Life Regained: Diaries, 1970-72 Book

Frances Partridge was married to the writer Ralph Partridge and is one of the last remaining members of the Bloomsbury set. Her friends included Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington. A keen diary writer for all of her life, it wasn't until she was in her seventies that she thought of publishing her writings. Life Regained forms the sixth volume, tracing the strike-ridden years in England of 1970-1972. It is an absolute delight. Those who loved the film Carrington will adore the simple brilliance of these memoirs, yet even the uninitiated will find something to treasure in her gently glittering prose style that is as capable of capturing the beauty of a spring day as it is the tedium of talking to a bore at a dinner party. Partridge is as old as the century, yet a die-hard bon viveur and her diary entries tell of parties that last until one in the morning, of regular dinner-dates in town, of long, late-night affectionate chats with friends over a bottle of whisky and of sun-filled sojourns in Spain and Corfu. But there is sadness as well; the illness of many of her close friends, the madness of her best friend Julia Strachey, her ceaseless missing of her dead husband, and the shadow of her own approaching old age. Its very English, and very Bloomsbury, and I defy any reader on finishing these diaries not to wish for the chance to share dinner with this most softly intelligent of writers. --Claire AllfreeRead More