pandering.

Sarton was not an intellectual, but the limited perspective cumulatively elaborated in her novels and poetry found a ready audience in "nice" like - minded women for whom more challenging authors like Muriel Spark, Isak Dinesen, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Katherine Anne Porter, or Jane Bowles apparently represented an arduous uphill climb. What the book does illustrate is the danger of making an unquestioning habit of "impeccable" WASP manners and politeness over a lifetime. Sarton, her close friends, and colleagues all appear to exist in a brittle world where truthful communication and direct, honest criticism are to be strenuously avoided in the name of continued social niceties.

Sadly, the success of Journal Of A Solitude had an ultimately negative effect on Sarton's career, as she began producing journal volume after journal volume (Recovering, At Seventy, After The Stroke, Endgame: A Journal Of The Seventy-ninth Year, etc.), of which only The House By The Sea, which immediately followed the present volume, had the same freshness, integrity, and lack of self - consciousness. Sarton was soon to become a cottage industry for her publishers, turning out further volumes of banal poetry -- "Moose In The Morning" -- and, like Edith Sitwell in old age, simply publishing too much without due editorial consideration.

Journal Of A Solitude does reflect a genuine, shadow - casting human presence as well as a state of being which many people, especially the creative, the introverted, and those moving uncertainly towards later life may respond to fully. Sarton's moments of anxiety, despair, and doubt, as well as her stoicism, fortitude, and courage, are sincerely expressed, touching, and inspiring. Sarton accurately perceived herself to be country - loving, intelligent, and serenity - seeking individual who put a high premium on the simpler aspects of life. But for an author who had over twenty books published by 1973 and who was on a first - name basis with some of literature's most notoriously critical figures, Sarton was a surprisingly unsophisticated person. As a result, it is the fallible human being, and not the creative writer, who shines most brightly in Journal Of A Solitude.

Fur Person
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The Best Cat Story in the World

Treasured Gift Book for Cat Lovers

Cats Rule!

A Really Great Book

The best cat book ever!

Fur Person
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

The Best Cat Story in the World.......2007-05-16

May Sarton, poet and journal-writer extraorindaire, wrote a novella/poem to the Cat, the Gentleman Cat, called "The Fur Person". I have reread this masterpiece every year for the past 25 years. "The Fur Person" is for children and adults, for everyone!

Treasured Gift Book for Cat Lovers.......2007-05-13

May Sarton is an insightful writer in all of her books. Although I am not a cat lover, I read the book first before deciding whether or not my cat-lover reader friends would enjoy this book. I know they will. The hardcover edition is especially nice for a gift. The illustrations in the book are a treasure as well.

Cats Rule!.......2007-01-11

This book was given to me as a gift and after reading it I promptly bought 4 from Amazon to give as gifts for the holidays. The author has truly captured her cat's essence. It's beautifuly written and tells just how much love a cat needs and gives. I highly recommend this book.

A Really Great Book.......2007-01-11

This is a good book both children and adults. Couldn't wait to read the next chapter.

The best cat book ever!.......2006-08-18

This is such a wonderful book. It is short and easy to read, but so well written, by the late poet May Sarton. It is the story of her cat, Tom Jones. When the fur person decided it was time to settle down and find a home, he found Ms. Sarton and her partner, and became a precious part of their family. This book makes a very great gift for any cat lover. Unbelievably, it has been out of print from time to time. Thank goodness it is available both in paperback and a gift edition now.

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A Year in a Writer's Life On the Maine Coast
A year in the life of a writer....

At Seventy: A Journal
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393310302

Customer Reviews:

A Year in a Writer's Life On the Maine Coast.......2006-08-13

May Sarton, noted "women's writer," journals her 70th year of life. The account records the seasons in Southern Maine while detailing the sometimes mundane (cleaning out a cupboard, visiting friends) and othertimes notable moments in her year. In Sarton's hands, even the mundane blooms and soars with wonderful phrasing and insight.
Her life was rich with visits and correspondence with people both humble and noted. At times the references to people and places or to others' writings passed over my head, but overall the journal was pleasurable reading.
Walking her dog Tamas, shoveling out from a blizzard, reveling in the spring flowers, celebrating her poetry with a reading to a receptive audience... the journal invites the reader to share in her life.
This will appeal to anyone who loves nature, Maine, writing, or contemplative literature.

