The House by the Sea: A Journal

Rating:
Summary: A companion piece to A Journal of a Solitude
Review: Interesting about the mixed results that Sarton achieved when she began this journal, which was intended as a journal of happiness and a kind of counterweight to her book A Journal of a Solitude which was clearly, well, *not* about happiness.

I can see why some people find it irritating to read, although I never do. She contradicts herself frequently-- complains of how she never gets time to herself and then runs around the Eastern seaboard like a bandersnatch. She's often pray to muddled thinking and faulty logic and sounds as though she'd be a real pain to be around much of the time.

But still, it's inspirational to read as someone who wants to keep a journal. It's not a constantly ecstatic experience in the way that Annie Dillard can be or an idea journal in the vein of Walden, it's more like reading somebody fumbling through towards bigger ideas and willing to expose the joints and creaky bits in the process. There are moments of vision and transcendence, but also a lot of the petty crap that gets people down from day to day.

I like reading Sarton because she is so human. I feel like I miss her even though I never knew her, and reading her is like getting to know her-- in all her fulness as a flawed and talented human being.

I'd probably begin with A Journal of a Solitude, as I think it's the more complete work, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this as a follow-up.

Rating:
Summary: Fanfare For The Common Man
Review: Literary journals and diaries written for publication are notoriously dicey cultural products. Harold Nicholson's extensive journals were written self consciously with a reading public clearly in mind. Bigamist Anais Nin rewrote her decades - long diary when she finally found an opportunity to publish it, editing out critical facts concerning her life in the process; the end result was a frothy fabrication rather than an accurate reflection of her existence.

May Sarton's frequently irritating The House By The Sea (1976) is the second of her published journals. Experimental first volume Journal Of A Solitude (1973), an unexpected success, was written with painful honesty and only tentative confidence while the author was living alone in a small New Hampshire village. By contrast, in The House By The Sea, Sarton immediately makes it clear that this volume has been commissioned. During the writing of the first, Sarton was caught in a tumultuous romantic relationship, experiencing herself as "old and useless," and discovering that she could no longer write poetry. But The House By The Sea finds Sarton wisely questioning whether or not she has anything worthwhile to say that might justify a second volume. It also reveals that Sarton's previous home in Nelson, New Hampshire, was in fact on the village green in the center of town. Sarton, then, was living alone, as millions of people do, and, like many of those millions, surrounded by and with ready access to other men and women. Thus Sarton's claim to "solitude" becomes questionable.

Sarton, now living alone in a truly isolated, three - story, oceanfront house in Maine, complains continually about the weather, about the imperfect state of her massive lawn and garden, about having routine housework to do, and is often unhappy when she has guests but chronically longs for human companionship when's she's alone. The House By The Sea makes it clear that Sarton is a conflicted individual with little objective sense of her privileged status. Sarton makes it apparent that she has attended Bloombury parties and known Virginia Woolf, Kenneth Clark, Elizabeth Bowen, Vladimir Nabokov, Archibald Macleish, Hilda Doolittle, the Huxleys, and other literary luminaries; she has lived in and traveled extensively through Europe; she has had a home in Cambridge, and taught at some of the most prestigious universities in America; she has and has had friends in influential places, and has been able to publish her novels and poetry for decades. All of which makes Sarton's petty grumbling, however sincere, rather smarmy.

As in Journal Of A Solitude, Sarton contradicts herself and often evidences the same kind of behavior she denounces. She states that her elderly, lifelong friend Celine Limbosch looks "like a poor sad old monkey," and Alison Lurie "a gentle perceptive witch," two expressions she would find objectionable if coming from a man, or even from a woman if directed against herself. She allows herself to be published in Reader's Digest, a venue Virginia Woolf and Sarton's other friends would have had nothing but contempt for, but months later asks why "inspirational writing such as appears in Reader's Digest" makes her "feel angry and upset...sick, cheated, and debased." She goes on at length about two women friends who she feels had illusions about their talent as poets, and says about one, "She was talented but she did not learn anything over the years. The poetry was too abstract and generalized. She never discovered the power of a strong metaphor to lead her to the truth. So what remains is a little theatrical and a little self - indulgent." To those who have read Sarton's poetry, these statements will sound like displacement and the kettle calling the pot black. One of the obvious sources of Sarton's rage in Journal Of A Solitude was her lack of an accurate estimation of her own published work.

