Book Review: A Woman of Genius

Title: A Woman of Genius

Author: Mary Austin

Date: 1912

Publisher: Doubleday

ISBN: none

Quote: “[I]f you are looking for anything ordinarily called plot, you will be disappointed. Plot is distinctly the province of fiction.”

I downloaded this book from Gutenberg.org. If you’re online, you can read, print, or download it too, paying only printing expenses. If you’re not, I’ll print a copy for you at cost.

And this novel, of course, is fiction, but it purports to be the memoir of a gifted actress and the men who get, more or less pleasantly, in her way. In many ways A Woman of Genius is the feminine of The Lovely Lady: a long, unpleasingly realistic study of an unadmirable person. Olivia is the only one who describes Olivia as a genius or her acting as art. She acts in plays, gets good reviews, quarrels with men who think theatre groups are Bad Company, is disgusted by men who make it so, and blames society for her not being “Good” in the sense of “chaste.” Her sins against chastity are, however, overshadowed by her sins against modesty, and other virtues, and other people.

In this case the resonance with the facts of Women’s History held my attention a little better than the man’s story failed to hold it in The Lovely Lady. A little, but not a lot.