Has anyone gotten their hands on the new Fonteyn biography? It's simply
awesome! I can't put it down! I don't know how it is on the East coast,
but in L.A. it was hard to find a major bookstore chain that carried it in
stock. I had Borders Bookseller order it for me, and it was worth it.
Rating Scale: 5 + Stars.

There was a discussion of the book a while ago by people who had gotten hold of advance review copies.

I thought the book was fine. In my view it begins to tell somewhere in the second half, that Daneman is actually more of the McMillan generation than of Fonteyn's generation - obviously so, since she wouldn't be writing the book if she were that old or dead.

Sorry, Herman, but all of pre-MacMillan people have not all died off yet! I expect that some of them will be reviewing this book.

I am about a third of the way through this book. I have not seen it in stores at all so ordered through Amazon.

I started reading in the middle, with the early Nureyev years, since that is the period of her dancing that I saw for myself, and then went back and started at the beginning. The book is well written and very thorough but I am having the strange experience (and this is not meant as a criticism of Ms. Daneman) that I am no closer to understanding MF than before I started. It is as though I am accumulating a whole bunch of facts and still feel a certain remoteness about the actual person.

MF clearly had a way of walling herself off from facts or feelings that she could not handle, and her taste in men (Constant (what a misnomer!) Lambert, and Tito Arias??) was unfortunate, but this tendency makes her seem a rather compartmentalized personality which makes her seem less warm and appealing than I expected.

Nothing will change the fact that I adored Fonteyn as a dancer, and for me some of the most illuminating passages describe her dancing in roles I did not get to see.

I finished this book and have seen it in bookstores. I think it is well-written, and well-researched. I put up a review on amazon (I was the very first to review the book!)
I agree that Fonteyn seemed like a complex, contradicting personality, and I cringed at her taste in men and also dictators. (Pinochet, the Marcoses). I wonder if her extremely disciplined ballerina lifestyle led her to crave adventure, and thus her fondness for revolutionary schemes (of Tito's). It seemed as if different people had different views of Margot. On the other hand the backstage goings-on of a ballet company are always fascinating fodder. Ninette de Valois was certainly a piece of work. And Daneman is much, much more symapethetic to Nureyev than a lot of biographies have been.

Robert Gottlieb’s review, from The New York Review of Books:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17593

canbelto: for the lazy, could you put up a link here to your review at amazon?

bearing in mind, OF COURSE!, that if any ballet talkers want to purchase said book, i am sure they will come back to ballet talk and CLICK THROUGH THE AMAZON BANNER in order to make that purchase...(so that the site is advantaged)

Here [quote=grace,Nov 11 2004, 03:37 AM] is my review for the book. it's the first review (meaning the one nearer the bottom of the page.

canbelto - thanks for your prompt response, but at present there is no link in your post, and i am guessing that maybe we should all GO THROUGH THE AMAZON BANNER anyway, because maybe just every click (as opposed to every purchase) DOES advantage this site. thanks for trying!

When you click on the "here" thing it goes straight to the page.
Try this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067...4315055-3736110

Speaking of Gottlieb's review of the MF biography in the NY Review - am I the only one who finds it a little disingenuous to chastize Daneman for mentioning a couple sexual details, saying MF would not have wanted these things aired, and then quoting these details in the NYR?

The revealing of sexual details is one of the things that disturb me in the book (and the reviews). I'm no prude, but I definitely know more about Fonteyn's body than I wanted to know. And I don't think I'm better off with the information.

I noticed that too, and wondered if it was the hardwired publisher's instinct -- what's really important is that it SELLS

I haven't read this book; I read the excerpts in "The Telegraph" and that, plus conversations with a few friends who have read it, was enough for me, at least for now I am not an admirer the current school of biography, which seems to collect as many stories as one can and put them in a book without filtering them, or placing them in context. This complaint can be made about other recent books as well. If someone writes 15 letters, then all of them get in, regardless of the letter writer's importance to the subject's life, or the veracity or worth of the material in the letters. Etc.