A year in the life of a writer...........2001-06-26

May Sarton wrote poetry, novels, children's books, anthologies, and nonfiction, but she may be remembered longest for her journals. AT SEVENTY takes place in 1982, when Sarton lived in New England at her rural retreat with her vast garden and her two cats--one a present from Carolyn Heilbrun.

Sarton begins AT SEVENTY with the arrival of the daffodils "a tiny bunch of miniature daffodils, blue starflowers, and glory be two fritillaries." She is back from a month of poetry reading in Connecticut and remarks that her friend Edith Haddaway has left a small bunch of roses for her birthday.

Over the course of the book, Sarton describes her daily struggles with her garden, her typewriter, and her overcommittment to persons and events that seem to keep her from "solitude" and hence writing. Her journal is filled with the activities of a life fairly well lived, though she is not without some regrets and sad remembrances including the loss of her European homeland. AT SEVENTY provides the reader with a peak behind the scenes of how Sarton coped with growing older and the day-to-day necessary interruptions of living, and yet managed to create poetry and other writing.

Customer Reviews:

The sixties are a glorious time.......2004-12-31

In the first year on the property, 1973, May Sarton lived alone except for her dog, a Shetland shepherd. The journal begins in 1974.

A longtime companion, Judith, is in a nursing home and visits holidays. The women enjoy a special program on television about Winston Churchill's life at Thanksgiving. In December Sarton reads poems at Westbrook College in Portland, Maine. Later in the journal it is reported she appears at Clark University more than once and Colby College where she receives an honorary degree.

In terms of literary work in this period, May Sarton is preparing a portrait of Elizabeth Bowen. The death of Julian Huxley leads to memories of him directly after the war when he and his wife were so courteous, so helpful to a very young May Sarton.

She brings herself to understand that Louise Bogan was never able to praise Sarton's work in poetry or in novels. In the end Louise Bogan received honors, but she was subject to failing creative powers at the same time. Thus, her circumstances were frightening.

Reading Melanie Klein's theories still May Sarton's sense of insecurity and neediness after she gave generously substantial gifts of money to others. The relentless truth of her former companion's, Judith's, condition hurts Sarton. She feels abandoned.

Notwithstanding the loss of friends through illness and death and the failure of an urge to write poetry, Sarton believes that the sixties are a good, comfortable age to be. The pictures in the book are excellent and very welcome.

A companion piece to A Journal of a Solitude.......2004-03-24

Sarton achieved some interesting mixed results with this journal, which was intended as a journal of happiness. She positioned it as a counterweight to her book A Journal of a Solitude which was clearly, well, *not* about happiness.

I can see why some people find it irritating to read, although I never do. She contradicts herself frequently-- complains of how she never gets time to herself and then runs around the Eastern seaboard like a bandersnatch. She can be prey to muddled thinking and faulty logic and sounds as though she'd be a real pain to be around much of the time.

But still, it's inspirational to read as someone who wants to keep a journal. It's not a constantly ecstatic experience in the way that Annie Dillard can be or an idea journal in the vein of Walden, it's more like reading somebody fumbling through towards bigger ideas and willing to expose the joints and creaky bits in the process. There are moments of vision and transcendence, but also a lot of the petty crap that gets people down from day to day.

I like reading Sarton because she is so human. I feel like I miss her even though I never knew her, and reading her is like getting to know her-- in all her fulness as a flawed and talented human being.

I'd probably begin with A Journal of a Solitude, as I think it's the more complete work, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this as a follow-up.

