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verity83Book Thirteen: Fabulous Opal Whiteley, by Elbert Bede. 181 pages.
And the longest 181 pages I've read in some time, I might add.
First of all, he should have titled it Fantastic Opal Whiteley, since clearly she is not so much fab as fantasy to him. He constantly refers to her as opalescent (apparently he thought that was witty), an "(adjective) little miss" or a "tot" or an "(adjective) maid", all of which seem to drip with a determination to malign.
The author, a reporter, starts out the book acting as though he supports Opal, appreciates her, and likes her. It doesn't take long, though, before he does a 180 and spends the rest of the book denouncing ad infinitum all the lies and deception she pulled off in her lifetime, all the misery she caused, and on and on.
His style is extremely labourious: he repeats himself a lot, cites a lot of Conveniently Unnamed Sources (pet peeve of mine), and quotes himself quite frequently. He seems to fancy himself an authority on Opal, on the basis of having known her for a time and having received some correspondence from her. He seems to think it clever to write sentences such as the following: ...if they were to appear in my mail some bright morning—or even on a misty morning—I should not be more confounded than I have been by other things... What in the name of overripe mangoes does the mistiness or non-mistiness of a morning matter? Would the contents of a letter change because the sun decided to shine?
Also toward the end of the book we have a passage where Bede says he believes Opal had an assistant helping her fabricate and shred the diary in Los Angeles. He writes:
The name of the one who probably [I should add that this book is liberally peppered with words such as probably, supposedly, maybe, and allegedly] played that part was given me a third of a century ago. I didn't dream that I should be today preparing this manuscript or I most certainly should have endeavoured to follow through on that lead.
He seemed like he didn't pass up any other opportunity to malign at any point. Why this one? He makes himself ridiculous. His attempts to cause Opal to fall flat only make himself look silly.
He closes the book more or less with guesses: unsolved, without information, guess, do not know, are not certain, suspect, have no explanation all appear in one paragraph. And as a parting slap, he callously refers to Opal's then-current residence as a charge of London County, England; "tragedy has stilled the mind of a genius".
In short, I find him a hateful, disgusting man.
I have no answers concerning the shrouding of mystery that is going to remain swirling around Opal until the end of time. I really don't. I don't know if she wrote her diary as a child or not.
But this I can say: Opal and I go way back. I think I understand her on a highly personal level, because the spirit that flows from her pen is kindred to my own in innumerable ways. I believe she did write her diary at the age she said, and while some of its content may have been embroidered figments of imagination (my childhood diaries were full of it before I knew that Opal existed), I think it was part of her world that was real to her. Her play may have happened in her mind, much as mine often did. I wrote constantly of people who were invisible but as real to me as the nose on my face, and thought thoughts in my head that compassed the globe. Why should she not have had similar imagination? She claimed a man for her father who most likely was not her father, and yet he became more real to her than the one she had. We don't need to go into that now.
Granted, Opal eventually seemed to get to a point where the fantasy in her life seemed to take over the reality. The hospital in London confirmed she had a mental condition and probably had her whole life, something that no doubt affected the way she acted, her relations with people, and her strange obsession with imaginary things. Again I can relate, albeit on a less extreme level. We don't need to go into that now, either.
Suffice it to say I did not like this book at all. I give it a half star.
"The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow" is such a better way to read about Opal's life. It was written by a man who cared for her as a person and loved her work for what it was: genius. He is more specific in his sources, more gentle and level-headed in his approach.
And the longest 181 pages I've read in some time, I might add.
First of all, he should have titled it Fantastic Opal Whiteley, since clearly she is not so much fab as fantasy to him. He constantly refers to her as opalescent (apparently he thought that was witty), an "(adjective) little miss" or a "tot" or an "(adjective) maid", all of which seem to drip with a determination to malign.
The author, a reporter, starts out the book acting as though he supports Opal, appreciates her, and likes her. It doesn't take long, though, before he does a 180 and spends the rest of the book denouncing ad infinitum all the lies and deception she pulled off in her lifetime, all the misery she caused, and on and on.
His style is extremely labourious: he repeats himself a lot, cites a lot of Conveniently Unnamed Sources (pet peeve of mine), and quotes himself quite frequently. He seems to fancy himself an authority on Opal, on the basis of having known her for a time and having received some correspondence from her. He seems to think it clever to write sentences such as the following: ...if they were to appear in my mail some bright morning—or even on a misty morning—I should not be more confounded than I have been by other things... What in the name of overripe mangoes does the mistiness or non-mistiness of a morning matter? Would the contents of a letter change because the sun decided to shine?
Also toward the end of the book we have a passage where Bede says he believes Opal had an assistant helping her fabricate and shred the diary in Los Angeles. He writes:
The name of the one who probably [I should add that this book is liberally peppered with words such as probably, supposedly, maybe, and allegedly] played that part was given me a third of a century ago. I didn't dream that I should be today preparing this manuscript or I most certainly should have endeavoured to follow through on that lead.
He seemed like he didn't pass up any other opportunity to malign at any point. Why this one? He makes himself ridiculous. His attempts to cause Opal to fall flat only make himself look silly.
He closes the book more or less with guesses: unsolved, without information, guess, do not know, are not certain, suspect, have no explanation all appear in one paragraph. And as a parting slap, he callously refers to Opal's then-current residence as a charge of London County, England; "tragedy has stilled the mind of a genius".
In short, I find him a hateful, disgusting man.
I have no answers concerning the shrouding of mystery that is going to remain swirling around Opal until the end of time. I really don't. I don't know if she wrote her diary as a child or not.
But this I can say: Opal and I go way back. I think I understand her on a highly personal level, because the spirit that flows from her pen is kindred to my own in innumerable ways. I believe she did write her diary at the age she said, and while some of its content may have been embroidered figments of imagination (my childhood diaries were full of it before I knew that Opal existed), I think it was part of her world that was real to her. Her play may have happened in her mind, much as mine often did. I wrote constantly of people who were invisible but as real to me as the nose on my face, and thought thoughts in my head that compassed the globe. Why should she not have had similar imagination? She claimed a man for her father who most likely was not her father, and yet he became more real to her than the one she had. We don't need to go into that now.
Granted, Opal eventually seemed to get to a point where the fantasy in her life seemed to take over the reality. The hospital in London confirmed she had a mental condition and probably had her whole life, something that no doubt affected the way she acted, her relations with people, and her strange obsession with imaginary things. Again I can relate, albeit on a less extreme level. We don't need to go into that now, either.
Suffice it to say I did not like this book at all. I give it a half star.
"The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow" is such a better way to read about Opal's life. It was written by a man who cared for her as a person and loved her work for what it was: genius. He is more specific in his sources, more gentle and level-headed in his approach.
