Great Dames

[franksolich]

As one might guess, I was at a book sale lately.

Yesterday (Friday) in one sitting, I read Great Dames: What I Learned from Older Women (Marie Brenner, 2000, Crown Publishers).

It was okay, but the author seemed too hung up on the "arts" crowd; don't get me wrong--the arts have a place, but really, there are things in life much more important than the arts.  Eating, for one.  Shelter, for another.  Health.  The War against terrorism.  Education and literacy.  Infrastructure.  And so on.

Those covered include Kitty Carlisle Hart, Constance Baker Motley, Marietta Tree, Diana Trilling, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Kay Thompson, Clare Boothe Luce, Luise Rainer, Pamela Harriman, and the author's mother, Thelma Brenner.

If the author's portrayals of her subjects are indeed accurate (we all have our biases which cloud our judgement, and so no slam against the author intended), Constance Baker Motley comes across as the Great Dame of the most substance; the "arts" personalities of the least.

The token Republican, Clare Boothe Luce, is not handled gently (as compared with, say, Pamela Harriman), but Clare Boothe Luce was of course used to that sort of treatment by illuminaries lesser than her.   In the author's defense, though, one must point out that the portrayal of Clare Boothe Luce is more even-handed than what she usually has gotten from other writers.

That's an awesome photograph of Clare Boothe Luce in the book; I have many photographs of her, but not this particular one.  It's a wonderful photograph, and I'd give my eye-teeth for a copy of it, to custom-frame, and hang beside the professional photographs of Lord Mountbatten, K.G., and George and Barbara Bush, just underneath the custom-framed portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson and the Darnley portrait of Elizabeth I.

The portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is charming; as has been said here before, the late First Lady had a great deal more dignity and class and grace and style than any of her in-laws.

It's a good book, but really, it needed to be about only four of the Great Dames; Onassis, Luce, Motley, and the author's mother.   

[SVPete]

Any thoughts on more suitable women for such a book? Susannah Wesley? Abigail Adams? Ruth Bell Graham? Phyllis Schlafly? Charlotte or Anne Bronte?

[franksolich]

Any thoughts on more suitable women for such a book? Susannah Wesley? Abigail Adams? Ruth Bell Graham? Phyllis Schlafly? Charlotte or Anne Bronte?

The book's about people the author's met.

The author was born, I assume, circa 1950.

Motley I would include (if I had been aware of her before reading the book) because of her substantive accomplishments, Onassis because of the way she conducted herself in enviroments hostile to her inclinations, and Luce because, well, Clare Boothe Luce was the most remarkable American woman of the last century.

And like the author, I guess I would have included my own mother.

But other choices, I dunno; Margaret Chase Smith would've been good; if available in the author's lifetime, Rebecca West another one; and Barbara Tuchman.  In a stretch, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Ruth Bader Ginsberg (who makes a lousy Supreme Court justice, but a wonderful writer).

That heavy woman who was a symphony conductor (during the 1970s; obviously, this isn't a field with which I'm too knowledgeable).

But other than Smith and the conductor, those are great writers--thus I'm showing my own bias, when it comes to judging whether or not people have been exceptional--and perhaps the author was more inclined towards the "art" crowd in the same way.

Most definitely not the hatemongers Molly Ivins or Anne Richards.

But surely there's been Great Dames in medicine, economics, education, agriculture, science, engineering, law, scholarship, &c., &c., &c., who excelled in both their professions and their being eminently comfortable being women.  I can't think of any at the moment, but surely the author, with her broader experience, could rattle off several score names at the drop of a hat.