Fanfare For The Common Man.......2003-05-08

Literary journals and diaries written for publication are notoriously dicey cultural products. Harold Nicholson's extensive journals were written self consciously with a reading public clearly in mind. Bigamist Anais Nin rewrote her decades - long diary when she finally found an opportunity to publish it, editing out critical facts concerning her life in the process; the end result was a frothy fabrication rather than an accurate reflection of her existence.

May Sarton's frequently irritating The House By The Sea (1976) is the second of her published journals. Experimental first volume Journal Of A Solitude (1973), an unexpected success, was written with painful honesty and only tentative confidence while the author was living alone in a small New Hampshire village. By contrast, in The House By The Sea, Sarton immediately makes it clear that this volume has been commissioned. During the writing of the first, Sarton was caught in a tumultuous romantic relationship, experiencing herself as "old and useless," and discovering that she could no longer write poetry. But The House By The Sea finds Sarton wisely questioning whether or not she has anything worthwhile to say that might justify a second volume. It also reveals that Sarton's previous home in Nelson, New Hampshire, was in fact on the village green in the center of town. Sarton, then, was living alone, as millions of people do, and, like many of those millions, surrounded by and with ready access to other men and women. Thus Sarton's claim to "solitude" becomes questionable.

Sarton, now living alone in a truly isolated, three - story, oceanfront house in Maine, complains continually about the weather, about the imperfect state of her massive lawn and garden, about having routine housework to do, and is often unhappy when she has guests but chronically longs for human companionship when's she's alone. The House By The Sea makes it clear that Sarton is a conflicted individual with little objective sense of her privileged status. Sarton makes it apparent that she has attended Bloombury parties and known Virginia Woolf, Kenneth Clark, Elizabeth Bowen, Vladimir Nabokov, Archibald Macleish, Hilda Doolittle, the Huxleys, and other literary luminaries; she has lived in and traveled extensively through Europe; she has had a home in Cambridge, and taught at some of the most prestigious universities in America; she has and has had friends in influential places, and has been able to publish her novels and poetry for decades. All of which makes Sarton's petty grumbling, however sincere, rather smarmy.

As in Journal Of A Solitude, Sarton contradicts herself and often evidences the same kind of behavior she denounces. She states that her elderly, lifelong friend Celine Limbosch looks "like a poor sad old monkey," and Alison Lurie "a gentle perceptive witch," two expressions she would find objectionable if coming from a man, or even from a woman if directed against herself. She allows herself to be published in Reader's Digest, a venue Virginia Woolf and Sarton's other friends would have had nothing but contempt for, but months later asks why "inspirational writing such as appears in Reader's Digest" makes her "feel angry and upset...sick, cheated, and debased." She goes on at length about two women friends who she feels had illusions about their talent as poets, and says about one, "She was talented but she did not learn anything over the years. The poetry was too abstract and generalized. She never discovered the power of a strong metaphor to lead her to the truth. So what remains is a little theatrical and a little self - indulgent." To those who have read Sarton's poetry, these statements will sound like displacement and the kettle calling the pot black. One of the obvious sources of Sarton's rage in Journal Of A Solitude was her lack of an accurate estimation of her own published work.

Instead of taking the time to exam her thoughts and feelings before taking up her pen, Sarton prefers short sentences punctuated with exclamation points ("How much we forget, and how much that was fresh and clear gets overlaid!" "At last the braces have gone from Tommy's teeth!" "The greatest achievement of the day was shortening a pair of pants!" "She went out on the porch outside her bedroom and sketched immediately after she arrived!" "A grand day on the water!" "Whew!") For a book with literary aspirations, The House By The Sea is absolutely laden with exclamation points; there is at least one every third page, and some pages include two. Sarton also resorts to coarse expressions like "we gobbled it up."

