Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook127 pages1 hour
Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury
By Sigrid Nunez and Peter Cameron
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
This "tender biography of a sickly marmoset that was adopted by Leonard Woolf and became a fixture of Bloomsbury society" (The New York Times) is an intimate portrait of the life and marriage of Leonard and Virginia Woolf from a National Book Award-winning author.
In 1934, a "sickly pathetic marmoset” named Mitz came into the care of Leonard Woolf. After he nursed her back to health, she became a ubiquitous presence in Bloomsbury society. Moving with Leonard and Virginia Woolf between their homes in London and Sussex, she developed her own special relationship with each of them, as well as with their pet cocker spaniels and with various members of the Woolfs’ circle, among them T. S. Eliot and Vita Sackville-West. Mitz also helped the Woolfs escape a close call with Nazis during a trip through Germany just before the outbreak of World War II. Using letters, diaries, memoirs, and other archival documents, Nunez reconstructs Mitz’s life against the background of Bloomsbury’s twilight years. This tender and imaginative mock biography offers a striking look at the lives of writers and artists shadowed by war, death, and mental breakdown, and at the solace and amusement inspired by its tiny subject--and this new edition includes an afterword by Peter Cameron and a never-before-published letter about Mitz by Nigel Nicolson.
“In short, glistening sentences that refract the larger world, Ms. Nunez describes the appealingly eccentric, fiercely intelligent Woolfs during a darkening time.” —The Wall Street Journal
In 1934, a "sickly pathetic marmoset” named Mitz came into the care of Leonard Woolf. After he nursed her back to health, she became a ubiquitous presence in Bloomsbury society. Moving with Leonard and Virginia Woolf between their homes in London and Sussex, she developed her own special relationship with each of them, as well as with their pet cocker spaniels and with various members of the Woolfs’ circle, among them T. S. Eliot and Vita Sackville-West. Mitz also helped the Woolfs escape a close call with Nazis during a trip through Germany just before the outbreak of World War II. Using letters, diaries, memoirs, and other archival documents, Nunez reconstructs Mitz’s life against the background of Bloomsbury’s twilight years. This tender and imaginative mock biography offers a striking look at the lives of writers and artists shadowed by war, death, and mental breakdown, and at the solace and amusement inspired by its tiny subject--and this new edition includes an afterword by Peter Cameron and a never-before-published letter about Mitz by Nigel Nicolson.
“In short, glistening sentences that refract the larger world, Ms. Nunez describes the appealingly eccentric, fiercely intelligent Woolfs during a darkening time.” —The Wall Street Journal
Unavailable
Author
Sigrid Nunez
Sigrid Nunez is the New York Times bestselling author of The Friend, winner of the 2018 National Book Award, and of several other novels, including What Are You Going Through and The Last of Her Kind. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Her work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
Read more from Sigrid Nunez
The Last of Her Kind: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Rouenna: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Mitz
Related ebooks
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Glimpses of the Moon (Annotated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTenney's Landing: Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThis Wide Terraqueous World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe City, Not Long After Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Genius Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSwimming Home: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swan River: In Search of a Lost Grandfather Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Urge To Kill Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Starfarers Series Books 1–2: Starfarers * Transition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMesopotamia Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Compass Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrafik Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Underneath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Feminine Future: Early Science Fiction by Women Writers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Greetings from Below Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Verdun Affair: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Neveryóna: Or, The Tale of Signs and Cities Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Temerity & Gall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Boy: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Palmerino Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Ascension Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhantom Fortune Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Cabinet of Curiosity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGilded Dreams Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLudlow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Last Resume: New & Collected Poems (1971–1980 | 1999–2023) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Backward Glance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quests of Simon Ark: And Other Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Literary Fiction For You
The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Salvage the Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Mitz
Rating: 3.826923130769231 out of 5 stars
4/5
26 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5First, let me say that I agree with Vita Sackville-West's assessment of Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas as a book filled with "misleading arguments". Now that I have made that clear, I can add that I enjoyed this delightful short romp through the lives of Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf and, of course, Mitz, the marmoset that adopted them and became a member of their family for a short while. Sigrid Nunez captures the flavor of Bloomsbury in this novella while providing details about the lives of its inhabitants that I would presume are as new to many readers as they were to me. While I have read fine and lengthy biographies of Lytton Strachey and Lord Keynes I am not enough of a Bloomsbury aficionado to find this book anything but entertaining in the tidbits about the health and sickness, and the quotidian details of the everyday lives of this trio. The inclusion of the interaction of the Bells, Sackville-West and others in their circle added to the veridical character of the story. Outside of warm, fuzzy, purring cats I am not an animal-lover (and even cats make me sneeze after too much of them up close), but I could still understand the relationship Leonard and Virginia developed with their marmoset friend. Nunez has written a small masterpiece built upon the sort of humaneness that can only be seen when reflected in the eyes of a small mammal with big heart.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Occasionally delightful one-day read, although it is more or less written in the style of children's literature and does not offer much new to those already interested in the Woolfs, Bloomsbury, or marmosets generally. And why else would one pick it up?
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A nice biography of Leonard and Virginia Woolf's marmoset, Mitz. Nunez, using letters and diaries, rells the story of Mitz as a means to give the reader a simple history of the Woolf's life as a couple just prior to WWII. A glimpse, a glimmer, a peek. A pleasure.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mitz was Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Marmoset. Much in the same way that V. Woolf told the story of Elizabeth Barret Browning through her spaniel Flush's eyes, Sigrid Nunez does the same for the Woolf's via Mitz. I listened to this book on audible and loved it.