I have spent the majority of my life not knowing about Helen Garner, yet all of a sudden I see references to her everywhere. "One of Australia's most I have spent the majority of my life not knowing about Helen Garner, yet all of a sudden I see references to her everywhere. "One of Australia's most beloved writers." "Her writing is sublime."
This book of essays covers a span of 15 years and many topics. One gets a sense of the breadth of Garner's output: movie reviews, court reports, cultural and political commentary, and essays or diary fragments of a more personal, even deeply personal, nature. There is something very consistent about her voice no matter the topic, and she is a writer who is always recording her own emotions - her own 'take' on things. It's that voice, as much as the precision and at times delightedly surprising use of language, which makes her writing so distinctive. And yes, so "beloved." I get it now; I absolutely do.
I would guess, from reading this collection, that her forte is non-fiction writing, but several of my Australian friends have urged me to read her fictional book The Spare Room. So that one is next on my list, and I shall be expanding my Helen Garner repertoire. I have enjoyed this collection enough to regret the fact that her work is not more widely available in the second-hand bookshops in the UK which are my primary hunting ground. Perhaps those readers who own her books are loathe to part with them? ...more
This book of essays is divided into four seasons, beginning with winter - much like the documentary of the Hampstead Ponds which was released in the sThis book of essays is divided into four seasons, beginning with winter - much like the documentary of the Hampstead Ponds which was released in the summer of 2018 and I saw at the Hampstead Everyman cinema in the winter of 2019. You don’t absolutely need to have an experience of the Hampstead Ponds or ‘wild swimming’ to be interested by this book, but it helps, I think.
Although the contributors vary in age, outlook, nationality and even gender - one of the writers now identifies as trans or non-binary - the same themes tend to come up again and again. The importance of nature, especially in the metropolis of London. The need for courage. The feeling of belonging to a special experience that is both historical and timeless. The feeling of being challenged, soothed but also ‘held’ by the water. The duality of becoming both more and less aware of your body - of its pains, its imperfections, its possibilities.
It takes a bit of courage to swim in the Ponds, even in the summer when the water is relatively warm (or at least not freezing). Some people are afraid of the cold water, others of the murky depths. When I first met the challenging of swimming there, I was thrilled; but there is still the sense, touched on in several of the essays, that one needs to be a year-round swimmer to fully experience both the magic and the challenge and the healing nature of the Ponds. Three of the essayists are famous writers (Margaret Drabble, Deborah Moggach and Esther Freud), but only Freud has actually broken the mental/physical barrier of swimming in the winter. Her essay is the first in the book:
”It’s well-known that swimming in cold water has physical benefits but there are others that are harder to define. ... Here, my sense of myself was altered, the cold too shocking to focus on sorrow and confusion when the useful thing was courage, and when my heart had steadied, and I realised I was not actually going to die, the exhilaration hit me and I felt dizzyingly grateful to be alive.
One theme, which I identified with very much, was that swimming in the Ladies Pond becomes a way of ‘belonging’ - to the city of London, to the storied history of the Heath, to a community of women. So many people come to London looking for something, or hoping to find something, but the impersonal qualities of the city are both liberating and overwhelming. Sharlene Teo, a writer originally from Singapore, titles her essay “Echolocation”, and it is one of my favourites in the collection. She touches on so many of the themes that the Ladies Pond seems to inspire, but there was something particularly pithy about this observation: ”Keep moving to stay warm. This directive sounds like life advice.”
The ability to sketch a scene in only two or three pages - and not only to invest it with a universality, but also to underscore it with an elegant prThe ability to sketch a scene in only two or three pages - and not only to invest it with a universality, but also to underscore it with an elegant profundity or insight - is surely a rare gift. Jan Struther, whose fictional ‘alter-ego’ was Caroline Miniver, is remembered primarily for the popular essays she wrote for The Times in the lead-up and early years of World War II. While Mrs. Miniver never pretended to be of any other social milieu than that of the upper-middle classes, she had a tenderness of insight that enabled her to be a wonderful representative not just of Britishness, but of human society in its most ‘civilised’ form. In one of her essays, she describes her delight at meeting a charwoman who possesses “that most endearing of qualities, an abundant zest for life.” The reader feels that Mrs. Miniver, and her creator too, has that same zest - and because of it, finds a rare appreciation in not only the quotidian, even mundane, aspects of life, but also the more extraordinary ones.
