The Well of Loneliness

it should be MANDATORY that everyone reads this book. everyone. there isn't anything too astounding about her writing style, and nothing too "deep" about it either. anyone could pick up this book and see clearly everything she's very clearly alluding to, so there isn't much mystery, but instead, a whole lot of straightforward honesty about an aspect of the world most overlook without even realizing.<br /><br />what broke back mountain failed miserably in doing, ratcliffe did with ease. this isn't some kinky, soft core porn, fantasy, lesbian sex thriller. it isn't a sob story about rights denied gays either.<br /><br />it's just the tragic story of someone who is. but her state of being, by no fault or choice of her own, disallows her from the honor given to even the most degenerate people of society.<br /><br />it's just her story-- without bias, without the evil conspiracy of the "homosexual agenda", without hope of guilting the readers into self loathing, or repentance of unfair treatment to diverse populations-- it just is.<br /><br />i wish my mom could/would read this book. not that she is like the extreme mother in this book- just because it would be a way for her to see aspects of my heart that she would never be able to imagine a way to understand otherwise.

If you are looking for cheerful and uplifting, don’t start here: the title gives it away. The main protagonist is Stephen Gordon, named Stephen because her father wanted a boy and stuck with the chosen name when a girl arrived. This is a very English novel:<br /><br />“Not very far from Upton-on-Severn–between it, in fact, and the Malvern Hills–stands the country seat of the Gordons of Bramberly; well-timbered, well-cottaged, well-fenced and well-watered, having, in this latter respect, a stream that forks in exactly the right position to feed two large lakes in the grounds.”<br /><br />Stephen is upper class and whatever else she suffers in the novel, she is never poor.<br />It’s impossible to avoid mentioning the trial for obscenity in 1928. The impetus came from the tabloid press and the obscenity?<br />"she kissed her full on the lips, as a lover" and "and that night, they were not divided"<br />It was really about the depiction of a lifestyle, especially the sections set in Paris after the First World War. However battle lines were drawn and writers like Shaw, Eliot, the Woolfs, Forster, Smyth, Jameson and Wells amongst others. Although only a limited number (such as Woolf and Forster were prepared to testify). The outcome was a foregone conclusion and the novel was not published in the UK until 1949, after Hall’s death. <br />Inevitably there has been a great deal of debate about this book over the years with views and opinions changing and ebbing to and fro. One ongoing discussion is whether Stephen as she is described was transgender. As she says to her mother: "All my life I’ve never felt like a woman, and you know it."<br />There is a particular use of language as well. The use of the term invert stems from the work of Havelock Ellis. It is not, thankfully, a term that has survived. <br />Hall covers a good deal of ground in the 450 pages and the depiction of the bars and sub-culture of Paris in the 1920s are well drawn. France did not have the laws against homosexuality that some other countries had. <br />One particular aside, some of the minor characters are very strong. Puddle, one of Stephen’s later governesses, who is clearly lesbian is well portrayed. The animals in particular play an important role and are well written. <br />Reactions to this novel have been strong in both directions, for many it was the only lesbian novel they had heard of. Mary Renault, who read it in 1938 recalls it as being earnest and humourless. However one Holocaust survivor noted: "Remembering that book, I wanted to live long enough to kiss another woman."<br /><br />The ebb and flow go on. Hannah Roche has recently reassessed The Well:<br /><br />“Was Hall cleverly turning to a Victorian mode in order to critique the politics of modernism, challenging the value of aesthetic experiment and obscurity? I argue not only that The Well was stylistically as impressive as the most celebrated of ‘difficult’ 1920s novels, but also that, by boldly appropriating an accepted (and heteronormative) genre, Hall makes a statement about the rightful position of lesbian writing that dares to strike its readers in ways more direct and profound than the audaciously avant-garde.”<br /><br />For me, I understand its importance and I wasn’t expecting a happy ending (I wasn’t disappointed in that). Puddle’s advice to Stephen is powerful:<br /><br />“You’re neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you’re as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else; only you’re unexplained as yet–you’ve not got your niche in creation. But some day that will come, and meanwhile don’t shrink from yourself, but face yourself calmly and bravely. Have courage; do the best you can with your burden. But above all be honourable. Cling to your honour for the sake of those others who share the same burden. For their sakes show the world that people like you and they can be quite as selfless and fine as the rest of mankind. Let your life go to prove this–it would be a really great life-work, Stephen.”<br /><br />There’s still an element of apologizing for who you are and carrying a burden, but then even today the struggle continues. <br />Many problems in the novel arise from a lack of communication, but nothing has changed there! You can see the ending coming from a long way off, although the means is not obvious until late in the book. It’s not that well written and doesn’t stand up well to Orlando, which was published in the same year. Another point is that pity is not the best way of trying to get people on your side. <br />The interesting contrast between Stephen and Valerie Seymour is also illustrative. Seymour hosts a salon and is a pagan, no religion and has no problems with ethical dilemmas as a result of her lesbianism. Stephen holds onto the structures of Catholicism (on and off) and can’t manage to square her sexuality with her faith. Stephen’s relationship with her mother (who rejects her) also runs through the novel. <br />I can understand the importance of this novel at the time, but that time has gone and it feels more like a historical document, but I am glad I read it. The story is unbearably sad, but you can’t always have happy ever after.