From my own experience researching and writing a biography, people lie, or innocently repeat a lie, or can simply misperceive things. When I began writing my book, I was given, by well-meaning friends, the names of three people I absolutely had to talk to. Two turned out to be completely unreliable, at least in part maliciously so, and the third depended on the other two for his/her information. Some dancers could (understandably) only see their careers through the "why didn't I get that role!" lens and had very imaginative answers to that question, which did not include physical or artistic limitations that seemed clear to choreographers, teachers, other dancers, etc. Do you just put in the "I didn't get the role because I never invited him to my birthday party" story and leave it at that? Or do check it and consider that a dancer's torn Achilles tendon may possibly have something to do with an artistic director's casting decision and toss the story out? I also found that some people just lied for the hell of it. There was one particularly vicious rumor that I'd heard from three or four people, checked it with at least a dozen others who were eyewitnesses, and found it false; then I heard it again. When I asked the fourth person, whom I'd trusted, where he had heard this, saying I'd checked this and it simply wasn't true, he was completely nonplussed and said, "Oh, you're checking these stories? That's good. That's good."

As for repeating third hand sexual gossip from only one source, there's no obligation to put everything in a book, and there should be some ethical stop in oneself to prevent one from repeating an offhand comment someone made in his kitchen, or at a party, or in the shower, that was never intended to be repeated, much less preserved for posterity.

I'm assuming that editors and publishers are driving this trend, and I eagerly await The Next New Thing. But all this said, I was interested to read the (very good!) Amazon reviews that indicated at least two readers, when I checked, liked the book very much, and were NOT drawn to it primarily for its more juicy bits. (Perhaps publishers might check those reviews once in awhile.)

daneman appears to be the Kitty Kelly of ballet biography. I am at the halfway point, and it has been an uphill climb...I was looking forward to her explanation of her marriage---but I am at that point now, and I have stopped reading for a while---I can wait for what looms ahead!

I do think Daneman was a bit carried away in describing Fonteyn's American debut. Writers tend to take this episode 'out of its time'. It's very true, Fonteyn's reception was tumultuous---BUT, in 1949 New York was welcoming back its wartime allies. During the war years New Yorkers saw thousands of servicemen from England, Australia and New Zealand and they were looked upon affectionately as 'our boys'. It was more than "The Sleeping Beauty", and I really believe that if Moira Shearer had been the Aurora on the first night---she would have received the same adulation.

I enjoyed this book mostly as a history of a ballet era. This book focuses a lot more on parts of Fonteyn's career that she didnt like to talk about (namely, before she became Ashtons muse, and was simply a "reliable" Sadlers Wells dancer). I editted my Amazon review to say that I consciously separated what I felt was genuine biography and what was backstage gossip. It's pretty easy to do. For instance, theres a lot of secondhand and thirdhand storytelling: "Margot was overheard saying ..." or "someone said Lynn Seymour said ..." Plus all the sex stories -- I mean, the people are dead, so who really knows? But as a chronicle of Fonteyn's very long career, with a lot of ups and downs, the book was very valuable to me. I suppose this is becaus eI'm American and know the NYCB through and through (I can name the succession of Balanchine muses off the top of my head ) but the RB history was a lot more unfamiliar.
As for Nureyev, I find again that Daneman's kind of mean about him, and some of the descriptions have a faint whiff of homophobic judgementalness. And I kept thinking that Margot, despite her right-wing leanings and taste for rightist dictators, was NEVER judgemental and was supportive to her last break about Nureyev's very flamboyant life.

Fonteyn started working with Ashton when she was 16 (the year that, according to a quote in the Vaughan biography of Ashton, P.W. Manchester said, after one of her performances in "The Lord of Burleigh," "That was the night we all knew she was the one!") If the book portrays her as "simply a reliable Sadler's Wells dancer" that certainly does shed a different light on things. But what?