This Virago edition of the Mrs. Miniver essays and ‘wartime letters’ is in some respects a dragonfly preserved in amber - describing, as it does, a family’s life in London before the war - but so many of the observations about the seasons, the weather, marriage, children growing up, holidays and rituals still give the reader all the pleasure of recogntion and shared experience. I wrote down pages and pages of favourite lines, but in isolation none of them completely catch the cleverness and magic of Struther’s writing. Still, a random selection of favourites are shared below:
”Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.”
“To be entirely at leisure for one day is to be for one day an immortal.”
“Her normal life pleased her so well that she was half afraid to step out of its frame in case one day she should find herself unable to get back.”
“It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch.”
. . . “A certain degree of un-understanding (not mis-, but un-) is the only possible sanctuary which one human being can offer to another in the midst of the devastating intimacy of a happy marriage.”
“Really, it was lamentable, the unevenness of most married couples. Like those gramophone records with a superb tune on one side and a negligible fill-up. On the other which you had to take whether you wanted it or not.”
“For in order that the game of dinner-table conversation may be played to its best advantage, it is essential that every player should have a free hand. He must at liberty to assume disguises, to balance precariously in untenable positions, to sacrifice the letter of the truth to the spirit of it. And somehow the partner’s presence makes this difficult.”
“ . . . and she wondered why it had never occurred to her before that you cannot successfully navigate the future unless you keep always framed beside it a small, clear image of the past.”
“She went back into the house. It had already begun to acquire that out-at-grass, off-duty look which houses get as soon as their owners go away; it was quite obviously preparing to take off its stays and slip into something loose.”
“Enchanted, she put the incident into her pocket for Clem. It jostled, a bright pebble, against several others: she had had a rewarding day. And Clem, who had driven down to the country to lunch with a client, would be pretty certain to come back with some good stuff, too. This was the cream of marriage, the nightly turning out of th eday’s pocketful of memories, this deft habitual sharing of two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears. It gave you, in a sense, almost a double life: though never, on the other hand, quite a single one.”...more
In this book of essays - positioned as a ‘response to George Orwell’s 1946 essay Why I Write - author Deborah Levy has removed herself to an isolated In this book of essays - positioned as a ‘response to George Orwell’s 1946 essay Why I Write - author Deborah Levy has removed herself to an isolated spot outside of Palma, Majorca in order to contemplate a crossroads in her life. This particular crossroads seems to have something to do with the breakdown of her marriage, although she refers to that only obliquely. Instead, she talks about crying uncontrollably on elevators and the ways in which the ‘twenty-first-century Neo-Patriarchy’ make women feel miserable. When a Chinese shop-keeper asks her a question to which he already knows the answer: ‘You’re a writer aren’t you?’, Levy feels unable to answer a question at once so simple and yet so difficult.
”Anyway, it would have been such a long answer; something like this: ‘When a female writer walks a female character into the centre of her literary enquiry (or a forest) and this character starts to project shadow and light all over the place, she will have to find a language that is in part to do with learning how to become a subject rather than a delusion, and in part to do with unknotting the ways in which she has been put together by the Societal System in the first place.”
This gives a flavour of the Levy style of writing and thinking. She takes certain motifs and ideas and she plays with them and twists them around. But if you sift through all of the thoughts and information in this book of four essays, it comes down to this: what does it mean to be a women, and especially what does it mean to be a woman who is also a mother, and can a woman really claim the independent physical and mental space needed to become (or continue to be) a writer? ‘Sheer egoism’ is the term that Orwell used, and Levy borrows it and riffs on what is implied in it as well, drawing on feminist thinkers like Marguerite Duras and Julie Kristeva to underscore her own suppositions.