what could have been a fascinating chronicle of a tough butch interloper challenging mainstream society becomes the drippy tale of a woman who just wants to be loved, and the cruel little bitch who leads her on. oh what a deep well! the writing's pretty swell though, that can't be denied. <i>tres elegante</i>. i was reminded of e.m. forster's equally drippy, equally beautiful (but rather more enjoyable) Maurice. plus i actually preferred the wish fulfillment of Maurice, sad to say. guess i'm not such a hardcore queer polemicist after all.<br /><br />here's an update: got into a great argument over this book. Well of Loneliness' passionate defender insisted that the character of the so-called cruel little bitch needs to be understood in the context of the time period. the CLB had few options others than being, well, a CLB. apparently she was not the villain after all; she was a victim of fate and circumstance, just making do with the options she was given. a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to make the rent. ain't nuthin' goin' on but the rent. <br /><br />okay well i suppose that's a pretty good point. but is it enough to posthumously award an extra star to the novel, to even revivify it in my memory? i think not; the Well of Loneliness and its eye-rolling histrionics still feel dead to me.

<i>‘God,’ she gasped, we believe; we have told You we believe . . . We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!’</i><br /> <br />First things first, the cover on this edition is absurdly unrepresentative of the book. <br /> <br />Second, I liked the book. I would even recommend the book - it's just that it should come with a few notes:<br /> <br />1. It is endlessly long. And detailed. For no purpose. Whatsoever. If the length of the book was sustained by beautifully formed expressions it might not feel so long but....<br /> <br />2. I should not have read this so soon after reading the works of some master wordsmiths. Halls famous work is not as clunky as and slightly less preachy than The Unlit Lamp but it just isn't one of the books that would have been remembered for its evocative or imaginative writing.<br /> <br />3. The book was written with a purpose - a plea, if you like, that is expressed very openly in the closing chapters. As an example of cultural history or changes in society and attitudes, it is a fantastic read because it contains a lot of information about (and more detailed description of) British upper-middle class society of the early 20th century. So, if you read the book with a purpose of finding out more about these attitudes, this is a great read. <br /> <br />4. The character of Stephen seems to be based - at least to some extent - on Radclyffe Hall herself. As a result, the perspective taken by the main character and the book as a whole is limited to the experience of only one individual - which I guess is the point, but it doesn't make for a complex reading experience. In short, there does not seem to be an attempt to investigate other points of view, or experiment with angles of perception, or layers. There are other characters but few of them are given a real voice.<br /> <br />5. I could not help but smirk at the hint of hypocrisy in the books attempt to strive for acceptance of a minority when at the same time there is underlying attitude of snobbishness and chauvinism towards other minorities. <br /> <br />And yet, for all I criticise, there is an also an honesty to the story and Radclyffe Hall's forthright writing style that impresses me and this is worth the hard work of reading it:<br /> <br />The Well of Loneliness was published at the same time as Woolf's Orlando - touching on similar themes of identity - but where Orlando shrouded the issue in mysticism, Radclyffe Hall dared to write openly about sexual identity. <br /> <br />The book was banned under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. The ban was not lifted until 1959 when the Act was amended. Originally, the test for obscenity was "whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall". In 1959 the Act was amended to differentiate controversial works of art and literature with social merit. <br /> <br />The Well of Loneliness was not only book with a lesbian theme to be published in Britain in 1928, but it was the only one banned - because of its forthrightness and its explicitness - though hardly what would pass as such in today's terms. <br />Arguably, it is the book's fate, the notoriety it gained by being banned, that helped The Well of Loneliness to remain in print today.<br /> <br /><i>"You will see unfaithfulness, lies and deceit among those whom the world views with approbation. You will find that many have grown hard of heart, have grown greedy, selfish, cruel and lustful; and then you will turn to me and will say: “You and I are more worthy of respect than these people. Why does the world persecute us, Stephen?” And I shall answer: “Because in this world there is only toleration for the so-called normal.” And when you come to me for protection, I shall say: “I cannot protect you, Mary, the world has deprived me of my right to protect; I am utterly helpless, I can only love you”.’</i><br /><br />This review was first posted on BookLikes: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/1045117/the-well-of-loneliness">http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/...</a>

