Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing

by May Sarton

Paperback, 1980

Status

Checked out

Publication

W.W. Norton (1980), Edition: 1st Edition 1st Printing, Paperback

Description

Sarton's most important novel tells the story of a poet in her seventies, whose life is retold episodically during an interview with two writers from a literary magazine  Hilary Stevens's prolific career includes a provocative novel that shot her into the public consciousness years ago, and an oeuvre of poetry that more recently has consigned her to near-obscurity. Now in the twilight of her life, Hilary, who is both a feminist and a lesbian, is receiving renewed attention for an upcoming collection of poems, one that has brought two young reporters to her Cape Cod home. As Hilary prepares for the conversation, she recalls formative moments both large and small. She then embarks on the interview itself--a witty and intelligent discussion of her life, work, and romantic relationships with men and women. After the journalists have left, Hilary helps a visiting male friend with his anxiety over being gay and imparts wisdom about channeling his own creative passions. This ebook features an extended biography of May Sarton.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member wandering_star
This is a short and often poetic book, the story of a day in which a novelist and poet in her 70s looks back over her life, aided by the presence of a couple of Paris Review-style interviewers (although ironically, she tells us far more than she tells them). And through the story of her life, it
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considers what it means to be a writer.

I feel that I would be doing the book a disservice if I tried to characterise what it's saying too narrowly. It's discursive and sometimes contradicts itself, very much like someone trying to work out what they think. But it's certainly about life as an artist - and how there can often be tensions between life and the art, particularly for women.

For Mrs Stevens, being an artist means having a sensitivity to emotional truth (the "hearing the mermaids singing" of the title) and being prepared to be absolutely honest about it - combined with the element of detachment necessary to turn it into words on a page. None of these seem to sit particularly well with domestic life.

Art - or genius, or the desire to create - is presented as something which demands attention, but is also dangerous - not least because of the vulnerability it creates. "Inspiration? It felt more like being harnessed to wild horses whom she must learn to control or be herself flung down and broken." Mrs Stevens needs to write - but also resents it.

This book, like its main character, is idiosyncratic, charming, thoughtful and occasionally a tiny bit infuriating.
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LibraryThing member robinamelia
Using the device of the protagonist preparing for an undergoing an interview, Sarton explores the struggle of a female poet in the earlier part of the twentieth century. I found the tale compelling and still quite relevant. I'm suprised to see only one other LibraryThing member has read it!
LibraryThing member lucybrown
Upon its publication in the early 1960s, May Sarton worried that Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing would result in her forever being classified as a lesbian writer. That she was a lesbian was no secret since she had lived on openly homosexual life with relationships with notables such as
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Elizabeth Bowen. Her concern was that readers would focus on the characters bisexuality and miss what she had to say about love which to her was the same whether it was shared as part of a gay or straight relationship. Early in Mrs. Stevens... she tells a young protegee, "Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see..." and then counsels that it doesn't matter whom one loves as long as one does. Love to Sarton is a journey of discovery, with self discovery being perhaps the greatest end to the quest.

The plot of the novel details a day in the life of the now elderly Mrs. Hilary Stevens, upper middle class American, raised in genteel remoteness but stylish parents in Boston and abroad. In early adulthood she finds herself the author of a controversial novel which she thinks is a fake and then soon after as the wife of a seemingly robust Englishman who had been ruined by the war. Later she becomes a poet of some renowned, and then a forgotten poet buried in anthologies. At the point where the novel begins, Hilary's secluded life on Cape Cod has been interrupted by a late wave of fame. Her newest volume of poems has raised interest in her again, hence on the day of the story she is to be interviewed by a pair of reporters. Her preparations for the interview have caused her to rethink her life and work, and especially the influences of some of the Muses to her art. In relief to this, she has become a mentor to a young man who is suffering from the failure of a love affair between himself and an older man.

Readers who like a pensive book about love, life and art which is long on soul though light on action are likely to enjoy this novel. As always Sarton's prose has a womanly sturdiness to it, nearly as fragrant and vivid as Colette's, an author summoned several times by Mrs. Stevens. One thing that Mrs. Stevens insists on is that woman writers must retain their femininity.

I found Mrs. Stevens oddly similar to John Updike's Seek My Face. The similarity was so striking that midway through I sought out my volumes of Updike's reviews and essays to see if at any point he mentioned Ms. Sarton's novel. I found little mention of Sarton at all. Odd since they have a great deal in common.
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LibraryThing member lucybrown
Upon its publication in the early 1960s, May Sarton worried that Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing would result in her forever being classified as a lesbian writer. That she was a lesbian was no secret since she had lived on openly homosexual life with relationships with notables such as
Show More
Elizabeth Bowen. Her concern was that readers would focus on the characters bisexuality and miss what she had to say about love which to her was the same whether it was shared as part of a gay or straight relationship. Early in Mrs. Stevens... she tells a young protegee, "Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see..." and then counsels that it doesn't matter whom one loves as long as one does. Love to Sarton is a journey of discovery, with self discovery being perhaps the greatest end to the quest.