I read Levy’s The Cost of Living prior to reading this essay/memoir - and that book spoke to me more. This book describes being ‘stuck’ and wondering how to get unstuck, while The Cost of Living (the second book in what meant to be a memoir trilogy of essays) details literally and metaphorically the hard climb Levy is undergoing to reclaim her independent writing self. This grouping of essays has its strong points - and I would particularly highlight the ‘Historical Impulse’ essay in which Levy describes some of the confusing and disturbing events of her apartheid era childhood in South Africa - but some of the content felt trivial and disconnected to me. Her ideas about motherhood and exile have more clarity in the latter book. It’s a quick book to read, but I did also feel that one could read it over and over again before properly gleaning all of the possible meaning from it. ...more
From the vantage point of his late 60s, and with a whole lot of both life and writing behind him, Richard Russo has put together an essay collection tFrom the vantage point of his late 60s, and with a whole lot of both life and writing behind him, Richard Russo has put together an essay collection that could be characterised as both musings and advice on the subject of writing. Russo quotes Ann Patchett several times, and to my mind (and possibly his own), she is the better essay writer. She writes very tight well-constructed essays and so many lines are just perfectly balanced in an epigram-like style. Russo has a more meandering style. “Getting Good” is the longest essay in the collection, and probably the most important one, too. Russo makes various points in this essay about the long-haul of “getting good” as a writer, with many analogous asides along the way. I did feel, though, that much of his own philosophy about the craft, practice and calling of being a writer was encapsulated in this one. Other essays deal with his enthusiasms and favourite writers: Charles Dickens and Mark Twain both merit their own essay, and John Steinbeck gets several mentions throughout. One of the most interesting essays was “Imagining Jenny,” in which Russo comes to terms with the imaginative and moral challenge of accepting his longtime friend Jim as a woman named Jenny. Russo talks about point of view in this essay, and he also deals with the important subject of point of view in “What Frogs Think: A Defense of Omniscience.” This essay was one of my favourites, and I think it is definitely the most useful for the person who wants to be a (better) writer. You can get a real flavour of what he is like as a teacher in this one.
Although many of the essays feel more like conversations than tightly constructed arguments, Russo has a warm voice with a lot of humour in it. I enjoyed this book, although it was not something I read with urgency. (I described Russo as having a meandering style, and it took me about 6 weeks to meander through the collection.) Note: I purchased my first edition, signed copy while travelling in Maine (Russo’s home state).
”Destiny is forged in moments like these. Curiosity and discovery in Manichaean balance with despair and self-loathing. Writing, like life itself, is difficult. Many truly talented people give up every day.” (From “The Destiny Thief”)
“My writing students used to ask, How do you make things so funny? To which I usually replied, I don’t make anything funny. I’m simply reporting the world as I find it.”
“The problem for a writer with a genuinely comic imagination is not ‘making things funny’ or even locating enough funny things in the world to write about. Rather, the problem - and it’s the same for any artist - is getting other people to see things as you do, to honour the truth of your idiosyncratic way of seeing.” (From “The Gravestone and the Commode”)
“But hunger remembered is not the same as hunger felt. Indeed, for some that’s the final cruel joke - that hard-won mastery of craft coincides almost to the minute with passion’s ebb. Art, offered shoulders to stand on, often as not demurs.” (From “Getting Good”)
“To my mind, an even-deeper mystery than the secrets we keep is how our hearts incline toward this person and not that one, how one soul selects another for its company, how we recognize companion souls as we make our way through the world in awkward bodies that betray us at every turn. This is not the special dilemma of the transgendered person; it’s all of us.” (From “Imagining Jenny”)
This delightful book is the perfect gift for book-lovers - particularly of the Bookstagram kind. It’s a visual feast of book quotations and book slogaThis delightful book is the perfect gift for book-lovers - particularly of the Bookstagram kind. It’s a visual feast of book quotations and book slogans and book illustrations and book photos. If you agree with L.M Montgomery that you are ‘simply a book drunkard’, you will undoubtedly enjoy this book - and it may also inspire those who have not yet made reading a part of their daily routine. Essays from Guinevere de la Mare, Maura Kelly, Ann Patchett and Gretchen Rubin all pay homage to the idea that a reading habit enriches one’s life. It was just ‘preaching to the choir’ as far as I was concerned, but still a much appreciated gift from my book friends Kathy and Shelbi Starnes....more
There are many people I would like to 'gift' with a copy of this beautiful little book - which proves all the points which Macfarlane makes in his essThere are many people I would like to 'gift' with a copy of this beautiful little book - which proves all the points which Macfarlane makes in his essay. Of course he means that reading is a 'gift' (metaphorically speaking) to the reader, but he is speaking in a very literal sense, too. At the beginning, he connects his love of literature, adventure and book giving with the friendship of an American called Don - who Macfarlane met when they were both teaching in China. Don was generous about sharing his book loves, and Macfarlane was both an enthusiastic recipient and an apt pupil. In particular, Macfarlane talks about receiving Patrick Leigh Fermor's adventure/memoir titled A Time for Gifts, and how it changed his life (and perhaps also the course of his career).