I desperately need E.M. Forster to rewrite the ending of this book. I simply will not accept this ending.<br /><br />This book is incredibly beautiful and I already can’t wait to reread it. Stunning prose and so so many incredible quotes.<br /><br />The last sentence of the book left me starring into my wall for 10 minutes; <i> 'God,' she gasped, 'we believe; we have told You we believe... We have not denied You; then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, O God, before the whole world. <b> Give us also the right to our existence! </b>" </i><br /><br />&lt;3&lt;3 :(:( <i> “I can’t mourn her without bringing shame on her name - I can’t go back home now and mourn her. (…) I want them to know how much I loved her. Oh God, oh God! I can’t even mourn her…” </i> &lt;3 :(:(:(

It's incredible to discover that less than a hundred years ago in 1928 James Douglas, the editor of the Sunday Express, wrote an article calling for a ban of “The Well of Loneliness” stating: “In order to prevent the contamination and corruption of English fiction it is the duty of the critic to make it impossible for any other novelist to repeat this outrage.” His campaign successfully led to the book being formally banned in Britain because of its representation of homosexuality as being a natural facet of identity and it wasn't made legally available again in this country until 1949. <br /><br />This is the first time I've read this classic novel. I can only imagine what it would have meant to a gay person early in the 20th century to read it and discover a kinship of feeling – not just for the book's portrayal of female protagonist Stephen Gordon's emotional and sexual closeness to people of the same gender or Stephen's desire to dress in more masculine clothes – but the overwhelming sense it gives of being made to feel different and wrong for your very existence. The first section of the book describes Stephen's coming of age and feeling continuously frustrated “for she did not know the meaning of herself.” Nor does she have language available to describe her difference. Those that seem to understand her queerness (even her own father) refuse to name it so for many years her estrangement and isolation is felt all the more intensely. <br /><br />Of course, to me and any sensitive or queer person who read it at the time of publication, it's perfectly obvious what Stephen is. Her early passionate crush on a beautiful maid and misguided affair with a married American woman are so touchingly portrayed because they are expressions of longing which can never be fulfilled in a satisfying way – not just because Stephen's feelings can't be equally reciprocated but because there's a fundamental miscommunication of desire. What's wonderful is that over the course of the novel Stephen discovers the words with which to describe herself and this leads to her liberation. <br /><br />Read my full <a href="https://lonesomereader.com/blog/2021/6/29/the-well-of-loneliness-by-radclyffe-hall" rel="nofollow noopener">review of The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall on LonesomeReader</a>