Sensitive, ivory tower - dwelling Sarton offers a lot of undigested, watery, liberal - leaning opinions on the "state of our inner cities," writing that the subject is a cause of "constant anxiety" and morning tears. As in the first journal, Sarton's relationship with and judgment about animals and other subjects at times seems questionable. When Sarton finds a healthy baby rabbit in her cat's mouth, instead of nursing it in a box within an enclosed room, or calling the ASPCA for assistance, Sarton drives to a field and abandons it there, with pious hopes that it will be able to "fend for itself." When she has four guests over for dinner, she buys only a pound and a half of lobster meat to prepare a lobster salad, and happily discovers after the meal that there is some leftover, giving readers cause to suspect that the polite family probably bolted for a MacDonald's upon departure. When she purchases fifty pounds of sunflower seeds for the birds, she thinks $15.50 is a "staggering" price to pay for it.

The House By The Sea lacks focus, pure motive, and substance, but Sarton was a well - intentioned person struggling with herself as well as with the simple day to day problems common to everyone. Less acute than its predecessor, the journal nonetheless succeeds in allowing readers to enter the private, uneasy life of a creative person.

An Most Interesting Read.......2001-01-15

The House by the Sea: A Journal

After Nelson, New Hampshire, Sarton sought what she thought would be a totally "different" life as far as neighbors, company and the like in York, Maine. She was in her mind seeking "personal space". In this succinct journal Ms. Sarton chronicles her "new home" and life in Maine with often great detail and a wide range of emotions. While I am not particularly found of Journals, this one drew me in. I, too, yearn for the harsh ocean environment that the house at York afforded Sarton; the seasons; working in the garden(s);and, relaxing in those veranda recliners and gazing out over the field of tall grass to the ocean(glass of wine in hand). A most excellent piece. If you are not a Sarton reader, this will bring you into the fold.

*****A Balm When The Spirit Needs Soothing*****.......2000-11-22

This is the book which introduced me figuratively and literally to May Sarton! I saw this title in a bookstore and looked through it. WHAT A TREASURE this book became. May Sarton has the ability to cast light across darkness in such a way that the reader is revitalized and nourished. Inner strength is rediscovered. Life is redefined - routine events reclaim their original joy. What is old becomes refreshed. What a gift May Sarton continues to give through her work: life is to be lived and used and appreciated and given for as long as one can. *The House By The Sea* celebrates life, its beauty, serenity and joy. Sarton was most alive when she created life through her work. This theme resonates in all her work and teaches by demonstration the importance of exploring the inner self to find abundance.

Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley

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Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley
Herculean Task
Dear Juliette: an evocation of the "ethos of a love affair"
Fine biography and autobiography of May Sarton
Fine biography and autobiography of May Sarton

Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley
May Sarton , Juliette Huxley , Susan Sherman , and Francis Huxley
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393047334

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The poet May Sarton's reputation took a nosedive after her death in 1995 and the unflattering biography (by Margot Peters) that followed. The publication of her tender, revealing letters has managed to arrest this decline. Susan Sherman, who edited Sarton's Selected Letters, 1916-1954, now offers insight into Sarton's most profound and affecting romance, with Juliette Huxley, the Swiss-born wife of the English scientist Sir Julian Huxley. May and Juliette met in 1936, while May was involved with Julian. Their love affair culminated in one passionate week in Paris in 1948, after which--hurt by May's angry threat that she would tell Julian--Juliette broke off the relationship. After Julian Huxley's death in 1976, they began to write one another again and kept in contact until Juliette's death. As May Sarton wrote in old age, "I have had many lovers, many friends since I was 25 and met Juliette Huxley, but none has so nourished the poet and the lover as she did, the incomparable one." The book includes drafts of introductions by May Sarton and excerpts from a few of Juliette Huxley's responses to Sarton. --Regina Marler

Book Description

May Sarton's love for Juliette Huxley, ignited that first moment she saw her in 1936, transcended sixty years of friendship, passion, silence, and reconciliation. In the extraordinary breadth and variation of these letters, we see Sarton in all her complexities and are privy to the nuances of her rich amitii amoureuse with Juliette, the preeminent muse and most enduring love of her life.

