[John Whitworth]

Well, here itis, quite interesting though I shan't be entering because it's not verse, which is my extra edge, I feel.Still, I'm sure some of you can win here.

No. 2610: How the other half lives
You are invited to submit an extract from the diary of the partner of a famous person, past or present (150 words maximum and please stipulate famous person). Entries to ‘Competition 2610’ by midday on 19 August or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.

Notice the final date has moved forward by one day.

'Caesar keeps on saying he shall forth. I wish he wouldn't. I think it's his thinning hair is making him so crotchety...' Enough!

[R. S. Gwynn]

I just read a review of a novel from the pov of Dickens's wife. Can't recall who wrote it.

[John Whitworth]

Robert Graves did one from the pov of Milton's wife. It's odd that I never read it. In fact the bugger 'Wife to Mr Milton' is up on my shelf. WHY did I never read it? What about one by Eliot's first (mad) wife? Or - my favourite - one about Rimbaud by Verlaine. It must have been done, mustn't it?

[Marion Shore]

Dear Diary,

Today he was just impossible at dinner... After all, my dear Sigi--sometimes a sausage is just a sausage! (Note to self: ask Agathe to take bratwurst off the menu.) And the time he spends reading that pile of journals he keeps by the toilet! Talk about anal retentive!

But if I say anything, he'll accuse me of 'female hysteria'.

As to our sex life-- will he ever stop calling me by his mother's name?

And will he ever get it through his head -- I do not envy it! Not the least little bit!

Sigmund Freud’s wife

[Terese Coe]

"Robert Graves did one from the pov of Milton's wife. It's odd that I never read it. In fact the bugger 'Wife to Mr Milton' is up on my shelf. WHY did I never read it?"

Perhaps because this kind of fiction tends more often than not toward stereotypical trash? There are some nonfiction exceptions though.

According to some, Vivien Haigh-Wood [Eliot] was a "debunker." She was committed for being "morally insane," whatever that means.

Then there's August Strindberg, a notoriously difficult man who had one of his wives committed. Yet "The nature of the episodes of severe mental disorder which Strindberg suffered after the age of 45 has led to considerable discussion, much of which must remain inconclusive until all the relevant documents, some still awaiting publication, can be assessed. On the basis of present evidence, the diagnosis of an affective, schizophrenic, or toxic state is considered, and the views of earlier psychiatrists are discussed."

http://journals.cambridge.org/action...ne&aid=1587780


Pirandello? "Through a flooding of his father's mine in 1903, Pirandello lost his patrimony as well as his wife's substantial dowry, which had been invested in his father's business. Upon learning of the disaster, his wife suffered a shock and developed a paranoid condition which progressively worsened. She remained with the family, but as the scenes of jealousy became more trying, she was admitted to a nursing home in 1919 and remained there until her death in 1959. There is no doubt that Pirandello's peculiar approach to the problems of essence and appearance was conditioned by this firsthand experience: he once said that a madwoman had led his hand for 15 long years." In other words, Pirandello had his wife committed as well.

http://www.answers.com/topic/luigi-pirandello

Mustn't forget Zelda, the most famous of the committed wives.

No doubt there are other writers (and artists?) whose partners (wives in most cases, as an educated guess) were committed, often by the writer. I haven't researched the question much lately, but I've read enough about it in the past to find the subject highly suspect. That doesn't mean it can't be funny, but the stories are at the very least open to charges of collusion, and certainly more tragic than comic. Not that I don't see the humor.


I don't see how I can contribute to the stereotyping, however--in other cases I could, but not in this one. I'll just have to be the party pooper this time around! Horrors!

[John Whitworth]

It's not all one way, Terese. Muriel Spark's husband was sent nuthouseward, though possibly not by her. Nevertheless...

[Terese Coe]

Of course, John, as I acknowledged above: "partners (wives in most cases, as an educated guess)." But I see I overreacted. It's a fraught subject, but then so 19th-early 20th Century. Perhaps we can say it's mostly in the past.

In any case, anyone can see that the well-known artists/writers were in the past most often male, and the partners of yore (that we know about) most often female. That's no reason why one can't dig up some other type of & date of coupling. Unfortunately though it's a prose contest.

[Allen Tice]

Of course you envy it, the envy is just heavily repressed.


(The beauty of the Freudian position is that it cannot be falsified, nor any can any protests avoid an argument like the one I just gave. Rather like accusations of witchcraft : signs of innocence only prove the Devil's effectiveness in disguising the pact.)

Now tell us, Why don't you envy it? Come on, it's good to get to these hidden forces. How can you avoid envying it?

SILENCE

That's $127, please.

[Gail White]

Thinking about this, note that a "partner" is not necessarily a spouse.
You could, for instance, write the journal of Tenzing Norgay.