"A Time of Gifts is filled with gifts and acts of giving - it is a book, we might say, that is rich with generosity."
I admire Macfarlane as a writer, but in this essay, I also came to admire him with his generous book-sharing - an inclination that I wholly approve of. He mentions that in addition to A Time for Gifts, the books he has most often shared with others are Lolita, Blood Meridian, The Peregrine and The Living Mountain. I've read only one of these, and of course I'm now wild to read the other four: starting with A Time for Gifts, a longtime TBR book of mine. ...more
Eudora Welty begins this memoir - which had its origins in a series of lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1983 - with a snapshot of her parenEudora Welty begins this memoir - which had its origins in a series of lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1983 - with a snapshot of her parents. The scene is early morning, and young Eudora is buttoning her shoes in the hallway while her mother is frying bacon downstairs and her father is shaving upstairs. Together, they are trading musical phrases back and forth - one of them humming, and the other whistling. There is something about this scene - the harmony of the different but complimentary parts, the cosiness and warmth, the sense of fun - that really does set the scene for a deeply felt book. The memoir is dedicated to Welty's parents, and all of the best bits are inspired by their sayings and doings and their lives before Jackson, Mississippi. (Her father grew up on a farm in Ohio, while her mother was from the mountains of West Virginia.) Welty divides her memoir into three parts: Listening, Learning to See and Finding a Voice. I thought that the first two parts, which mostly dwell on childhood memories, were by far the strongest. Welty has a distinctive voice - in her writing, and no doubt in her speaking - and I found her reminiscences pure pleasure to read. I have a highly ambivalent feeling about the South, about places like Mississippi, but Welty illuminates the culture in a truly beautiful way. ...more
I was first assigned this book as part of a Young Adult literature class I was taking for my Master's degree in reading education. I have a real soft I was first assigned this book as part of a Young Adult literature class I was taking for my Master's degree in reading education. I have a real soft spot for books about books and personal essays about the all-absorbing pleasure of reading. I could identify with Anna Quindlen: not only had we read and loved so many of the same books, and been formed by them, but at some fundamental level we are both people who would rather be reading than doing almost anything else. I suspect that 98% of the world judges us, but the other 2% (the truly book-obsessed) completely understand the compulsion.** Like Quindlen, I was fortunate to grow up in a happy home in a fairly idyllic, child-centred neighbourhood; and yet I was always want to 'escape' to somewhere else . . . and always wanting to live inside my books.
It was quite a surprise when this book - such a pleasurable reading experience for me - was panned by the majority of the class. This was quite a few years ago, but I seem to remember words like 'smug' and 'privileged' being lobbed at Quindlen. On rereading this book, I still like it very much; except for Quindlen's Catholic education, which I did not share, it rings absolutely true. If you are a fan of Quindlen's writing, and of books about book-love, I suspect you will enjoy it, too. The ten themed reading lists at the back are a definite bonus.