The letters chart their meeting; May's affair with Juliette's husband, Julian (brother of Aldous Huxley), before the war; her intense involvement with Juliette after the war; and the ardent and life-enhancing friendship that endured between them until Juliette's death. While May's intimate relationship with Julian had not been a secret, her more powerful emotions for Juliette had.

May's fiery passion was a seductive yet sometimes destructive force. Her feelings for and demands on Juliette were often overwhelming to them both. Indeed, Juliette refused all contact with May for nearly twenty-five years, the consequence of May's impulsive threat to tell Julian of their intimacy. The silence was devastating to May, but her love for Juliette never diminished. Their reconciliation after Julian's death was not so much a rekindling as it was a testament to the profound affinities between them. Although theirs had been a relationship rife with complications and misunderstandings, the deep love and compassion they shared for each other prevailed.

Included in this volume are original drafts of and notes for an introduction May Sarton was hoping to complete.

Customer Reviews:

Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley.......2000-11-22

In this book of letters, rich in description of life before, during, and after the war, Sarton's inner climate and varied landscape are revealed in fascinating detail. Readers find fertile ground for contemplation of who Sarton really was and why this friendship endured. *Dear Juliette* contains extraordinarily detailed notes researched by Susan Sherman who is knowledgeable about her subject from both personal and scholarly perspectives. Providing a palette of color and shading in emotional texture as well as factual background, Sherman's notes add tremendous depth to the story Sarton tells. The preface gives the reader insightful information about Sarton's complicated temperament and brings clarity and understanding to the canvas. This is Sarton at her best: with the transparency she so valued telling her readers about the most remarkable love of her life.....her dear Juliette.

Herculean Task.......2000-01-29

From Erika Pfander Director of the Chamber Theatre of Maine; Director and Producer of May Sarton's only plays: "The Music Box Bird" and "The Underground River"

DEAR JULIETTE; LETTERS OF MAY SARTON TO JULIETTE HUXLEY

Readers of May Sarton-whose numbers are legion- must indeed be grateful for Susan Sherman, the gifted editor of this exquisite book. As official editor of Sarton's letters Ms. Sherman is undertaking the herculean task of compiling and editing Sarton's voluminous correspondences: it is clear from what she has given us in this richly rewarding volume(and,two previous volumes: May Sarton: AMONG THE USUAL DAYS and MAY SARTON; SELECTED LETTERS (1916-1954), that she is uniquely qualified for the task.

Sherman is a writer of grace,wisdom,and integrity-evidenced by her sensitive selection of letters and photographs, and her illuminating notes and preface. This volume is a gift to all Sarton's readers, for the letters let us hear Sarton's voice at every stage of her life. While the journals, which have moved and inspired so many-with their bracing honesty,intelligence,and keen observation of nature (human and otherwise)-are full of the richness and challenges of daily life in her middle and late years, their references to the past are memories.

Her letters, however, are those memories, as well as each day's life as it was lived, and they reveal her ardent, vibrant mind and sensitive spirit. Throughout her life she was a seeker of beauty,justice,and truth-and thus was vulnerable to(but not diminished by) heartache and disappointment. Her involvement with the Huxleys spanned the years 1936-1948; her deep love for, and abiding friendship with Juliette survived a 25 year silence,and when renewed-lasted until Juliette's death,a year before May's own death in 1995. What a delicate balance, that three-way relationship [Julian-May-Juliette]-and what a privilige to be given an intimate view of this remarkable friendship between two extraordinary women set against extraordinary times.