Recently in these parts I declared that this novel was so dull that today it is essentially unreadable, and that its lasting importance has everything to do with history and not a thing to do with art. And I still generally stand behind these sentiments. <br /><br />BUT.<br /><br />I read it. And I kind of enjoyed it, at least in parts. I had based the above judgements on reading the first 60 pages or so (in retrospect the weakest section of the entire novel) and upon my decision to incorporate it in a paper on the queer writing of Djuna Barnes and Charles Henri Ford, I felt it was my duty to give it a fair assessment. As expected, it was about twice as long as necessary, and there are whole chapters that serve no purpose than to reinforce the inherent moral virtue of the main character Stephen Gordon, a British writer with an aristocratic background clearly modeled on Hall's own life. Hall's prose has its own unique sense of lyricism, but it's about as delicate as a bulldozer, which also accurately describes Hall's approach to the self-proclaimed purpose of the novel: to justify the existence of "the congenital invert." This means that we get a number of polemical proclamations that are as jarring narratively as they often are in regards to content: <i>"with the terrible bonds of her true nature, she could bind Mary fast, and the pain would be sweetness, so that the girl would cry out for that sweetness, hugging her chains always closer to her. The world would condemn but they would rejoice; glorious outcasts, unashamed, triumphant!”</i><br /><br />Oy. <br /><br />As usual, Virginia Woolf gives a crystalline, beautifully backhanded summation that expresses the situation better than I possibly could: "the dullness of the book is such that any indecency may lurk there—one simply can't keep one's eyes on the page." <br /><br />And yet, and yet… I can't help but find some merit in it as well, and even feel something for it almost bordering on affection. This novel has undoubtedly meant a good deal to countless gay people since its first publication in 1928 (that quickly turned into a notorious, frenzied censorship trial <i>a la</i> Oscar Wilde), and there are moments, quite a few moments even, that are genuinely moving in their characterizations of the plight non-heterosexuals experience within a often hostile society, and the internal turmoil this inevitably creates. And if it's not exactly art, there is something to be said in Hall's defense that she made the conscious decision to boldly render, if sometimes inelegantly, "the love that dare not speak its name" in no uncertain terms. And while I might (vastly) prefer the labyrinthine, high modernist obfuscations of Barnes, Ford, Stein and other contemporaneous queer writers, with <i>The Well of Loneliness</i> Hall established a place amongst this illustrious group that is in its own way unique, and ultimately well deserved.

If one thinks of "The Well of Loneliness" as having been written by a homophobic, sexist straight man then it begins to make sense. The central character (and stand-in for author Radclyffe Hall) is not a self-loathing lesbian at all, he's a transgendered man, and he's not exactly gay-friendly. The identification of Jonathan Brockett as gay by describing his hands as being “as white and soft as a woman’s,” for example, emphasizes Stephen’s conflicted feelings about his own sexuality and the feminine sex, as well as his blossoming sense of gender dysphoria, as he feels “a queer little sense of outrage.” If one regards Stephen as a woman it seems completely illogical for Stephen's hands are not, after all “white and soft.” Rather, Stephen is full of the sense of smug entitlement that goes along with being an upper class gentleman, and so while this "Well" is certainly fascinating as historical trans-fiction, the reader is likely to find himself/herself in the end feeling as though he/she has spent way too much time with an insufferable prick, and wondering why.

I read The Well of Loneliness because of was very interested in reading novels on homosexuality. I needed something to relate to. The book centers around a girl whose father desperately wanted a boy and so named her Stephen. Throughout her childhood Stephen is shown as a girl unlike others. The way she carries herself, the way she acts and the fantasies she has about seeing herself as "Nelson", stress the fact Stephen sexuality is in question. As she grow, Stephen begins to find love in women and eventually settles down with one in particular. Until the dreadful ending. <br /><br /><br />I found the book up until the end to be very interesting and pleasant. However, throughout the novel one could not help feeling a sense of self-hatred in Stephen, as well as some other characters. Most of the time they would not even give themselves a name, could not see themselves as whole and thought mostly that outward achievements such as great writing that would make them famous, would make up for the fact that they were homosexuals. <br /><br />This book to me seems like a cautionary tale to gay women in society. The morals that Ms.Radclyffe presents is that heterosexual couples are more acceptable and comfortable then a homosexual couple and that a heterosexual relationship is one that can truly provide the safety and dignity in this world. It's a shame Radclyffe wrote such beliefs.

this book was banned in England on publication in 1928, which of course made it a huge bestseller. and as it was published in France and the USA, it was easy to obtain copies.<br /><br />and, of course, it is so tame by today's standards. the most explicit line in the book is "she kissed her full on the lips, like a lover". but the powers that be in England judged anything even hinting at lesbianism to be immoral.<br /><br />in any event, it is a very fine novel, on it's own merits, and I really enjoyed it. the author uses the word queer extremely often, every few pages it seems, but not in the context of referring to the lesbians in the book, so I was wondering if that led to the word's current usage of referring to gays and lesbians?<br /><br />throughout the book, the author is obviously trying to get across the point that lesbians should be treated the same as anybody else, which of course they should be. but the main character, Stephen (who is a female, despite the name) is portrayed as being very lonely and unhappy for most of the book, and the ending kind of makes you wonder whether the author thinks it's better not to be a lesbian.<br /><br />anyway, it's an excellent book, which was republished by Virago in 1982 and has been reprinted almost every year since, so it is obviously finding new readers even now.<br /><br />highly recommended!