I was planning to give my mother-in-law the new biography of Ronald Blythe this Christmas. Then I read a review and had second thoughts. I was aware the late chronicler of rural parish life had a bohemian side, but it seems that it was more extensive than I had guessed.
Reviewing the book in the Guardian, Patrick Barkham says that his adventurous early sex-life is related; his adventures continued in later life, when ‘unlikely opportunities arose, including a dalliance with the stand-in postman.’ Barkham writes:
‘In another’s hands, this promiscuity might be sensationalist or spark prurient judgments, but it is sensitively treated by Ian Collins, a biographer who was also a close friend (but not a lover). What emerges is an unusually intimate and affectionate portrait.’
Prurient judgements, eh? I’m your man.
The reviewer’s implication is that it is unenlightened to respond to promiscuity in a judgemental way. But the reality is that judgement is what humans swim in, and non-judgemental neutrality is just a different flavour of water.
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