 |
|
Title: Dangerous Muse: The Life of Lady Caroline Blackwood
ISBN: 0306811871
Author:
Nancy Schoenberger
Publicate Date: 2002-10
Publish: 2002-10
List Price: $18.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $5.35
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.28
Amazon Merchant Price: $17.10
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: Disappointment!
I was quite disappointed in this book. The writing is good, but seems mostly about people other than Caroline. There is little depth or insight to Schoenberger's portrait of her. We don't know much about who Caroline is, what she thinks, and the deeper motives behind her behaviour. About a fourth of the way through the book, I found myself paging ahead in the hope of discovering her.
|
2: Great, except for one area
I have to admit that when I first began reading this biography of Lady Caroline, it did not immediately enthrall me the way I thought it might, after having read the book's description. The first chapter or so deals almost exclusively with her family's history, and I found the endless names and descriptions of the different people boring. *However* as I began to read forward, I found myself fascinated with the sort of wit and charm Caroline Blackwood posessed (as is evident with her writings) The little excerpts from her fiction and non-fiction works scattered throughout the length of the biography were very important, as I think they fit perfectly with what Miss Schoenberger had been describing within Caroline's life. They provided a lot of insight into what was happening in her life, in an almost poetical manner. There is no doubt that the author has a strong talent for writing, but I think the fact that different members of Caroline Blackwood's family refused to contribute hurt Nancy Schoenberger's effort for a deeper story. All in all, by the end of the book, I definitely wanted more to read. The author's fluid style of writing fit the subject matter well and it wasn't repetitive or dull by any means. I was however, disappointed with one aspect of the novel, and that is why wasn't more written about the development as Lady Caroline as a writer? I've read a few of her books, and she is obviously extremely talented in the area of psychological prose...there was more emphasis put on Caroline Blackwood's relationships than what was really the most fascinating thing about her, and that was her ability to so vividly and acutely write a novel of the psychological aspect...that was her true genius, not the fact that she was beautiful and had famous husbands. Too bad that wasn't put across, and that that's what Caroline will be remembered for, instead of what she *should*. Nevertheless a great biography by Nancy Schoenberger, given what she had to work with.
|
3: Another Legendary Beauty/Muse Story
This is a very romanticized viewpoint of Lady Caroline's troubled life but it was so well written and readable that it was impossible to put down. Like most of these type of lengends, Lillie Langtry comes to mind, she was famous mostly for who she bedded and who she knew. BUT, there is MORE. Like Langtry, Lady Blackwood inspired whomever she came in contact with. Some woman just have that persona and I don't feel it is fair to overlook that part of their history. Once again, we put all the blame on the woman and forget that the MEN also had a say in their attachments to her lure. Her beauty was more an entire package rather than the classic sense of beauty, per se. I highly recommend this book to all Langtry fans and the woman who are interested in these types of tastemakers.
|
4: Reads like a gothic fairy tale
I agree with many of the criticisms of this book, and I thought it was a scream that Caroline was continually described as one of the great beauties of her day. If she was, the photos in the book do not do that statement any justice. (...) The description of her as a great beauty appears to be more fiction/legend than fact. (...)I was disappointed that the parallels between Caroline's alcohol/drug abuse and the tragedies and traumas in her life were never made. Although the book was written from an extremely biased, romanticized point of view, I thought it was extremely well written and enjoyed reading it very much. For me, it had incredible entertainment value and had a similar appeal that a gothic Anne Rice story or a trashy Hollywood Jackie Collins novel might have. The book had incredible appeal as a sociopolitical commentary. (...) So for that expose alone and for writing in such a way that kept me engrossed in Caroline's story, I tip my hat off to Shoenberger and give this book a four star rating.
|
5: A paradoxical and beguiling figure,
Lady Caroline is extremely charming and repugnant at once, to this reader. Like another reviewer, I found the book to be impossible to put down, and I read almost straight through, until I was done. Beautiful, high-born, and slovenly, a constant smoker of cigarettes and a night-and-day-long consumer of vodka, Lady Caroline Blackwood nonetheless marries both a well known painter and America's leading poet of her time. She never stops attracting famous, wealthy men. Nancy Schoenberger peels off layer after layer to reveal both Lady Caroline and her aristocratic and wealthy set of friends and relations. I thought hard about those jet set and well born, many of them famous, friends of hers, as I read, and it occurred to me to think that they were blessed with money and talent and free time and fame, while the rest of us are even more blessed in that we have been given the work ethic, common sense, and bills to pay. The book inspires such thoughts and comparisons, whether or not they are on the money. I enjoyed it hugely.
|
|
|
|
|