Well there was a certain period when Ashton didnt really care for her, and she got solid if middling reviews of Giselle, et al. At least that's what the book says. It also makes Ashton's favor of Fonteyn seem very connected to his anger of Markova leaving.

That Ashton didn't care for her is true, I think, (by several accounts, including his) and she did get middling reviews for not only Giselle, but Aurora and Odette -- she first danced them as a teenager and had never seen the ballets, so her first performances couldn't have been of ballerina caliber. (I write that, of course, not having seen them!)

Just curious -- and then I'll stop debating by proxy a book I haven't read -- what does she say about Vera Volkova? She worked with the Sadller's Wells dancers for most of the 1940s and was very influential on Fonteyn. and coached her extensively in Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.

Vera Volkova is portrayed as a very positive influence on Fonteyn's dancing, being called the "Lilac Fairy" in Peggys career.
I think Daneman is a bit in love with the "typical" storyline of a ballerina: that is, a girl with imperfect technique but great determination arrives backstage at a ballet, is discouraged at first by middling reviews, but one night becomes a Star. (That night being her SB debut in the US). She tries to make Fonteyn;s life fit that storyline.
As for Fonteyn, Daneman seems to think Constant Lambert (who she calls a "genius" which I thought a bit much -- I mean, Beethoven's a genius. Constant Lambert? Not so much) and Ninette de Valois are the driving forces behind Fonteyn's stardom. She doesnt much seem interested in the Margot-"Freddie" relationship, maybe because unlike some other choreographer/muse relationships this one had a minimum of tears and tantrums and thus isnt as interesting.

Thanks!

Dear Alexandra,

pardon my French, but I think you should just get the book. You're obviously curious and eager to have an opinion of it. Well, there is only one way of satisfying those perfectly honorable wishes, and that is to read it for yourself (and a little bit for us too).

Herman, I was curious on one point (Volkova), and that's been satisfied. If I have the time, I'll read it, but it's the end of a very long list. The excerpts in The Telegraph were enough for me.

atm, I agree. If Shearer had opened I'd guess she would have gotten a tumultuous reception because of "The Red Shoes". She was known; Fonteyn was unknown.

Other opinions of the book? The Amazon reviews so far have been favorable; people are enjoying this book. ARe there others here who liked it?

Well, I was EXTREMELY put off by the excerpts in the Telegraph. I am no prude at all, but I thought that a Margot Fonteyn biography which quotes Clive Barnes using the f word would not be a book I'd want to read. (Of course, I've been living in the US for over a year so I'm not really used to seeing the f word in newsprint as perhaps Brits are?)
After reading all the opinions here, I'm likely to try it - but I probably won't buy it. I'll take it out of the library and If the photos are amazing, I'll buy it later.

I don't know what the Telegraph excerpts are - and no doubt they were chosen for sensationalist reasons - but this is 2004. Everybody knows people have sex. You can't have a 500 page biography without discussing sex, even if you're writing a nun's biography. It's been awhile I read the Daneman but some of these comments make me like the book better and better.

At the time I was reading the Daneman I was pleased to learn that MF had an interesting and varied sex life. I don't think that's a prurient view. On the other hand I believe there is a well-established tradition for prurience in dance / ballet biographies, from all the speculation about Nureyev's anatomy to Buckle quoting Mme Niinsky about you know what.

I don't think the description of the inner workings of MF's (and others) genitalia is needed in a biography of this sort. No. Sorry. And I don't think I'm being old fashioned. I like good smut just as much as the next person. I just don't think in this case, it was a good idea. And how is Daneman going to double and triple-check those facts, may I ask?

I'm working my way through the book. I think discussing MF's romantic involvements is fine, but Daneman also just races through her stage work. Masterpiece ballets are described in a graph, but MF's hookup at some cocktail party is discussed for two pages. After several chapters of that, it can be equally as boring as a bio that just says, "and in 1968 he made this ballet..." instead it is "and then in Italy MF slept with this guy...everybody loved her robe..."