The plot of the novel details a day in the life of the now elderly Mrs. Hilary Stevens, upper middle class American, raised in genteel remoteness but stylish parents in Boston and abroad. In early adulthood she finds herself the author of a controversial novel which she thinks is a fake and then soon after as the wife of a seemingly robust Englishman who had been ruined by the war. Later she becomes a poet of some renowned, and then a forgotten poet buried in anthologies. At the point where the novel begins, Hilary's secluded life on Cape Cod has been interrupted by a late wave of fame. Her newest volume of poems has raised interest in her again, hence on the day of the story she is to be interviewed by a pair of reporters. Her preparations for the interview have caused her to rethink her life and work, and especially the influences of some of the Muses to her art. In relief to this, she has become a mentor to a young man who is suffering from the failure of a love affair between himself and an older man.

Readers who like a pensive book about love, life and art which is long on soul though light on action are likely to enjoy this novel. As always Sarton's prose has a womanly sturdiness to it, nearly as fragrant and vivid as Colette's, an author summoned several times by Mrs. Stevens. One thing that Mrs. Stevens insists on is that woman writers must retain their femininity.

I found Mrs. Stevens oddly similar to John Updike's Seek My Face. The similarity was so striking that midway through I sought out my volumes of Updike's reviews and essays to see if at any point he mentioned Ms. Sarton's novel. I found little mention of Sarton at all. Odd since they have a great deal in common.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lucybrown
Upon its publication in the early 1960s, May Sarton worried that Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing would result in her forever being classified as a lesbian writer. That she was a lesbian was no secret since she had lived on openly homosexual life with relationships with notables such as
Show More
Elizabeth Bowen. Her concern was that readers would focus on the characters bisexuality and miss what she had to say about love which to her was the same whether it was shared as part of a gay or straight relationship. Early in Mrs. Stevens... she tells a young protegee, "Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see..." and then counsels that it doesn't matter whom one loves as long as one does. Love to Sarton is a journey of discovery, with self discovery being perhaps the greatest end to the quest.

The plot of the novel details a day in the life of the now elderly Mrs. Hilary Stevens, upper middle class American, raised in genteel remoteness but stylish parents in Boston and abroad. In early adulthood she finds herself the author of a controversial novel which she thinks is a fake and then soon after as the wife of a seemingly robust Englishman who had been ruined by the war. Later she becomes a poet of some renowned, and then a forgotten poet buried in anthologies. At the point where the novel begins, Hilary's secluded life on Cape Cod has been interrupted by a late wave of fame. Her newest volume of poems has raised interest in her again, hence on the day of the story she is to be interviewed by a pair of reporters. Her preparations for the interview have caused her to rethink her life and work, and especially the influences of some of the Muses to her art. In relief to this, she has become a mentor to a young man who is suffering from the failure of a love affair between himself and an older man.

Readers who like a pensive book about love, life and art which is long on soul though light on action are likely to enjoy this novel. As always Sarton's prose has a womanly sturdiness to it, nearly as fragrant and vivid as Colette's, an author summoned several times by Mrs. Stevens. One thing that Mrs. Stevens insists on is that woman writers must retain their femininity.

I found Mrs. Stevens oddly similar to John Updike's Seek My Face. The similarity was so striking that midway through I sought out my volumes of Updike's reviews and essays to see if at any point he mentioned Ms. Sarton's novel. I found little mention of Sarton at all. Odd since they have a great deal in common.
Show Less
LibraryThing member kylekatz
1965. This book is one of those changed-my-life-books that come along once in a while. I can't be expected to review it impartially therefore. I suspect it may have some flaws, but for me it came along perfect at the perfect time and swept all other possible concerns away. I suspect it is a bit
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didactic, possibly dry, dated, not radical enough. Who cares? It was as Bob Dylan says in Tangled Up In Blue: And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal
Pouring off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you
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LibraryThing member Acia
I had previously only read May Sarton's 'Journal of a Solitude', which I loved. So I started reading this novel with high expectation and was for the most part not disappointed. I felt disconnected towards the mid to the end of the interview and the epilogue but Sarton's way of writing about a
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woman's life was felt throughout.
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Language

Original publication date

1965

Physical description

4.2 x 0.6 inches

ISBN

0393007626 / 9780393007626
Page: 0.2964 seconds