"Taken Care Of" by Edith Sitwell

"Taken Care Of" by Edith Sitwell

The one thing that surprised me for some reason, is that Edith Sitwell's quotes Arthur Rimbaud's poetry a lot in her memoir "Taken Care Of."   For some reason, I didn't think the Prince of French punk poetry's work would get along in the eccentric world of Edith Sitwell - but there you go!   This is a book of little and not too many major surprises.  For instance, I didn't know she lived at the Sunset Tower on the Sunset Strip, nor that she had a great admiration for Dylan Thomas.  She didn't like D.H. Lawrence and is quite snooty towards a lot of people. On the other hand, it seems she adored Marilyn Monroe. 

The memoir started off strongly in a narrative way with her relationship with her parents when she was a child, which wasn't so hot.  After that, the book jumps around time-to-time with no strong narrative impulse.  Sort of whatever entered Sitwell's head at the time of writing, is what stayed in the final version of the book.  

I wished she wrote a larger chapter, or even a whole book on her experiences in America, especially Hollywood.  Still, this is a nice portal or entrance into the brain of Sitwell, but it's not the great memoir that one would hope for.  

- Tosh Berman