Dear Juliette: an evocation of the "ethos of a love affair".......1999-09-30

Susan Sherman, editor of Dear Juliette, was bequeathed the challenge of bringing to life Sarton's relationship with Juliette Huxley. Too frail and in ill health to complete the process of selecting and editing hundreds of letters and completing an introduction that would preface this story, Sarton asked Ms. Sherman to complete the work. As editor of previous volumes of Sarton's unpublished poems and letters, including May Sarton Among the Usual Days and May Sarton: Selected Letters 1916-1954, Ms. Sherman was well qualified to bring this project to fruition, the results of which are this monumental achievement presenting the immortalization of the "ethos of a love affair." In a letter written to Juliette in 1937 Sarton comments: "How difficult it is to love well - to know when it is better to be silent, that even joy can strain the heart so frightfully - though in general everything that denies life seems false to me." (63)* That comment sums up a great deal of Sarton's feelings about human relationships and would remain essentially the same throughout her life. She could not deny love, regardless of the pain, suffering, fear or misunderstanding that may develop. Sarton first met the Huxleys, Julian and Juliette, in 1936. This meeting would change her life forever. Ironically, she first shared a love affair with Julian Huxley, biologist and then Director of the London Zoo. It was through this affair that Sarton grew to realize her real passion was reserved for women, as she explained to Julian in a letter: ". . . there is a part of me perhaps the writing part that needs a woman as a man needs a woman. ... However much one loves there are things one can't do against one's own spirit." (70) It was the writing part of her, the poet, who fell in love with Juliette. Juliette became Sarton's muse as poetry flowed from her pen. "One of the great virtues [of poetry] is that power to say an apparently unsayable thing quite simply." (44) Yet this love, as intense and powerful as it was, was not destined to be fully reciprocated. Juliett's fear and misunderstanding eventually dictated a twenty-seven year separation which was only overcome upon the death of Julian Huxley in the mid 1970s. Eventually May Sarton and Juliette Huxley were reuinited, the circle of the ethos of their love affair was completed. The intervening years of silence had not destroyed the love Sarton held for Juliette, it had just tempered it. ". . . the pain is no longer acute; joy is no longer as intense as one looks back." (295) But the letters and poetry that were written around this passionate friendship remain and are a testament to its endurance. They underscore Sarton's presceint statement from 1948: "I would race through the years to meet you at the other end." (241) *page numbers are from the text of Dear Juliette Lenora P. Blouin Author: May Sarton: A Bibliography Scarecrow Press, 1978 Forthcoming: May Sarton: A Revised Bibliography Scarecrow Press, 2000

Fine biography and autobiography of May Sarton.......1999-07-12

DearJuliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley is both biography and autobiography, plus a rich example of the nearly lost art of letter-writing. May Sarton wrote to Juliette Huxley between the years 1936 and 1948, then resumed in 1976 until about a month and a half before her beloved Juliette died in l994. These letters reveal the growth of the human being, May Sarton from the age of 23 until she was in her eighties: the breath of her interests, her passions, her humor, her anquishes and most of all her deep love for a remarkable woman, Juliette. In her preface and footnotes, the editor Susan Sherman, broadens the scope of the book into a biography by filling in the details about the people and events that May writes of. As both women were fluent in French, May often slipped into that language as she wrote. Susan Sherman¹s translations are extremely helpful. This is a book one wants to own, so to savor a few delightful (and some very sad) letters at a time. As a whole it reveals a much more truthful picture of May Sarton than Margot Peters¹ recent biography.

Fine biography and autobiography of May Sarton.......1999-07-12

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Do these places really exist?
Well written but made me so sad.
Powerful and moving
Dignity Within
Gifted and talented writer

As We Are Now: A Novel
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393309576

Customer Reviews:

Do these places really exist?.......2007-02-21

This was a real eye opener. It really makes one think if there are really nursing homes that would treat their patients the way Caro and the others were treated. Caro was a very strong willed woman who refused to give in the daily humiliation brought on by Harriet and Rose the owners. In the end she may have gotten her revenge, but at what price?

Well written but made me so sad........2003-01-01

I like Sarton's character, Caroline Spencer. I wanted to rush in and bring her to my home. This book brings to light the humiliations of our Seniors and I really wanted this story to enlighten me. It actually made me very sad.

