Colours of the Rimbaud
Kay Dick
Enid Starkie Joanna Richardson (Murray £4.50) Miss Richardson might well have sub-titled her book on Enid Starkie 'A Humming-Bird at Somerville,' quoting her own admirable description (" A voluble, flamboyant hummingbird ") of this eccentric and turbulent don, who certainly hummed through every one of her seventy-three years, from her birth in Dublin, in 1897, to that tragic last moment, when she collapsed on her way upstairs to her study in her fantastic house in St. Giles', Oxford (period Queen Anne; with its golden gargoyle, scarlet door, gold walls, woodwork painted red and gold). A parabolical death this for such a restlessly creative and ambitious spirit, which final touch Miss Richardson sensitively takes into account.
This task could not have been an easy one. Miss Richardson, figuratively, inherited it: She made it clear that, if someone else ever wrote her life, she wished me to do so." Miss Richardson was both Dr Starkie's student, and, later, her close friend. Her first personal encounter was pretty unnerving: arriving late for a prose class, Miss Richardson was dismissed for a week by the autocratic Starkie. Even so, the aura was compulsively seductive, and Miss Richardson returned for more. "You must learn which horse to back," commanded Enid the dominant, so Miss Richardson backed Enid, and, as her book demonstrates, never regretted the experience of this " lifeenhancing " although often devastating personality. Knowing Enid Starkie as well as Miss Richardson did was clearly extraordinary; every page testifies to the volcanic impact of Starkie on Richardson. Knowing Enid through her private papers, her letters and her friends was even more passionate a revelation: "They destroyed an illusion which had lasted since I first knew her, and they presented a wholly different truth." It says much for Mrs Richardson's equilibrium, and determination, that she completed her biographical task, because, clearly, the existing autobiographical material was near-overwhelming.
This tiny woman, with her bright blue eyes, her Irish voice, her eccentric clothes (the French matelot's cap, the blue and red trouser suits, the sazzling jewelry), whose household decor was fabulously theatrical with its strident reds, golds, chinoiseries and bizarre bric-a-brac must have been a difficult ghost to exorcise. Then, there was that waterfall of enthusiasm for nineteenth century French authors (her favourites being Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Flaubert), topped by teresting about Enid Starkie's academic battles (a splendid picture of Somerville life and politics), and stresses the great academic disappointment of Starkie's life: that she was never awarded an Oxford Professorship, although honours came her way pretty regularly, outside Oxford, with a greatly appreciated CBE, When Miss Richardson writes about what she saw with her own eyes she sparkles — these are her best bits. One would perhaps have welcomed more speculative analysis, but this is a small lack in such a devoted loving tribute. Conversely, Miss Richardson keeps a critical balance (and is often quite sharp) when she discusses Enid Starkie's work: "She did not love literature for its own sake; she read it, one suspects, not for aesthetic pleasure but for its bearing on her books and lectures, and for its revelations of the men who wrote it." And so on.
The revelations which this task brought (and which astonished Miss Richardson) were Enid Starkie's bisexuality, homosexuality predominating, and the inner tensions produced by this duality, especially when linked to religious doubts. These are illuminated in letters exchanged between Enid Sartkie and Alyse Gregory and in letters and reminiscences from Rosamund Lehmann. The gems of this book; moving and perceptimve indicators to the tempestuous nature of this frustrated and ambitious woman. The account of Enid Starkie's two year struggle with cancer is as valiant and remarkable a drama as the whole of this active and exuberant life. One often has a feeling of being over-crowded, but that is doubtless appropriate, because, revolving within the Starkie orbit must have been extremely claustrophobic. There is little peace in this life; a sense of constant pressure, a near excess of demonstrative living, almost a protest — as a child Enid Starkie attempted suicide. Then, there are all those stories about Enid Starkie's involvement with the Professorship of Poetry, and Miss Richardson's retelling of these is wonderfully witty, and slightly wicked.
The final impression is that in the putting together of this life, Miss Richardson suffered some slight revulsion against her prior devotion. One can understand that too much of Enid Starkie might produce an inevitable reaction, even for one who she inspired (Miss Richardson herself specialises in books about nineteenth century French characters). The omission of a bibliography is strange in a book whose chief appeal will be with Oxford's fraternity, as is the index which lists ten entries under Richardson, Joanna.
Kay Dick's latest book, Friends and Friendship, will be published early next year.
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