"Reading lists are arbitrary and capricious, but most people like them, and so do I. My most satisfying secondhand experiences as a reader have come through recommending books, especially to my children." Anna Quindlen
** These statistics are entirely made up by me. I'm not sure if 2% is too high or too low, but my gut instinct is that it is not much more than that. When I was teaching, I did meet some other avid readers and book-lovers - but they were by no means the norm....more
You need to know that The Abundance is a collection of essays which span at least twenty years of writing - and include selections from seven differenYou need to know that The Abundance is a collection of essays which span at least twenty years of writing - and include selections from seven different books, but primarily from Teaching a Stone to Talk, An American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and For the Time Being. If you have most or all of those books, there isn't much point in buying this one (unless you are a mega-fan, of course); but if you have never read Annie Dillard, this collection is a brilliant place to start. You will get a great sense of her material, her voice, her concerns and her preoccupations.
Dillard is a poetic essayist who examines, primarily, the natural world - but one gets the sense that her intellectual curiosity and interests are broad. There is a lot of science, a lot of history, plenty of geography and astronomy and botany, and so many interesting observations of insect and animal life in Dillard's musings. There is also much religion and philosophy, because everything that Dillard writes about is philosophical to some extent. She is always exploring consciousness and wondering why we are here - and what's it all about; life, I mean. Her preoccupations are 'seeing' and being properly alive to the world around us. If you are not of a similar philosophical bent, I can imagine you might find her a bit barmy. Her essays tend to meander - beautifully so, to my mind - but she does like to connect not obviously 'like' things. In the introduction to this collection, Geoff Dyer says that Dillard "is a writer of exceptional clarity, even when we are struggling to grasp the meaning of what is being said so clearly, so brightly." I think this assessment is spot-on. I didn't understand everything, but like good poetry, I just liked the sound of the words. I read this book with a pencil in hand, and I cannot think of when I have underlined or starred so many passages and phrases in a book. You can read these essays over and over again, and probably always find new meaning in them....more
I hesitated about whether to describe this as a book of essays or short stories. Canetti certainly presents them as realistic sketches, but I cannot hI hesitated about whether to describe this as a book of essays or short stories. Canetti certainly presents them as realistic sketches, but I cannot help but feel that they were also shaped into little stories by the author. Mind you, if all of the details were just as he experienced them, it makes the book even more fascinating! Canetti starts off in an amusing way, with a story about three unfortunate encounters with camels. Some of my favourite lines in the collection were in this essay. The next essay is about the souks, and what they are to the commercial life of Marrakech - and how the particular negotiating style of the souk is an art form in itself. I'm not sure when Canetti visited - at some point he refers to meeting a survivor of WWI - but the book itself was published in 1967. Quite a bit of the book is devoted to the Jewish section of Marrakech - quite small now, and not much in evidence during my recent visit there. Because Canetti is descended from Sephardic Jews, this was of particular interest to him. One of the most intriguing essays was about the Chinese-French female owner of a bar - and its unusual regulars. There were several interesting insights here about the Glaoui family - who collaborated with the French to overthrow the old regime of Sultan Mohammed V. The book ends up with a kind of symbolic essay to the power of endurance - embodied in the most pitiful of beggars. None of the parts are more than sketches, but it does give you a flavour of Moroccan culture with its rich mix of Berber, Arabic and French influence and its Muslim faith. Canetti's writing style has a graceful simplicity to it which made me eager to read other of his books....more
I have dipped into this book over the years (5 or so) that I have owned it, but this is the first time I have read it in its entirety. Highly recommenI have dipped into this book over the years (5 or so) that I have owned it, but this is the first time I have read it in its entirety. Highly recommended for book-lovers, book-hoarders and people who love literary trivia. Also recommended for people who love to make lists and comparisons, as one of the 'tasks' that author Susan Hills sets for herself is not only to spend a year reading only from her own bookshelves, but also to attempt to refine her books to an essential 40. We are what we read; absolutely Hill believes this, and so do I. I felt it was a privilege, really, to get an intimate glimpse into such a well-read mind. Some of the authors she discussed were already favourites of mine, while others were unknown to me. One of the most moving chapters was primarily about Benjamin Britten; music, words and memory are often intertwined, and fascinatingly so in these reminiscences. ...more
I don't know how many times I've read this collection of essays about the love of books, but it has been many. Sometimes I just dip into one of my favI don't know how many times I've read this collection of essays about the love of books, but it has been many. Sometimes I just dip into one of my favourites: "Marrying Libraries," "Never Do That To A Book," or "You Are There" -- but today, I ended up rereading the entire thing. This book is an absolute must for the book lover, the book hoarder, the word collector and the grammar/punctuation pedant. Fadiman's writing style is just so perfectly polished, and I love the confiding warmth of her voice. We are the sum of the books we read, and if you are a reader, your life and your reading life are always intertwined. I feel that I know some of Fadiman's books, and marginalia, as well as I know my own.
