"The only real sunlight in her life came from Barney, who, despite her dalliances with others, always loved her and cared for her, giving up her beloved Paris during World War II to stand by her Angel in Italy, where during air raids the 64-year-old Amazone "crouched at night in the trench in the garden in her fur coat, covered with stones and mud." Barney's devotion to this unresponsive figure and Brooks's inability to return Barney's love in anything like the form it was vouchsafed to her give a dimension of real tenderness and pathos to this dual biography."

How the F**K could someone know that "the only real sunlight in her life" was ANYTHING. That's the most annoying thing I've every read. And the line about "Brooks' inability to return Barney's love"? Jesus. How on earth can people think they know what was going on? Journals and letters? People dream up their own versions of what happened in their own lives - then add a layer of opinion from a biographer, and a layer from a reviewer... Maybe Natalie was a needy little witch who was never satisfied and Romaine Brooks was doing her best.

I've found that the truth is never what anyone thinks happened.

Even though D'Annunzio was a proto-fascist, he's still a stud.

doing a quick water-logged tour of il vittoriale recently i think they mentioned that the marchesa casati never had sex with him -they were just friends and pen pals and he called her "core". something about her perfume in the dining room also but it was in like profumo blablabla. the tour was in italian so i could only make out bits and pieces. the article may be confused with another luisa -i think his last girlfriend luisa baccara who played piano and pushed him out a window when she found him making out with her sister.