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Deceived with KindnessA Bloomsbury Childhoodinsider victim's take of Bloomsbury goings-on Angelica Garnett is the daughter of Vanessa Bell and her lover Duncan Grant. At the time of Angelica's birth, Vanessa was still married to Clive Bell, so Angelica was passed off to the world as his daughter, though many people in the inner circle of the Bloomsbury Group knew the truth. This crucial fact of her provenance was concealed from her until she was nineteen years old - whereupon she 'avenged' herself on the family by marrying David Garnett, who had been her father's lover even before she was born.
There are lots of very charming scenes: life in Gordon Square, being washed in the bath by Maynard Keynes; Christmas with her 'grandparents' the Bells, surrounded by cooks, housemaids, and servants. There are some very lyrical episodes evoking upper-class life which although taking place in the 1920s might as well have been the late Victorian or early Edwardian period. Some of her most perceptive passages are those in which she describes the relationship between her mother's artistic theories and her practice as an artist. The fact for instance that since Vanessa considered the subject matter of pictorial art unimportant, it was unnecessary for her to go any further than the bottom of the garden to find something worth painting. There are extended portraits of Clive Bell and Duncan Grant, though it is odd that neither of them is referred to as 'father' - even though throughout the whole of her childhood Bell had been falsely ascribed to her as such. On the subject of her aunt Virginia Woolf she wonders if she had ever made love to her husband Leonard. Yet she is writing as an adult, by which time she would have not only known the answer, but also that Virginia had also slept with Vita Sackville-West. The book is a charming evocation of a privileged youth, but for an in depth knowledge of its subjects, additional sources are definitely required. She saves the most dramatic part of her story for last. Her very unequal relationship with David Garnett (she was twenty-six years younger) takes place against a backdrop of family disapproval, the onset of the second world war, and the suicide of her aunt Virginia. Despite the apparent sophistication of the Bloomsbury set, most of the adults behave badly in concealing the important details of their former liaisons from her, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. She is at her most insightful in analysing the shortcomings of her mother, her father, and her husband - all conspirators against her psychological wellbeing. After one hundred and fifty pages of indulgence and lyric evocation of a privileged upbringing, I finally began to admire her and it made this Bloomsbury memoir worth reading after all. © Roy Johnson 2006 [more BLOOMSBURY GROUP books] Angelica Garnett, Deceived with Kindness: A Bloomsbury Childhood, London: Pimlico, 1985, p.181, ISBN 0712662669
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