One imagines the portraits side by side.Ĭult novel or no, Nightwood is a recognized masterpiece of modernism. Eliot, who later kept just two autographed pictures in his office: one of Groucho Marx, the other of Djuna Barnes.

The novel appeared in 1937, fervently introduced by T. The centerpiece of Barnes' spare, self-muted career, Nightwood is what is called a 'cult novel.' This means it is a work kept in print by the passion of its readers rather than by a position in the liberal arts curriculum of English departments, which is how American books ordinarily achieve the status of classics and universal fame. Djuna is not a perfect biography, and it isn't perfect criticism either, but it is a timely and exciting book that can be read with profit by anyone interested in the grand literary epochs of the teens in the Village, the '20s in Paris, or in the strange and impossible genius who wrote Nightwood. Luckily, he does not withdraw empty-handed. Motivated not by greed but love, he too accosts the ferocious jagged old modernist and circles her, at bay, annotating the glints of savagery in her eyes. It also is a fair description of Field's method. They circled around and around in the courtyard and he finally drew away in sheer surprise at the jagged ferocity of the old woman's voice, the savagery in her eyes.' That's her all right: The very woman I remember seeing pass by.

It was the author of Nightwood, the last of the great American modernists, on her fierce, silent way home.Īndrew Field recounts that in her middle eighties, Barnes was accosted by a mugger in the courtyard of Patchin Place, where she had her tiny apartment. I seem to recall a belted raincoat I know I remember an army fatigue cap visoring her old, old eyes.

I recall the set of the jaw and the slow but unstoppable rhythm of the cane. 'Look!' I remember a friend poking me and (on the street) whispering: 'It's Djuna Barnes.' The sight of that ancient lady brought us to a hush as effectively as would that of a condor perched on a traffic light. UNTIL JUST a few years ago, she quite often could be seen on the streets of Greenwich Village.

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