I hope people aren’t deterred from reading this book. I'm enjoying it very much, and finding much of value in it.

I think discussing MF's romantic involvements is fine, but Daneman also just races through her stage work. Masterpiece ballets are described in a graph, but MF's hookup at some cocktail party is discussed for two pages. After several chapters of that, it can be equally as boring as a bio that just says, "and in 1968 he made this ballet..." instead it is "and then in Italy MF slept with this guy...everybody loved her robe..."

[/quote]

I'm on page 305 and I totally agree with you Dale. Talk about speaking ill of the
dead. I'm comparing Fonteyn's memoirs with Daneman's work. It seems to me that she had what G. Smakov said of Kchessinkaya's tome many ". . . slips of the pen." Its interesting to me that Daneman majors in the minors regarding her sex life. For example, the irrelevancy of a 90something-year-old man, who as an also ran, and in the interest of full disclosure, wants to get on record that he had a relationship with her. Daneman glosses over other things, which I think are far more interesting, like focusing on the 'how' of her artistry, and less on the 'why' and 'what' it looked like to those who witnessed it, (way before my time - or my parents').

In 'Autobiography' Fonteyn didn't delve too much into the area of how she arrived at her interpretations, or how they evolved, - except to emphasize the 'tape recorder' in her mind, and simply repeat what Ashton and coaches like Karsavina told her to do. It read like upbeat fiction - a ballet novel (ie 'E' True Hollywood Story stuff) only it was non-fiction. For example, Farrell thoroughly covered the 'how' of her artistry, which IMO is a much more rewarding memoir.

I do give Fonteyn the benefit of the doubt, though. I will allow that she lived in an era where scandal was to be avoided if possible, at all costs, and when the media gave celebrities and royalty a free pass. Today she'd be fair game. I also give her this: She was discreet, in that she knew how to keep her mouth shut. She was never the one who made a scene, (like Lambert's first wife). She knew how to charm and handle the press. When she was quoted, she sounded as gracious as a queen. She also had the added advantage of the loyalty and love of a company that wouldn't give or sell any of her secrets to the press.

What isn't cool for me was her propensity to be a freeloader, (ie. free servants, free vacations at the expense of others etc.). IMO, in the autumn and winter of her career she was calculating and ruthless with individual rivals, as well as the men she rejected, and unwilling to mentor younger dancers. Yet the paradox is that no one in the rank 'n file of the Royal would dare censure her - because she was egalitarian with them all. She knew the concept of CYA very well. Therein lies a wealth of professional wisdom. I hope I'm not being too harsh, but that's my take on her. I'll keep ploughing through til I'm done.

I'm so fond of the arts (opera, ballet, theater, etc) that I've long ago given up judging performers who are perhaps rather "ruthless" with rivals, because I've found that dig hard enough, and NO ONE is completely innocent of this. It's not just Maria Callas shoving Renata Tebaldi out of La Scala, it's Tebaldi having a pretty iron grip on the Met and particularly, Rudolf Bing, who bent over backwards to please a diva known as "dimples of iron." Enrico Caruso, supposedly a "very nice" guy, who dutifully attended performances of up-and-comers and decided whether decisive action needed to be taken. Nellie Melba used to wire Covent Garden: "It's her or me." Today, I've even heard rather blood-curdling stories of Placido Domingo. And that's just opera.
In ballet, Natalia Dudlinskaya demanded exclusive rights to Giselle. I think essentially performers are insecure people, and they want to hang onto stardom. Some are more successful than others. They overplay their hands very often -- when Rosa Ponselle, neurotic and afraid of anything above the staff, insisted on Adriana, the new GM Edward Johnson decided to throw out Rosa with the bathwater altogether. It was a desperate move by a prima donna and a coldhearted one by the GM, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
So I have no doubt Margot Fonteyn was very shrewd and hung onto stardom, but I also have no doubt that she was not alone, and probably nowhere near the very worst, of stars who could not tolerate other stars in tha galaxy. I mean, for every performer who humbly retires and devotes their life to teaching, there are just as many who stay too long, and say they'd rather starve than help the next generation. (In Rasponi's Prima Donnas, Renata Tebaldi declares she has no patience for the newer generation of singers, whom she calls "mosquitoes.")

