A Woman Seldom Found

An extract from this review HERE.

A Woman Seldom Found – William Sansom

“At last the young man achieved himself:”

A second, but worthy, bite at this book’s cherry by William Sansom. This one takes place in Rome. [First, however, I need to share this quotation with you, a quotation from Elizabeth Bowen (my favourite writer, along with Robert Aickman, Marcel Proust, Lawrence Durrell and Thomas Ligotti): <<With all that Miss Selby scarcely ever went out: wasn’t it funny? She had not ‘done’ any of the places; she was ‘keeping’ Rome. For when, for whom, was she keeping it? One didn’t like to ask. That was Miss Selby’s secret, which, like a soap-bubble at the end of a pipe, would bulge, subside, waver, wobble iridescently, and subside again. Later, among the trees of the Pincio it transpired that she was keeping Rome for Somebody. Ah, really? Miss Phelps found this beautiful. Miss Selby interrupted her sight to confess that she allowed herself daily small rations; she would stand looking, for instance, through the railings of the Forum without going in.>> From ‘The Secession’ 1926.] Meanwhile, in the Sansom, we have another suggested moment of crystallisation or symbiotic focus as that of Axolotl and me or of Spider and me (but here with a tantalising promise of concupiscence!), plus another echo of this book’s sameness-of-places-making-travel-a-chore theme (here potentially gingered up by the aforementioned tantalisation) and a further elongation of the ‘long sheet’, here more fleshily! A wonderful wonderful vignellarette. [elong = gnole] (16/11/11 – another 45 minutes later)