My Life

Isadora Duncan's autobiography is a terrific example of the above. She was a hugely talented, flamboyant individual who chose to march to her own drummer from an early age. She is passionate in her descriptions of her inner life, her career and her lovers and changed the whole concept of "The Dance", breaking away from ballet (which she considered ugly and contrived) and inventing what we'd call "modern dance".

She was a fantastic dancer, but as a writer she is far too interested in her own inner world. The people around her float by as a succesion of badly defined cardboard cutouts, and one visited city sounds much like any other. After a while this DOES get rather boring. The lack of dates (such as "that was in 1925" or whatever) or a neatly defined chapter structure means that it's pretty hard to keep track of the passage of time. In the end, reading this book becomes a bit of a struggle: it's like being stuck in a someone's rather boring dreamworld.

Her sollipsism is (at times) a bit of a hoot and her inability to perceive the world for what it is provide the reader with occasional bits of unintentional black comedy.

An example: after deciding that ancient Greece was the mother of all art, Isadora sunk a great deal of her money in trying to rebuild a Greek temple. Her family spoke no Greek but lived for months amid the ruins, performing dances and wearing togas while getting cheated by the local villagers. She also formed a chorus of Greek urchins to perform ancient music and was later disappointed when during a tour, the urchins begin growing up and staying out late and coming home drunk.

A more human writer would have managed a bit of irony, a touch of sympathy for these common, simple people caught up in the mad American artist's vision, but Isadora never quite manages it. Sadly, it is precisely this sort of self-centered and humourless viewpoint that makes this book so stodgy.

On the positive side, however, one DOES get a really good idea of what Isadora Duncan was like and how she saw her art and one can't really ask for more from an autobiography.


her life-isadora duncan   January 30, 2000
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

As a keen fan of autobiographys this book automatically appealed to me. although I had not heard of Isadora's profound infleunce on the world of art or dance, the reviews on the book sold it for me. I thouroughly enjoyed her abstract and sometimes perplexing stories about her up- bringing. However as her travels with her family increased i found her to be quite selfish and single-minded in regards to her career. This i felt led her story, although a biography, to become quite a monotonous and tedious read. In her favour I would say that the book is written in an honest and frank manner.