in 1904, the beloved younger brother of Ivy Compton-Burnett.  Their father having died in 1901, his widow withdraws completely from society, dressing herself and her children in "unrelieved mourning."  Ivy's other younger brother Noel would die in the War.  Two sisters would succeed in a suicide pact on Christmas Day.



Detail.  James McNeill Whistler.   Arrangement in Grey and Black, also called Whistler's Mother.   

It was watching "The Sandpiper" which prompted the question, What would it be like to have Elizabeth Taylor as your mother?  What it would feel like to be pulled into an embrace with those remarkable breasts?

Surely more pleasant than being raised by the mother of Ivy Compton-Burnett from the sounds of it.  My dear friend JC assures me that no one writes about the horrors, cruelty and hypocrisy of the Edwardian home and gentry like Dame Ivy, and I am very much looking forward to filling this gap in my reading experience.  Two of her books have been reissued by the trusty New York Review of Books.  I'll keep you posted.  "Although I have dispersed many first editions from my library," JC writes, "I have kept all of Ivy Compton-Burnett's.  Whenever I catch sight of them on the shelf I feel a chill in the air."

Speaking of mothers and sons, one of my favorite (non-fiction) books, "Savage Grace" -- the story of Barbara Daly Baekeland's unnaturally close relationship with her son Anthony who ended up killing her -- has been made into a film by the noted writer/director Tom Kalin, whose work "Swoon" was based on the Leopold and Loeb murder.  Read the review in the Guardian of this and Todd Haynes' new work about Bob Dylan.  Julianne Moore, an actress who has appeared in so many of Haynes' films, plays Barbara.

JC has also suggested "Mrs. Wallop" by Peter DeVries, about a "Gorgon-like Midwest Mother."  RH has recently recommended "Joyous Season" by one of our favorites, Patrick Dennis -- just so it isn't all doom and gloom!  

It could be worse, of course.  Did you know about the Orphan Trains at the turn of the last century?  Apparently a couple hundred thousand destitute and orphaned children from the streets and child gangs of Eastern seaboard cities were packed up and shipped to the Midwest where they were advertised for distribution to interested families and organizations.  True story.  I'm still in the process of reviewing the extant literature.  I'll get back to you.

And I am reminded as well of what W.H. Auden said of Oscar Wilde, that "a child who, like Wilde, has been overloved and indulged by his mother, and who has discovered that he has the power to charm... may consciously be vain but unconsciously feels insecure, for he cannot believe he is as lovable as his mother seems to think, and his power to charm others seems a trick that is no indication of his real value.  When such a child grows up, his emotional involvements with others... are apt to be short-lived if the other succumbs to his charm without any resistance, but he can be fascinated by someone who, without rejecting him completely, treats him badly..."

Auden then proceeds to explain ["An Improbable Life" in Forewords and Afterwords. New York, Random House, Vintage Books, 1974] Oscar's attraction to that justifiably awful creature Lord Alfred Douglas.  But I think his analysis also reminds us that when it comes to child-rearing, neglect and over-indulgence both have their dangers.  Not that you can't win, but as my mother used to say, making children is so much easier than raising them.  If people fully grasped what they were in for, she was quite certain there'd be a precipitous drop in the numbers.  She may have been referring to the actual birth process, which she maintained you always forgot about afterward because otherwise you'd never endure having more than one.  But I think her point extends to everything afterwards as well.  In the end, it's probably a little more complicated than letting your kid run wild on the beach at Big Sur while you impress his school chums in your yellow sundress and ruin the headmaster's marriage.  But it makes a good story.