It's a characteristic of all Sybille Bedford's fiction to tell the reader less than he wants to know. Ivy Compton-Burnett was a friend of hers and perhaps gave her lessons in leaving things out. She calls Jigsaw, which has to do with her own early life, 'a biographical novel'; and it may not be a coincidence that the book's most sympathetic reviewers have been those who seem already to know her life story. 'Truth,' one of the characters remarks, 'is such a feeble excuse for so many things.' Bedford, always inclined to look down her nose at the rest of the world, would probably consider it an excuse for being very boring. She was born in 1911 and doesn't think much of 'our tell-all age'.

LRB 27 July 1989 | PDF Download