From the archives: Rebecca West reviews Jan Morris' Conundrum, 1974
"She sounds not like a woman, but like a man's idea of a women, and curiously enough, the idea of a man not nearly so intelligent as James Morris used to be."
Everybody should know about this amazing Rebecca West review of Jan Morris’ Conundrum, published in the New York Times in 1974:
“What surprises me about... the autobiographical book in which she gives a blow by blow account of his change of sex is that whereas I used to understand every word he wrote while I was a woman and he was a man, now that we are both women he mystifies me."
On Morris' 'revelation'—aged four—that he was really meant to be a girl: "This is puzzling, for no part of the incident relates to any other part. The piano is a bisexual instrument and Sibelius (I have always thought) an asexual composer... But then (and here is the point where most people will differ with Mr. Morris) I never thought the disadvantages of being a girl were inherent. I believed them to be imposed from without as a murderous public opinion."
"As for her psychology, Miss Jan Morris's self portraits are chilling. She sounds not like a woman, but like a man's idea of a women, and curiously enough, the idea of a man not nearly so intelligent as James Morris used to be."
Morris "overacts to material objects like a woman in a TV commercial, and when Miss Morris writes of the results of her hormone treatment... one feels sure she is not a woman."
Ultimately, West concludes:
"I cannot accept 'Conundrum' as the story of a true change of sex. Surely this is rather a record of a strange self‐treatment for a neurotic condition to which two passages in “conundrum” give a due... And at the end he does not seem to me to have got what he was trying to buy."
I can’t find it online (just reviews of it, slamming it as you-know-what), but it is in Crazy Salad, the collection of her writings. Let’s just say she agrees with RW.
Thanks for this. I have been a fan of Rebecca West for quite a few years now. What a treat to read this! Ms. West was very observant.