It was a very easy and fast read (only about 130 pages long) and it was so nice to get to know "Miss Spencer". This book should remind us that our aged are intelligent, and have feelings, and deserve to be treated with respect. I am thankful for that aspect of the novel. I give it a 3, only because I found I was so saddened by the suject. Perhaps I should score it higher, as a testament to Sarton's wonderful writing and believability.

Powerful and moving.......2002-03-11

Caroline Spencer is an aging schoolteacher who gets placed in a caregiver's home by her family. She is soon faced with the fact that her caregiver Harriet Hatfield is not unlike a jailer, though she probably means well. Caro is subjected daily to petty cruelties and subtle humiliations, and she almost succumbs to actually taking the tranquilizers she's brought. She keeps a journal to retain her faculties and as a last defense against infirmity. When a married woman temporarily helps out around the home, Caro learns the true nature of love, late in her life. Harriet finds Caro's journal and nearly destroys Caro's morale, but this only drives Caro into a last act of defiance and release. This is the second Sarton book I've read; the first being "Mrs Stevens Hears The Mermaids Singing" (#95 of the 100 Best Lesbian & Gay Novels). Her writing is superb and so beautiful. "As We Are Now" is her indictment against the treatment of the elderly and a brilliant book about growing old and struggling to cling to the world. Kate Millett's memoir "Mother Millett" also deals with the treatment of the elderly in this country, and it's sad to see that it hasn't changed much.

Dignity Within.......2002-03-09

I have long admired May Sarton's willingness to tackle tough subjects that deal with the inner reality of her characters as they face issues or things about themselves that are not always pleasant. One of my favorite works for example is A Reckoning, in which a woman comes to terms with her own premature dying. Here in As We Are Now, however, Sarton pushes past even her own limits to probe an issue that festers behind the scenes of our youth-obsessed culture - the relegation of the elderly to rest homes, nursing facilities and sanitariums; any place in short where the rest of society doesn't have to see or think about them. What makes Sarton's book such an achievement is how she is able to depict the sordidness and relentless oppression experienced by her main character Caro, while infusing her at the same time with a dignity and strength of character that transcends the worst the situation can dish out. The triumph of the novel is that in the end, we come to see Caro not as an elderly woman, but as a woman infused with a light of her own making.

The story begins with Caro being placed in a rest home by her older brother. Caro has had a heart attack and can no longer live in her own home, and the older brother's younger wife can't handle having Caro live with them. Unfortunately, or perhaps predictably, the rest home is little more than a holding tank where the residents are treated like mentally deficient children, and any attempt to buck the system results in punishment. The most disturbing aspect of the whole thing, however, is that Caro is perceptive, bright and very much alive. A former teacher with students who still write her, she reads and studies poetry, observes and comments astutely on her fellow residents, and replays her favorite music in her mind to keep herself busy. As a reader you want someone to do something, for some long lost relative to appear, a former student to offer a haven, or the visiting minister to report the abominable conditions. Only slowly do you, like Caro, become resigned to the fact that this is what happens to the elderly in our society, and come to realize that the only escape will forged within and by herself.

That Sarton has managed to give her character dignity, that the novel stands as a testament to the strength and beauty of the human spirit rather than a condemnation of society, is remarkable. This book should be read by anyone who has or will be faced with the issue of aging - in other words by everyone.

Gifted and talented writer.......2002-01-21

May Sarton's protrayal of an elderly schoolteacher entering a nursing home, stripped of her dignity and privacy is heartwrenching. I loved the book and found myself questioning the way we ignore our aging population. The author pointed out that people spend years in nursing homes and become shells of what they were. They retreat into despair and decline only because they are ignored from others. It is so sad and yet there is so much truth to the way we shune our elderly population

Collected Poems, 1930-1993 (1930 - 1993)

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Collected Poems, 1930-1993 (1930 - 1993)
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393034933

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Much-diminished Sarton
The Closing Chapter of a Stellar Life

At 82: A Journal
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393038890

Amazon.com

Since Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton's musings on books, poetry, friendship and the pleasures of everyday life have grown richer with each new installment. In this, her last journal, Sarton continues to adjust to the feeling that she is a stranger in the land of old age. And though her struggles and daily setbacks continue, there is an optimistic, musing tone as she contemplates this unique time in a person's life. May Sarton died in July 1995, not long after completing this volume.

