And that's when the "This is it!" moment hits me, but it departs as swiftly as it arrived, and leaves in its wake yet another layer to Oscar's humanity, another side to him that I wasn't aware existed (or that I never thought I'd be privy to, as is the case with this particular book), and once again, for what feels like the umpteenth time, I am left speechless by the intensity of the love I bear for a man I've never known, but wish I had, and sometimes like to think I do.Ī book I somehow didn't know existed until I found it in Bridport Oxfam. Every time I finish one of these books I am ashamed at ever having thought I knew who Oscar Wilde was before reading said book, before discovering whatever facet of him those pages unearthed for me. I've read a lot of book about Oscar Wilde, about his family and his sexuality and his library and his relationships and his engagement with Ancient Greek culture. I've read everything Oscar Wilde ever wrote. I reckon that's probably how Oscar himself felt about Alexander. I never knew Oscar, though I wish I had, but I like to think I do, because that's human nature and that's what happens when you feel like life (or death?) cheated you out of something(one) that feels so very necessary & so in tune with who you are. "Well, he was human, after all", you say, and yes, I know, I know he was but the thing about Oscar Wilde is that he's so shrouded in mystery and myth, like a Victorian Alexander the Great, who is not just The Alexander but An Alexander, malleable and unreachable and always at the mercy of those who never knew him but like to think they do. Because that's the thing about Oscar - we're on a first-name basis by now -, he's filled to the brim with raw, vulnerable, flawed humanity. Nowadays it feels like Oscar Wilde and I are engaged in a never-ending game of tag a game in which I always seem to be "It", tirelessly chasing after him while he constantly escapes my grasp, urging me to run a little faster, a little further, mocking me when I triumphantly exclaim "This is it! I've got him!" only to be met with thin air and another layer of humanity staring me right in the face. "A biographical tour de force" - Observer "An essential addition to Wildeana by a witness uniquely qualified to testify" - Library Journal Holland's vivid glimpses of the aftermath of that cause célèbre of the Nineties a valuable service of his father's memory." - Saturday Review of considerable literary value." - New Yorker "Fascinating for the light it sheds on Wilde's Oxford days and on his domestic life." - Atlantic Monthly Sharply observed, vivid, and dispassionate, it offers not only an unforgettable portrait of Wilde himself, his circle of friends, and his band of persecutors, but also a touching chronicle of Holland's own childhood, of the loneliness he experienced as the son of a remarkable, notorious father and of his emergence from the shadows of cruel injustice and dark scandal. With its thirty-three previously unpublished Oscar Wilde letters and its poignant recollections of a man as spontaneous, humane, and sincere as he was prodigiously witty, Vyvyan Holland's memoir of his famous father has come to be regarded as a biographical classic in Wildean studies.
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