Volume 50, Number 6 · April 10, 2003
By George
By John Banville
Becoming George: The Life of Mrs. W.B. Yeats
by Ann Saddlemyer
Oxford University Press, 808 pp., $35.00
Two vignettes. In the spring of 2002 Ann Saddlemyer is giving a lecture at the University of São Paulo on George Yeats and the influence that her gifts as a psychic and medium had on her husband's poetry. While she is speaking, very loud noises are heard overhead, as if wooden crates are being tumbled violently across the floors in the rooms above us. Shortly afterward, the venetian blinds on the windows at the back of the room suddenly set up a furious rattling, although the day outside is calm and mild. On both occasions, Professor Saddlemyer, paying no heed, continues serenely with her lecture. Later, during questions, a member of the audience rises to say that in the circumstances she cannot let these eerie phenomena go unremarked. Saddlemyer, with the faint, rueful grimace of a long-suffering sorcerer's assistant, merely shrugs and murmurs, 'Oh, George....'
Review, 3464 words
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