Instead of taking the time to exam her thoughts and feelings before taking up her pen, Sarton prefers short sentences punctuated with exclamation points ("How much we forget, and how much that was fresh and clear gets overlaid!" "At last the braces have gone from Tommy's teeth!" "The greatest achievement of the day was shortening a pair of pants!" "She went out on the porch outside her bedroom and sketched immediately after she arrived!" "A grand day on the water!" "Whew!") For a book with literary aspirations, The House By The Sea is absolutely laden with exclamation points; there is at least one every third page, and some pages include two. Sarton also resorts to coarse expressions like "we gobbled it up."

Sensitive, ivory tower - dwelling Sarton offers a lot of undigested, watery, liberal - leaning opinions on the "state of our inner cities," writing that the subject is a cause of "constant anxiety" and morning tears. As in the first journal, Sarton's relationship with and judgment about animals and other subjects at times seems questionable. When Sarton finds a healthy baby rabbit in her cat's mouth, instead of nursing it in a box within an enclosed room, or calling the ASPCA for assistance, Sarton drives to a field and abandons it there, with pious hopes that it will be able to "fend for itself." When she has four guests over for dinner, she buys only a pound and a half of lobster meat to prepare a lobster salad, and happily discovers after the meal that there is some leftover, giving readers cause to suspect that the polite family probably bolted for a MacDonald's upon departure. When she purchases fifty pounds of sunflower seeds for the birds, she thinks $15.50 is a "staggering" price to pay for it.

The House By The Sea lacks focus, pure motive, and substance, but Sarton was a well - intentioned person struggling with herself as well as with the simple day to day problems common to everyone. Less acute than its predecessor, the journal nonetheless succeeds in allowing readers to enter the private, uneasy life of a creative person.

Rating:
Summary: An enchanting walk with a premier journal writer.
Review: May Sarton, above all else, is one of the formost journal writers of our time. In "The House By The Sea," she chronicles her daily life from the end of November 1974through August 1976. The reader is presented the opportunity to be part of her thoughts as she reveals her feelings about aging and the passing of friends, as disease - both mental and phsical - settle on those closest to her . Her thoughts do not, however, linger only on age. She glories in the wealth of beauty that surrounds her in her Maine home. She carries us along effortlessly from day to day, sharing her philosophy on friends, neighbors and strangers. We see her anger and love played out as these emotions occur. For anyone who has allowed their imagination to wonder what it would be like to live in a "...house by the sea," you won't want to miss this journal.

Rating:
Summary: Beauty by the Sea
Review: Sarton's masterworks are her journals -- all of them. In many respects, she defines the difference between the diary form and the journal form by exploring the great abstractions and mysteries of life itself, rather than a day-to-day exploration of events, people and places. Sarton is unflinching in exploring ugliness, loneliness, frustration, and the pain of growing older, but as she says in her introduction, writing about the negative aspects of life is much easier than exploring the beautiful aspects of life. This journal, unlike her earlier 'Journal of a Solitude,' explores, defines, and comes to grand resolutions regarding beauty. May Sarton well deserves to be classified as the major journal writer of her era.

Rating:
Summary: An Most Interesting Read
Review: The House by the Sea: A Journal

After Nelson, New Hampshire, Sarton sought what she thought would be a totally "different" life as far as neighbors, company and the like in York, Maine. She was in her mind seeking "personal space". In this succinct journal Ms. Sarton chronicles her "new home" and life in Maine with often great detail and a wide range of emotions. While I am not particularly found of Journals, this one drew me in. I, too, yearn for the harsh ocean environment that the house at York afforded Sarton; the seasons; working in the garden(s);and, relaxing in those veranda recliners and gazing out over the field of tall grass to the ocean(glass of wine in hand). A most excellent piece. If you are not a Sarton reader, this will bring you into the fold.