'Left Hand as we are born, Right Hand as we make it', July 27, 2014

This review is from: The Cruel Month (Left Hand, Right Hand! An Autobiography, Vol 1) (v. 1) (Paperback)
This is the first volume of Osbert Sitwell's memoirs, the first half of which is a consideration of his forebears, who make him what he is. These anecdotes are then followed by a glimpse into his own earliest years, finishing with a chapter recalling the painting of JS Sargent's famous portrait of the Sitwell family.
I felt some of Sitwell's narrative seemed to drift a little from the topic in hand, as he moves off to tell us about interesting writers, actors, royalty etc who don't really feature in the story: thus a trip to see a pantomime starring Dan Leno leads to an incorporated mini biography of that actor. Such facts are not uninteresting, but make this a slightly 'shapeless' work.
However he laces his writing with amusing stories, and at times quite poetic writing, that bring to life what it was like to be a child of aristocratic stock in the first years of the 20th century. ( )