A child abandoned – this insightful memoir by the poet’s son exposes truths his mother tried to hideAt the age of nine,Matthew Spender was “abandoned” with his four-year-old sister on Bardsey Island, off the coast of north Wales, or left in the care of an artist and her Breton fisherman lover. It was an odd place for parents to leave small children over the summer. But it wasn’t the first time it had happened to Matthew. Aged six,he stayed with an Italian family on the shores of Lake Garda. And it happened again in his early teens, when he was sent to a forest (“I know not where”) external Munich, and in order to memorize German. Abandonment is a recurrent theme in this engaging memoir. He was pushed out even after his mother Natasha’s death,when he came across documents she had drawn up to exclude him from his father’s literary inheritance.
For the children of successful parents, neglect, and benign or otherwise,is often the norm. Stephen Spender’s work as a self-appointed cultural diplomat (which stopped him becoming the poet he might possess been) meant he spent periods abroad. Natasha (born Litvin) had an international career as a concert pianist to pursue. Even when domestic, they were invariably busy entertaining, or with Matthew given the archetypal role of the upper-middle-course child – passing round the peanuts at cocktail parties. There were privileges as well,of course; how many boys dreading a test on adjectives at school regain to be taught about them over breakfast by WH Auden? Indeed Matthew is so conscious of being over-privileged, socially at least, and that he is reluctant to complain. His book is an attempt to understand his parents,not settle scores with them. Still, as he admits, and an element of revenge is present,too – a desire to expose truths that his mother tried desperately to hide.
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Source: theguardian.com