in response to cygent's comment, on fonteyn's artistry:...please cygnet - NOT meaning to be at all rude, just explanatory or curious!...i can't help wondering how young you are! i am 'only' middle-aged ('middle-aged' being defined in my mind as half of a not IMpossibly reasonable lifespan, these days ), and i have clear memories of fonteyn dancing with nureyev in giselle. i was about 10, as far as i recall... (yes, i KNOW i'm lucky!! )

Cygnet, may I suggest with all courtesy that you might have a different opinion if you were that 90 year old and felt, rightly or wrongly, that you had become a nonperson in the life of someone who meant a great deal to you?

Without addressing the pros and cons of Daneman’s own choices and judgments, I would also add that biographers will often come across information that reveals someone to be more (or less) significant in their subject’s life than previously supposed -- in that biographer's opinion.

I haven't been reading the links and don't have time to plow through them now, but just in case this hasn't been posted, here's Robert Geskovic on the book. Beware, the graphic quote in question is included. The Art of Pleasing

As for me, not at least yet a Fonteyn fan from the one video I've seen, in browsing the book I'm struck by her beauty.

I haven't read the book yet, but on the issue of the account it presents of Fonteyn's sex life, I think that Daneman might have been prompted to include as much detail as she did by the prevailing image of Fonteyn as some kind of chaste saint. That image was formed in part by her stage persona, which a critic once described as "stainless," but it was also very much a creation of Fonteyn's own. When I read her memoirs some years ago, I had the impression that it was a conscious attempt to formulate a public image of herself, which after all is not unusual in autobiographies. In particular, I remember her writing that she had qualms about getting involved with Tito Arias because he was married when she met him, and "I believe it is sinful to take another woman's husband." (That's a direct quote, I went back and checked.) When someone is on record as saying something like that, the revelation that long before she met Arias she had experience in taking other women's husbands should not come as a surprise—and not to include such information would have been irresponsible on Daneman's part. Exactly how graphic such details should have been is a valid subject for debate, but from what I recall of the excerpts in the Telegraph, Daneman simply reported what Ashton had said about what Lambert told him, and did not vouch for the statements' accuracy.

I dont think it's necessarily inconsistent to think that Fonteyn thought taking up with married men was sinful, but did it several times herself. She had a rather conservative upbringing, which was decidedly at odds with the freewheeling bohemian life of a ballet company. I bet if you asked her, "Do you believe homosexuality is sinful?" she would have said yes but it didnt stop her from becoming friends with a lot of gay men -- Nureyev, Ashton, among others.
I kind of think there's kind of a gender double standard. I've seen various articles/books that talk about Balanchine's spartan lifestyle and his piousness. They also mention in the same breath numerous marriages and the fact that he left a parapalegic wife for a woman who refused to marry him A lot of people hold principles that, for one reason or another, they cant maintain in their actual lives.

"Margaret!" said Dame Margot in a filmed interview, cutting off the interviewer, "I was never 'Peggy', I was always 'Margaret'!"

Whether this is the absolute truth or not, it was obviously what she wanted believed, and from her vocal inflection, one recognized the steeliness that made her a worthy successor to Dame Ninette de Valois.

What Ari said.






I had the same reaction. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of her beauty before, but in some of the photographs (which could have been reproduced a little better, IMO), especially the ones taken of Fonteyn on vacation (Fonteyn topless! Who knew? ), she looks lushly gorgeous in a way that I’d never seen before.

I still lean to what Alexandra wrote. I don't have a problem with exploring Fonteyn's relations. I don't think the writer should just repeat some second and third hand gossip. I guess it's OK to write 'this is what somebody said somebody told him..' Aren't biographers held to the same standards as journalists?

