Sybille Bedford Quicksands

Annotation

This passionate memoir reflects a sharp, incisive interiority and is written in a style that's even more lyrical and engaging than the style that propelled Bedford into the literary world with her first book, Sudden View, in 1953. Mentored by Aldous Huxley (she later wrote his definitive biography), raised in a Europe struggling to retain and later regain its soul, Bedford (b. 1911) crossed paths with many compelling characters in the years during, between and after the world wars, including a few close to Hitler and to the Fascists. Her detailed autobiography is also a memoir of the evolution of an author, and Bedford writes as movingly of 9/11 as she does of the occupation and liberation of Europe. Bedford counters the perils of political darkness with the first flushes of romantic passions, and, throughout, describes the landscape of her world: her youth in the countrysides of Europe, and her adulthood in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Florence and New York. Her eye and ear for the ever-changing and challenging world in which she has lived moves her seamlessly from one era to the next. It's heady stuff, no less so for Bedford's ruminative style, her introspection and insight.