A Legacy (New York Review Books Classics)

Sybille Bedford was born in Germany in 1911, the daughter of a South German Baron and a Berlin Jew with some English ancestry. When her father died in 1925, she joined her mother (long since divorced) first in Italy and then in France, where she became close friends with Aldous Huxley. She never returned to Germany except in her imagination, as in this novel, which combines elements of her family history into a saga of the German upper classes between 1870 and 1914. In her preface, she explains the three very different, "eccentric, even anachronistic" families linked by circumstance and marriage: "One of the families was solid, upholstered, Jewish Berlin, the city of the disciplines, drives and deceits of the Protestant Prussian North; the other two belonged to discrepant realities of the Catholic South: one somnolent, agrarian, backward-looking; the other obsessed by ecumenical dreams of European dimensions."Bedford spends very little time on "her" character in the story, here called Francesca. Most of her attention is devoted to Francesca's father, Julius von Felden, a former diplomat, art collector, and flaneur. Considerable attention is also given to his father, a French-speaking Baron from Baden resenting the recent unification of Germany, and his three brothers. These include Gustavus, the eldest, who marries into an ultra-Catholic noble family in the same region, and Jean, whose sufferings in a Prussian cadet school ultimately become a national cause célèbre. Julius, who had been living happily in the South of France with a monkey and two chimpanzees, marries a much younger girl from the Jewish Merz family in Berlin, and remains bound up with them even after his wife's early death. The men in both families, actually, are presented as charming but profligate drones. The women, however, are very strong indeed, including Francesca's charismatic English mother Caroline, who bursts late into the story like a supernova and immediately realigns the allegiances of both sexes.Bruce Chatwin described Bedford as "one of the most dazzling practitioners of modern English prose." He is right, but the book is not at all easy to follow as a piece of narrative. Perhaps influenced by Cubism (or the narrative techniques of Henry Green), it tells its story in fragments, jumping around in place, time, and even languages, sometimes devoting pages to brief snippets of unattributed dialogue, like whispers in corridors or on street corners. It is often hard to know exactly what has happened, though I believe this vagueness is deliberate, especially when it comes to romantic matters. There are many implications of affairs, and even some doubt as to the parenthood of the various children. And in the feelings between several of the women, and to a lesser extent those of the men, there are distinct sexual ambiguities, perhaps reflecting Sybille Bedford's own orientation and her brief marriage of convenience to a gay man. But -- and I must emphasize this -- all the characters are fully realized and most are quite likable.David Leavitt (author of  THE INDIAN CLERK ) whose appreciation of the novel in that marvelous collection of reading lists,  THE TOP TEN , first alerted me to Bedford, suggests that the story is a key to the sources of both World Wars. In the case of the Second, I don't agree; although there are brief shadows of antisemitism in the background, the book takes place in a different age. Nor does Bedford make any explicit reference to the approaching Great War. But this is a period about which I knew very little, and the portrait of transition between the Belle Époque and the Prussian-dominated German Reich is both interesting and informative. But you really read this book for its people, and they, for all their flaws, are a delight. [4.5 stars]

I suffered through it. I didn't understand some of the narrative and a great deal of the dialogue seemed non sequiturs. Perhaps it was more of a sociological study than a novel. The characters were, except perhaps for Sarah, shallow and completely self centered. While some of the reviews praised the book, I cannot. But I am not an academic, either. The book seemed to be sort of a jest on manners, yet that was not very pleasing. Perhaps it was meant to be a sort of Alice in Wonderland. Oh well, overall the book was a disappointment. Was it because I am lacking sophistication as a reader?

This is well worth reading for a novelized first person biography of someone living through two world wars. She documents her life as a member of the failing upper class with more guilt than wistful fawning. There are moments of silliness, some name dropping, but otherwise a good quickie. It's her best book by quite a bit.

One of the best books I've read in years. It is both a political satire and an Austinian comedy of manners. Read every word with care in order not to miss the delicious subtlety of the dialog.

One of the rare disappointments in the NYRB series. There's some amusing writing scattered about, but the story is too fragmentary and the characters too transparent to even understand the plot. I had no idea what was going on.

Interesting how un-integrated Northern and Southern Germany were pre-1914.

This ma be a book for certain tastes. It is arch, full of attempts at dry wit, and social commentary. To me, however, it seems contrived and the characters superficial. The reflection of the times goes glimmering. The style will not be to everyone's taste.

Well written and wonderful story by a gifted author

Excellent writing, but a little hard to follow as she sometimes skips from character to character in different time periods...

I love anything this author writes!

I cannot understand how this book escaped me for so long. It is a brilliant novel and I could easily have imagined it was written specifically to match my tastes and interests! I shall now try Bedford's other works, but I shall be amazed if anything else gives me as much pleasure as The Legacy.

Excellent evocation of European life, mostly German, in the decades up to 1913. Powerful and real female characters. Beautifully written.

Novel writing at its very best.