I think they should be, and the "two source" rule is not a bad one. It can be awfully tempting to quote the dead; they can't sue (and no one can sue on their behalf.) A friend of mine wrote a biography with controversial content, and the publisher's legal team went over everything and needed to know two sources, by name (even if the people were "a source close to the victim") who could be called to testify. That's not a bad standard.

I don't think anyone has said that there shouldn't be mention of Fonteyn's, or anyone's, assignations or sex life in a biography. It's the amount of detail, the kind of detail, and the amount of book time it takes up. Does every sex act have to be noted? Why not toothbrushing, cigarette smoking, meals? Sex sells. That's why the New School of Biography (which has been with us a long time) is obsessed with it. It has little to do with exploring the true nature of the subject, or correcting an imbalance in perception.

But if you are writing a biography of someone who was born more than a certain amount of years ago, it simply may not be possible to find two sources for something and the one source you do have may be deemed completely credible in your mind. One simply needs to say at that point, "According to Mr. --" or "According to a man who lived next door and says that he used a telescope to watch Fonteyn -- ."


By the way, journalistic ethics and standards have all but vaporized during the last 15 years anyway. Remember Whitewater?

The Washington Post still requires two sources for everything (NOT that they're blameless....) I really don't think journalistic standards have slipped generally -- there have been some huge scandals recently, but the field does still seem to enjoy agonizing over them and investigating.

The problem -- and I'm now speaking generally, because I'm not saying that this is a problem with the book under discussion -- but it's just too easy to use the "Mr. X said" to manipulate your facts. I got some wonderful quotes of thirdhand gossip that would have helped buttress one of the main themes of my biography, and it really really hurt not to be able to use them, but when I'd check, and the person who was quoted n the thirdhand gossip "couldn't remember" that he'd said that, or two people said, "Oh, I can see how X would think that, but really...." and gave a good reason why my wonderful quote wasn't fair, then I couldn't use it. But I was writing for a university press, and the editors didn't pressure me to come up with anything juicy. I remember reading about Kirkland's autobiography, that she was pressured to come up with ANY story about a famous person. (Not a nice stoory, of course, not wanting to know if the First Lady had ever sent her a Christmas card.)

But wasn't the Washington Post forced not long ago to issue an apology about its failure to cross reference White House leaks about those phantom Weapons of Mass Destruction?

OK enough about politics.

A third-hand source is very dicey. I've stopped even THINKING about including anything like that in my work, even with an explicit proviso included.

[quote=grace,Nov 17 2004, 12:00 AM]
in response to cygent's comment, on fonteyn's artistry:...[quote]'what' it looked like to those who witnessed it, (way before my time - or my parents')[/quote]please cygnet - NOT meaning to be at all rude, just explanatory or curious!...i can't help wondering how young you are!

Hi Grace! Its not rude at all to be curious. I was an infant when Margot and Rudi were dancing. I'm post a post baby-boom/Generation Xer. In response to Dirac about my comment re the 90 year old: I don't mean to come off as dismissing him as a 'non-person,' or that he was irrelevant in her life. Nor do I want to infer that I diminish what he believed he had with Margot. Far from it. It just seemed to me that Daneman gives him honorable mention (ie. short shrift) and just seemed, what's the word (?) - gratuitous - to me based on what had been
written prior to that portion of the text. With the other guys we get the whole record from first sight to break-up, and in Lambert's case, death, including all of
the casual stuff. It's Daneman's text that dismisses him. She even states that Margot doesn't comment about him at all in her memoirs. I think I'd let M have the last word on that for the obvious reasons.

Halfway through the book and the thing that strikes me the most is how different this book is to MF's own autobiography.
I think the older we get the more we tend to filter the memories of our youthful romantic entanglements. Not that we are ashamed by them, although that may be part of it, it just our values and perceptions mature along with our minds and bodies. My feeling is that at the time she wrote her book, not only did MF have a certain chaste public image, she herself might have felt ashamed of her romantic past, hence the exorcising of it from her memiors. Also, she came from a era very different from today's celebrity tell all free for all.

