Philosophically I have to praise Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre. It is their existentialism and savoir faire that I most admire in philosophy.
When it comes to the day to day affairs of intellectuals and artists, I have to imagine myself cavorting with the Blooms berries. I'm sure I would have loved Lytton Strachey and published a bit more than I have in the Hogarth Press.
As I read Young Bloomsbury by Nino Strachey, I see immediately that theirs is a world I would love to inhabit. The people I know, with rare and wonderful exceptions, are unable to reject the possessiveness and jealousy, the fear and insecurity, of those who clutch their partners (as long as they can), rather than have the intimacy and camaraderie of a garden filled with like-minded, passionate psyches. We have to ask if Bloomsbury would have been a happier, even more successful clan if they had the benefit of friendly laws involving same sex relationships we have today. They were courageous to live bisexual lives in all the fullness of being, following Simone De Beauvoir's brilliant recommendation:
“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.”
―
Lytton Strachey by CarringtonRead the brief, marvelous essay on a showing of their work at the Tate:
https://thewire.in/culture/painting-circles-loving-triangles-bloomsbury-groups-queer-ways-seeing
Cheers,
Jack
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