Young Bloomsbury: the generation that reimagined love, freedom and self-expression

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For those who are quite familiar with the Bloomsbury group and their output of work, Young Bloomsbury will be a lethargic reading experience. This cohort still embraced art and creativity as their predecessors did, but brought new explorations of sexuality, gender norms, polyamory, and freedom of self-expression in all aspects of life. As scepticism, admiration, envy, and confusion ebb and flow between one chattering, seductive, thinking, inspiring generation and another, this is Gatsby made real.

Young Bloomsbury explores the transgressive lives of the second generation of the Bloomsbury Group looks at the impact new ideals and ways of being had on original members of the group. I started it in the middle of the heatwave, which probably didn’t help, as intra-Bloomsbury relationships are dodecahedral at the best of times. Young Bloomsbury introduces us to this colorful cast of characters, including novelist Eddy Sackville-West, who wore elaborate make-up and dressed in satin and black velvet; artist Stephen Tomlin, who sculpted the heads of his male and female lovers; and author Julia Strachey, who wrote a searing tale of blighted love. It’s questionable whether the world needs yet another book about the Bloomsbury Group but Nino Strachey’s contribution approaches the topic from an unusual angle. An “illuminating” ( Daily Mail , London) exploration of the second generation of the iconic Bloomsbury Group who inspired their elders to new heights of creativity and passion while also pushing the boundaries of sexual freedom and gender norms in 1920s England.I definitely don’t think I gleaned as much as I possibly could from this by listening to it, and I do think I will likely pick up a physical copy at some point. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. I loved meeting all these individuals chronicled in more detail - and it was astounding to see how many parallels there were between this younger generation, and so many people I know and are friends with now, and the causes they advocate for.

Unlike a lot of books about the Bloomsbury set, this particular book takes the bright young things—the next generation of Bloomsbury lovers, admirers and hangers-on—as its focus but, err, given the way the roaring twenties went they’re all androgynously beautiful twenty-somethings who went to Oxford and potentially had mental health issues. Strachey’s is a relatively fresh perspective and I was particularly fascinated by her survey of queer cultures of the 1920s. But for those looking to acquaint themselves with these changemakers for the first time, this book is a good starting point.Pansexuality runs through everything from their discussions to their rowdy parties to the work they produce.

Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful. Sure, he was a member of the younger Bloomsbury set, but still, I couldn't understand why he was singled out. I think this book was perfect for me who absolutely LOVES the Bloomsbury Group but didn’t really know much about all the interconnections between the sprawling members, not to mention how it was more like a queer chosen family with everyone fucking everyone.I don’t think these people acted from any desire to free up society as much as to get as much sex as possible with either gender which fair enough, provided it was consensual and I’m not entirely sure it always was. If you've read about the Bloomsberries before then this book over-promises and doesn't wholly deliver on its premise. They created non-traditional family groups, lived polyamorously and without regard to the conservative laws of the day.

By about the 70% mark I’m not sure I could have told you the difference between Stephen Tennant, Frances Marshall, and Stephen Tomlin.With a deft turn of the Bloomsbury kaleidoscope, and an impressive gift for finding treasures in the archives, Nino Strachey reveals colorful new patterns of experiments in living which speak trenchantly to our own cultural moment. Young Bloomsbury: The Generation That Reimagined Love, Freedom and Self-expression by Nino Strachey | 9781529306958. Revealing an aspect of history not yet explored and with “effervescent detail” (Juliet Nicolson, author of Frostquake ), Young Bloomsbury celebrates an open way of living and loving that would not be embraced for another hundred years. The group had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, feeling that every person had the right to live and love in the way they chose. Great fun and, for all fans of the Bloomsbury Group, enormously informative - like being transported back to "dancing the night hours away underground in the pitch dark and smoke-filled avant-garde nightclubs of that day", you never know who you're going to meet.