![]() In the end, reading this book becomes a bit of a struggle: it's like being stuck in a someone's rather boring dreamworld. The lack of dates (such as "that was in 1925" or whatever) or a neatly defined chapter structure means that it's pretty hard to keep track of the passage of time. After a while this DOES get rather boring. The people around her float by as a succesion of badly defined cardboard cutouts, and one visited city sounds much like any other. She was a fantastic dancer, but as a writer she is far too interested in her own inner world. ![]() She is passionate in her descriptions of her inner life, her career and her lovers and changed the whole concept of "The Dance", breaking away from ballet (which she considered ugly and contrived) and inventing what we'd call "modern dance". She was a hugely talented, flamboyant individual who chose to march to her own drummer from an early age. Isadora Duncan's autobiography is a terrific example of the above. We have no real right to expect objectivity or "the long view" on any given subject. ![]() Review by author of "From Albania to Sicily"Īn autobiography is a way of looking inside a person's mind. The autobiography has gripped me sufficiently to make me want to read a good biography of Isadora. Frustratingly, her autobiography ends with the invitation she received to set up a dance school in the young Soviet Union in about 1921. She married the Russian poet Essenin briefly, but that part of her life is not recorded in her book.Īs for Albania, there are only a few pages dedicated to her brief time there. She was privileged to have met and been admired by great personalities such as Stanislavsky, Rodin, d'Annunzio, and Eleanora Duse. It was a life of tragedy and triumph, liberally spiced with a series of lovers who never failed to help her with her career and her life problems, including the sad loss of her three children. I felt that Isadora was trying in her flamboyant way to give a reasonably accurate account of her colourful life. She writes well and makes frequent allusions to, and uses quotes from, the great classical authors and also from Nietzche and other more recent writers. It is only because I had recently discovered that she had spent some time in Albania, a country that fascinates me and about which I have written, that I decided to read this book. I knew nothing about Isadora Duncan, the highly creative dancer, before I picked up a copy of her charming autobiography. What a shame! I recommend reading other sources (web and books) about Isadora before reading this book if you really want to know who she really was. Of course she didn't commit suicide so I wasn't expecting an "Adieu" letter from her but surely, I felt cheated after having read so many pages only to come to an abrupt and rushed ending. Why was that part omitted? Also,her in stay Nice in southern France where she accidentally died was never mentioned, just words she supposedly spoke out the day she died. I was hoping that the last pages of the book would contain her marriage, yes, marriage, an act she always swore never to be part of yet got married to Sergei Yesenin, a Russian poet. She endured a painful loss, twice, when her children died, the only dark period in her life as she was always full of joy and rhythm. ![]() However she was finacially irresponsible and I got the impression that she imposed her expenses on her lovers and wealthy fans and aristocrats. At a time when travel was long and limited, she can be described as a very traveled lady and my wasn't she cultured! Everyday, she danced herself to sleep even while traveling. Isadora was multilingual - difficult to say which major European language she couldn't speak. I googled her and was swept away but the information I got from a Wikipedia page and immediately decided to purchase the book. I got to discover Isadora Duncan while reading a french novel that mentioned the dancer.
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