3 Stars
An in-depth biography of Lady Anne Barnard nee Lady Anne Lindsay.
For a woman of her time period she was eccentric and skirted traditional values and social norms. This account portrays an intelligent woman of minimal means who rose to ply the drawing rooms of the intelligentsia. Her sharp mind and quick wit more than countered her reduced financial means, and if she had been a man the world would have been her oyster. As it is, being a woman was a significant liability. Nonetheless, she managed to avoid the pitfalls and carve out a life she would be happy to live, not one the world and her circle of peers would have necessarily picked.
It got a bit gossipy, but then Georgian England lived for it, and the French Revolution did nothing to downplay the dramatic events unfolding. Add in her experiences in South Africa and the battling sides in colonialism and you can see that there were many traps. 'May you live in interesting times', yeah, it's not hard to see how this is actually a curse. But the book gives a solid overview of political events driving peoples' lives, including Lady Anne.
While I can't call this upbeat, and I'd never wish to have been in her shoes, it is intriguing to see how she managed/mismanaged all the balls including matrimony. Overall, Taylor's approach is very sympathetic and lionizes Lady Anne Barnard.
Africa took Anne back to the innocence of childhood, wandering in an elemental place almost like the girl who once rode a pig at Balcarres.
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