Recommended for absolutely everyone who loves books....more
I have read this beloved cookbook so many times that as I skim through favourite bits they almost feel like my own well-worn stories. I associate thisI have read this beloved cookbook so many times that as I skim through favourite bits they almost feel like my own well-worn stories. I associate this book, entirely, with my first year in England. I had not long been married, and I was pregnant. I knew almost no one, but I was lucky in my next-door neighbours. We lived side by side in a Victorian semi-detached cottage, divided in the front garden by a red rose hedge. The two young daughters of the neighbouring family had the long blonde hair and pink cheeks of little fairy princesses, and they seemed so sweet that I was delighted to be having a baby daughter myself. Marilyn, the mother, had an extensive collection of paperback novels that she was willing to share and I remember gorging on the novels of Mary Wesley, Joanna Trollope and Rosamund Pilcher. For an idyllic two months I had nothing to do but read, cook, take walks and contemplate my approaching motherhood. I'm sure not everyone would enjoy this state of solitary suspension, but I loved it. I probably would have felt quite alone if I didn't have all of these fictional friends, but I did -- and I also had Colwin's cookbooks, which I cooked from extensively.
I love the way Colwin writes, and her writing transports me to a world which feels safe, cosy and civilized. This is an example of a scene she creates: "I had my first taste of black bean soup on a cold winter Saturday when I was sixteen years old. A friend, home for the holidays from a very glamorous college, gave a lunch party and invited me. Seated at her table, I felt that I -- mired in high school and barely passing geometry -- had died and entered a heaven in which people played the cello, stayed up at night discussing Virginia Woolf, saw plays by Jean-Paul Sartre, and went to Paris for their junior years abroad. But it was the black bean soup that changed my life."
We agree, entirely, on a philosophy of food and cooking. We also have many of the same comfort foods: black bean soup, fried chicken, roast chicken, biscuits, gingerbread, apple pie and rice pudding. I have bought nearly every cookbook she ever recommended, although I've never loved any of them as much as I love hers....more
How many people own books of essays or short stories . . . and they start them, enjoy a few, and then abandon them? Not for any good reason, mind, butHow many people own books of essays or short stories . . . and they start them, enjoy a few, and then abandon them? Not for any good reason, mind, but just because there is something about essays that allows you to pick them up and put them down. Unlike the experience of reading a novel, there is no plottish imperative to read all the way to the end. I read about three-quarters of this book in the fall, and despite absolutely adoring Patchett's writing, I skipped a few of the essays. Today, for some reason, I decided to polish them off; and then began rereading certain essays and skimming others. Again, I was struck by Patchett's great warmth and humour -- her observations and insight -- her sensible good advice -- and her extremely well-turned sentences. Anyone who is interested in becoming a writer should read this book . . . there is much good advice here. Anyone who is interested in books, bookstores, friendship, marriage, caring for elderly family members, the police force, travelling by RV, solitude, intellectual freedom, opera and dogs will also find food for thought in these beautifully crafted essays.
Note: I bought this book at The Lift, an independent gift/bookstore on 19th St. in the Heights, Houston, Texas. Money well spent! It seemed worth mentioning, as one of Patchett's essays is on the independent bookstore -- Parnassus -- which she part-owns in Nashville....more
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