David Plante

Plante, born in 1940, is a novelist who is remembered for his semi-autobiographical fictions set in the French-American working class culture of New England. His most well-known work however is his gossipy account of his friendships with [his words] "Difficult Women": Jean Rhys, Sonia Orwell, and Germaine Greer.

There are some interesting things in this account of Plante's London life from the late 1960s to around 1990. I especially liked the details of his friendships with some important figures on the cultural scene: Stephen Spender, Francis Bacon, Steven Runciman. . . There are some dull bits too. This isn't really a diary: there are indeed separate passages (entries) but they are identified only by location, not by date. Moreover they aren't in chronological order, but are actually arranged somewhat randomly, so there is no real way to determine the "development" of the author's voice over time, which is usually one of the pleasures of reading a true "diary." Plante also admits that the passages have been rewritten with an eye for publication, which is "kind of" cheating IMHO.

Plante does write at length about his long-term relationship with his love partner, the poet and editor Nikos Strangos. Some reviewers have commented that Plante seems "obsessive" about Nikos, but it doesn't come across that way to me. Actually, to me it seemed rather refreshing to read an account of a relatively successful gay partnership, one that lasted four decades through the vicissitudes of time.

Interesting to me: there is no mention at all of HIV/AIDS anywhere in the text.… (more)

It is fascinating to read a personal first hand account of London in the 60's from this point of view. Plante was a young American who happened to fall in love with and live with a young Greek man who happened to be a close friend of the poet Stephen Spender.

Thus literary and artistic and social London opened up before him. He becomes friends with Francis Bacon and David Hockney and met everyone from E. M. Forster to Auden and Isherwood to Philip Roth and the heady art world of the 60's. His frank and honest explorations of his self, the nature of connections with people and writing and his changing relationship with his lover Nikos propelled me into that world. It was a fresh and alive as if you were there.

I must admit that his fresh honesty in just observing and recording what happened led to the the conclusion that he was a bit of a star struck fan who got great pleasure in "collecting" these august figures in the worlds of art and literature , especially the few society people he met like the Baroness de Rothschilde.

But I couldn't put it down. The writing is lively and very much of the observer trying to follow the edict of Forster's - "only connect!".… (more)