Aldington's Side of the Story

ELT 36:3 1993 Aldington's Side of the Story Richard Aldington: An Autobiography in Letters. Norman T. Gates, ed. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. ix + 402 pp. $49.50 IN HIS PALL MALL GAZETTE book review of 25 November 1885, Bernard Shaw commented: "An autobiography is usually begun with interest by writer and reader alike, and seldom finished by either." Richard Aldington (1892-1962) published Life for Life's Sake when he believed that he was saying "Farewell to Europe" (as he had planned to call this autobiography) forever. He left unrecorded his years in Hollywood , his return to Europe in 1946, and his life in France until his death in 1962. Aldington was a writer of remarkable range. He was a prescient critic who was among the first to champion T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Marcel Proust, and many others who have since gained their deserved recognition partly through his efforts. He was the first (and youngest) to publish as an "Imagist" poet. His translations of Voltaire, Boccaccio, and others remain standard texts and have often had the unwelcome compliment of being pirated without attribution. His fiction includes the best-selling World War I novel Death of a Hero. Aldington's scathing satires of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Nancy Cunard , and others still make lively reading, whüe his biographies of Voltaire, Wellington, and D. H. Lawrence compare favorably with some later efforts that presumably profited from his work. His portrayals of Norman Douglas in Pinorman (1954) and of T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry (1955) stül raise the blood pressure of many who do not relish seeing their literary or müitary heroes criticized or ridiculed. His autobiography is not as candid as it might have been since he had to consider the sensitivity not only of his contemporaries, but also of their lawyers. He maintained a prudent reticence in his published comments about those with whom he had crossed swords or whose friendship had not survived his quick and unforgiving reaction when people failed to live up to his expectations. Aldington was at his best in his letters, where he expressed himself without restraint. How many letters he actually wrote is difficult to determine, but more than 10,000 are known to have survived. That he wrote so many letters was inevitable in his circumstances. He spent most of his adult life apart from his friends and literary associates since 376 BOOK REVIEWS he was in the trenches during the Great War, in retreat at Malthouse Cottage in Padworth during the 1920s, traveling on the Continent during the 1930s, moving about in the United States from 1939 to 1946, and living in France from 1946 to 1962. Correspondence was his major source of significant and stimulating discourse, particularly when he was isolated, impoverished, and frequently lonely during his last years. His letters to scores of people he rarely saw are an outpouring of trenchant comments about his writing and that of others, reminiscences of his chüdhood and literary associations , pointed observations no publisher or editor could then risk printing , and an incredible array of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects. Aldington's character was so complex, his knowledge so vast, his interests so diverse, his literary productions so varied and numerous, his relationships so complicated, and his various personal and literary feuds so contentious that he poses a chaUenge to critics and biographers. He faüed himself to meet this challenge in his autobiography, but he was more successful in his correspondence. The subtitle of Norman T. Gates's Richard Aldington: An Autobiography in Letters is not a gimmick—this really is an autobiography. Gates has presented 154 letters within five chronological sections that correspond to the major stages of Aldington's adult life: 1) Poet-Soldier: 1912-1918; 2) Editor-Translator: 1919-1928; 3) Novelist-Traveler 19291938 ; 4) Screenwriter-Biographer: 1939-1946; and 5) Expatriate-Hero: 1947-1962. Each section begins with a short biographical overview before Aldington provides the particulars in his own words. At the beginning of the final section there also appears a brief but revealing essay, The Last...