do we, vampire-like, feed on each other?
The Independent looks at literary partnerships - who's musing who?
But it is those 20th-century heterosexual relationships, charged by sexual passion and either flittering out when that passion dies, or, in some cases, imploding with horrific consequences, that are the most complex, the most teasing, and ultimately the ones that intrigue us most. Above and beyond their work, West, Mansfield, Rhys, Beauvoir, Gellhorn, Plath and Smart are famous for being essentially "victims of love". At least four of them were deserted by their lovers or husbands (Mansfield escaped this fate by dying young and Beauvoir by participating in sexual games that she seems to have had little real interest in); West threatened suicide when Wells left her shortly after the beginning of their liaison, and even wrote a short story, "At Valladolid" about it; while Madox Ford's rejection of Jean Rhys after 18 months, according to one biographer, drove her further towards alcoholism. Plath, who might be called the poster girl for this group, and for abandoned women everywhere, did of course actually kill herself.
And yet. While the female half of the literary partnership tended to be less famous at the outset than her male counterpart - Barker was a flamboyant and hugely promising published poet when Smart began her pursuit, Hughes had a considerable reputation at Cambridge, and Wells was fast approaching the peak of his fame, as was Madox Ford - it is that female half who has posthumously either equalled or even exceeded her partner's reputation. Quite a remarkable feat for these poor, lonely, abandoned "victims".