Book Description

May Sarton's eagerly awaited journals have recorded her life as a single, woman writer and, in later years, as a woman confronting old age. She completed this pilgrimage through her eighty-second year a few months before she died in 1995.

Customer Reviews:

Much-diminished Sarton.......2007-06-21

Sarton's last several journals are, in my opinion, not worth the money. That she attempted to continue writing when she had to dictate her thoughts put much too much of a strain upon her, I feel. Sarton was a competent, sometimes excellent, writer in her earlier years, but these final few journals are more painful to read than illuminating. House By the Sea began the decline of quality of her journals, it seemed to me, perhaps due to my frustration with Sarton's apparent inability to comprehend how dangerous allowing Judy Matlack, her longtime lover and companion, to wander about unsupervised was when it was clear to any reasonably perceptive reader that Matlack was so senile that she needed near-constant supervision. Sarton, however, clearly alternated between concern for Matlack and frustration with her that arose from denial of the seriousness of Matlack's condition. In the end, it was quite sad to witness such clear evidence of Sarton's inability to consider realistically the needs of others, which ultimately foreshadowed her eventual inability to stop trying to write when doing so was clearly beyond her sadly diminished capabilities.

The succeeding journals, chronicling Sarton's gradual deterioration and accompanying fury and frustration at her decline, are wrenching and not particularly enlightening unless witnessing a once-effective writer's diminishment intrigues you for some perverse reason.

Stick with Sarton's earlier works, Plant Dreaming Deep or Journal Of a Solitude.

The Closing Chapter of a Stellar Life.......2000-10-03

At Eighty-Two is an incredible though painful final journal from Sarton. If you are reading Sarton for the first time, read Journal of a Solitude or (my favorite) Recovering first, and then turn to this one. Sarton deals in this journal primarily with the diminishment of old age. Being quite ill at the time, she occassionally comes accross quite bitter, but perhaps this is what makes this journal so poignant and so important for a society that either forgets about or romantizes old age.

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You Just Can't Go Wrong with Sarton

Recovering: A Journal
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

May Sarton's sixty-sixth year,1978-79, was a difficult time: a cherished relationship came to an end, she had a mastectomy, she fought against depression. How her friendships, her love of the natural world, and her growing audience of readers brought her back is this journal's story.

Customer Reviews:

You Just Can't Go Wrong with Sarton.......2007-05-30

Reading Sarton is like taking in fresh air! "Recovering" is no exception. Sarton is always an easy read, but you have to be prepared to "FEEL" - she is so open with her emotions and experiences. Sarton cuts right to the core of human experience and emotion in a simple, straight forward way. Although she expresses her grief and losses in a poignent and potent manner, she is not sentimental and "Recovering", like her other works, leaves one with a certian calmness even amid all of the emotional turbulance.

"Recovering" also is typically "Sartonian" in that her eye for the beautiful simplicity in nature and the in small details is ever present in this journal.

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Struggle to Regain Abilities

After the Stroke: A Journal
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393306305

Customer Reviews:

Struggle to Regain Abilities.......2006-08-03

I was interested in Sarton's experience with stroke, since I've a relative going through this. The journal covers her 73rd year after a mild stroke leaves her weak in her left side. Although the stroke was not a major debilitating one, the varied problems from irregular heartbeat, congestive heart failure and feeling ill from various medicines affects her quality of life.
The journal tracks her daily struggle to recover her creative thinking and to live alone (in coastal Maine). Her flower garden, letters and visits, plus her aging dog and young kitten bring her solace from her problems. Sprinkled with literary references and nature observations, the journal makes pleasant reading.
If you have an aging parent or friend/relative with an illness, you can gain insight by reading Sarton's account of her difficulties and recovery.

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