Tammy S. (tstip) reviewed on 2/7/2006 + 225 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

In 1973, May Sarton moved from the inland New Hampshire home which had been the scene of the creative and inner life she so powerfully probed in both Plant Dreaming and Journal of a Solitude. She went then to a house on the seacoast of Maine. It was a place that was alone in all but a few months in summer, with the sea and the woods, and a wide sky every present.
At first, the peace of this place and the escape from the personal anguish she has come to associate with her New Hampshire home seemed to have its own dark side. As she says, "I became haunted by something I read years ago to the effect that when the Japanese were in a period of peace they painted only fans."
But the creative passion returned and she discovered that what she has to give not depend on others, and for the creative spirit that is a discovery of rare value. "Solitude," she writes, "like a long love, deepens with time, and I trust, will not fail me as my own loves, deepens with time, and I trust, will not fail me as my own powers of creation diminish. For growing into solitude is one way of growing to the end."

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