Angelica Garnett

Angelica Garnett (1918-2012), nièce de Virginia Woolf, a grandi au cœur du Bloomsbury Group, qui réunissait d’influents écrivains, artistes et intellectuels anglais. Dans sa maison de campagne du Sus

Real life and fiction meet as Angelica Garnett vividly evokes what it is to grow up in the shadow of artists. Her family appear in different guises in the stories, but at the centre of each one is Garnett herself. She is naive and foolish as Bettina, desperately seeking acceptance into the grown-ups circle (When All the Leaves Were Green, My Love); shy and cautious, but finally disloyal, as Agnes (Aurore); a hesitant, uncomfortable Emily (The Birthday Party); and a contemplative, even witty older woman, full of appetite and guilt, as Helen (Friendship). Spanning an entire life, each story reveals a figure trying to understand her place not only within the polished circle of her family, but in an ever-changing world. Sharply observing a colourful social milieu and the vibrant characters that populate it, these are stories about family and friendships, yet also curdled relationships and small betrayals. A fictional counterpoint to her acclaimed memoir, Deceived with Kindness, here is a portrait of a woman seeking an understanding and acceptance of her past.

Angelica Garnett may truly be called a child of Bloomsbury. Her Aunt was Virginia Woolf, her mother Vanessa Bell, and her father Duncan Grant, though for many years Angelica believed herself, naturally enough, the daughter of Vanessas husband Clive. Her childhood homes, Charleston in Sussex and Gordon Square in London, were both centres of Bloomsbury activity, and she grew up surrounded by the most talked-about writers and artists of the day - Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry, the Stracheys, Maynard Keynes, David Garnett (whom she later married), and many others. But Deceived with Kindness is also a record of a young girls particular struggle to achieve independence from that extraordinary and intense milieu as a mature and independent woman. With an honesty that is by degrees agonising and uplifting, the author creates a vibrant, poignant picture of her mother, Vanessa Bell, of her own emergent individuality, and of the Bloomsbury era.

Los protagonistas y hacedores de la muy alambicada trama de relaciones personales sobre la que se creó el grupo de Bloomsbury -tal vez no nuevas, pero sí pioneras, en la medida que sus personajes las han querido desvelar- en todo momento supieron que estaban poniendo en pie una historia que valia la pena contar a toda costa. No en vano muchos de ellos dejaron antes de morir sus papeles personales, sus cartas y diarios, a instituciones plenamente capacitadas para ocuparse de tantas intimidades con el debido respeto y con la deseada eficacia. Al ya abultado corpus de documentos, testimonios, recuerdos y analisis viene a sumarse Una mentira piadosa, autobiografia sesgada de Angelica Garnett, hija de Vanessa Bell. Desde el ventajoso mirador al que no sin dolor pudo auparse Angelica Garnett, medio hermana de Quentin Bell -sobrino de Virginia Woolf y biografo "oficial" del grupo de Bloomsbury-, gracias al hecho de ser un componente fundamental de la segunda generacion del grupo, Garnett traza una parabola, o un arco que va de la ternura a la crudeza: entre el cariño y el despojo oscila esta historia de verdad. No es el suyo un arco iris ni un camino de rosas: su relato, hecho de la carne misma de su vida, no cae en la tentacion del ajuste de cuentas con la generacion de sus mayores; no pierde la muy justificada ocasion de criticar los restos residuales de hipocresia que detecta en su manera de ser y de hacer; pinta con magistral pulso narrador la cara oculta del grupo de Bloomsbury; traza retratos valiosisimos (Duncan Grant, Virginia y Leonard Woolf, Roger Fry, Clive Bell, sobre todo Vanessa Bell, madre de Angelica, su espejo o contrafigura); en definitiva, escribe un Tratado del engaño, con mayusculas, desde el punto de vista de la victima.