Something else about this book and MF's autobiography is that with the Daneman we get loads of information about Fonteyn's sex life, romantic entanglements and so on but the subject herself remains a bit of an enigma. With Fonteyn's own book filtered though it may be, you at least get a sense of her personality, her warmth, her humor, her doubts. I just don't get that with Daneman's book.

Another comment about the photographs in the book - I was disappointed! I have the Keith Money books and several others with fabulous photographs of MF - like the one on the back cover of the Daneman book, which I love (just look at her hands!). I thought the photos used were not the best available, and there were not enough of them. I know it can be difficult and expensive to get all the necessary permissions, and then print and bind in glossy pages, but ballet is such a visual art that it seems a real shame.

But, of course, Alexandra's book about Kronstam spoiled me with its wonderful range of clear and expressive personal, rehearsal and performance photographs.

Copied from Frday's Links:

Jean Marbella in the Chicago Tribune on the Meredith Daneman biography of Margot Fonteyn:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi...,1,666557.story

Mindy Aloff weighs in, in the pages of The New York Observer:

http://www.observer.com/pages/book2.asp




Aloff raises one of those there-ought-to-be-a-law points: An appendix with a list of Fonteyn's roles, with attendant details, would have been immensely helpful, especially in a career of such length and breadth. There was the same omission in Suzanne Farrell's autobiography. (One of the things I appreciated about Peter Martins' book "Far From Denmark" was the inclusion of a list of his roles, the year he assumed them, whether or not the role was made on him, and his partners. )

Spotted in a bookstore window -- ta-DA! -- the paperback!

carbro, you beat me to the punch -- I saw a copy of the paperback today, too!

OK, i am very late in getting a copy of this book. and pretty much everything has been said - and said so well - already.

but i JUST LOVED IT! and want to say so.

i really didn't want the story to end.

one thing it did for me, also, is that it took me back to the feelings i had when i was an adoring child looking at her photos and reading about her - and eventually seeing her dance (with nureyev).

and i, for one, REALLY wanted to discover the personal side, of someone who just simply was too perfect to be real.

i found that standard of behaviour - her standard - held up to me by myself, and by the values of the generation i was born into - SOOOOOOOO intimidating and impossible. it was SO reassuring to discover she was wonderfully and awfully human.

*THANK YOU* meredith daneman.

i LOVED re-visiting this time - the time when ballet was SOOOOOOOOOOOO special to me.

and in response to some criticisms above: i DID get
- more understanding of her personality,
- more knowledge of her approach to roles,
- a feel for the works i have not seen, etcetera...

but i agree that, with a couple of lovely exceptions (the swimming one, for example), the photos might have been more exciting.

True, grace. Among other things, I found the account of her last years most moving. A very brave lady.

I've just read this biography and liked it very much. I was wondering whether any of those who had disliked it at first, put off by the reviews, had changed their minds.
I ask for a few reasons, one is that we do change, each time we read something, we, and it, are different, and another is that I loved the rounded understanding this biography gave . I thought it showed its subject in great clarity as a very conflicted amazing person, full of charm ,discipline, grace and blind spots. I also liked the insight about ballet given by the author where she says that dancers
"were already mutually possed of an anatomical familiarity that a married couple might almost consider indecent" p248. It seemed to me that the sexual dimension that appeared to give offense was really a very mundane and yet valuable part of the biography in that it gave greater understanding. Just as Julie Kavanagh's book on Nureyev illustrates the extraordinary clashes of social values developing at the time.
Also, when I contrast it with a new biography of Robert Helpmann by Anna Bemrose which is a very strong, heavily researched ,well written hagiography,I miss the gossip about Helpmann, which shows his wicked sense of humour and powerful personality, which Daneman has included in her Fonteyn bio. The gossipy aspect also gives a better understanding of social mores in an historical sense.
I think it is a very good biography. Have people changed their minds?