Emma Goldman: An Intimate Life (Pantheon Books)

 

and

Emma Goldman In Exile (Beacon Press)

by Alice Wexler.

Not officially a two volume set, both Emma Goldman: An Intimate Life and Emma Goldman In Exile are well-researched biographies of the two halves of the famed anarchist's life: B.E. (Before Exile) and A.E. (I'll leave you guess what this stands for). Sent packing from the U.S. after years of anti-government rhetoric, Emma Goldman spent the last twenty years of her life yearning for what she did during the first forty. Or at least, this is the inherent implication in Ms. Wexler's books, which cut a definitive line down the middle of Emma Goldman's life. Ms. Wexler is not in love with Emma Goldman, which makes her an ideal author to conduct this study: there are no rose tinted glasses here, and both books are thoroug, sometimes critical examination of Emma, her politics and the world in which she tried to implement them.


An essential bit of Goldman scholarship, Ms. Wexler's tomes are only quasi-chronological; although events are grouped in rough accordance with a timeline. Ms. Wexler isn't afraid to deviate it from this if it suits her thematic approach. She prefers to discuss Emma's life this way, alternating between the personal and the political in order to give us the full picture of a woman once called "the most dangerous woman in America". This creates a fascinating juxtaposition, as Emma's personal life appears to have contrasted sharply with the cultivated public persona. To the world she was Emma Goldman the Anarchist, who provoked riots, advocated birth control, fought against conscription and inspired Leon Czologosz to shoot President McKinley (Czologosz himself claimed to have been inspired by Goldman's lectures). But behind the scenes she was a scarred romantic, often to the point of desperation. Just as she leapt from one cause to the next, Emma Goldman's life was dotted by a series of ill-fated affairs, each of which have their own air of near-Shakesperian tragedy.

                                               Emma Goldman in 1934. What did she think
                                            of Hitler? "I don't know him - and don't want to."

Both books succeed in deliver the fascinating story that is Emma Goldman's life. Born in Russia during the Franco-Prussian War, she emigrated to the U.S. where she became an anarchist, suffered a failed marriage, went to jail several times and was finally deported in 1917. Returning to Bolshevik Russia, she was instantly disappointed by what she found, sending her on a twenty year odyssey to find both a new cause and a new home. There's an ache to the second half of Emma' story, which may be why I found it much more engaging then the first. There is a deeper struggle in the second half of Emma's life, an urgency that is largely absent from her earlier years. At least, this is how it is presented by Alice Wexler; whether consciously or not, even her sharp pen takes pity on Emma.

Still, these aren't perfect examinations of Emma's life. Ms. Wexler has her preference when it comes to subject - she delves deeply into Emma's politics, but speaks very little about Emma's stance on birth control. Even so, one can't deny that the subtitle to the first book - An Intimate Life - is highly appropriate. Who knew that Emma Goldman could write such dirty letters? By rummaging through Emma Goldman's mailbag, Ms. Wexler reveals a lusty mind with a sexual appetite not often attributed to women of the era. The letters to Ben Reitman - a whorehouse physician who Emma loved during the first years of the 20th century - are especially lewd, sometimes bordering on the pornographic (at least for that era). In later years, there is a clear indication of Emma trying to recapture some of this lust with her other lovers, often with limited success.

According to Ms. Wexler, then, there is something of the classic historical tragedy in Emma Goldman. A towering inspiration in her professional life (to this day there are Emma Goldman societies), she seems to have spent most of her personal life hungering for more.