Tag: diaries

Review 1573: One Woman’s Year

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

I was delighted to receive One Woman’s Year from Persephone Press as a review copy. I hadn’t heard of Stella Martin Currey before, but I shall be looking out for her books.

One Woman’s Year is a journal but with a very specific structure. Each chapter is for one month and begins with a quote from a 1677 book called British Merlin, which seems to be a sort of almanac. Then there is an article on some subject, often related to the month. Following this are the following sections: ‘Most Liked Job,” “Most Disliked Job,” “Recipe,” “Excursion,” and “Anthology.” The short pieces often contain amusing anecdotes. “Excursion” is always a suggestion of an interesting outing to make with children, and “Anthology” is quotes from books and poetry. All this is nicely illustrated with woodcuts at the beginning of each chapter and elsewhere.

Although Currey is a lot more domesticated than I am, I found this book light and easy to read. I skipped over most of the recipes but may try others. All in all, I found this book charming, quick to read and entertaining. She sounds like a good mom.

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Review 1392: A Very Private Eye

~ whatmeread ~ 3 Comments

I am not much for reading letters and diaries, because I like story telling, even in nonfiction, rather than glimpses of a life. So, A Very Private Eye, a collection of Barbara Pym’s diary entries and letters, was probably not the best choice for me. Still, a good friend gave me the book, so I decided to read it.

The book was both worse and better than I expected. It begins with Pym’s diary entries as she starts Oxford. In no time, she has embroiled herself with Henry Harvey, who treats her shamefully. Unfortunately, instead of telling him to bugger off like he deserves, she records her heart-rendings, which continue for years.

Next comes a series of letters to Harvey and his wife, and to other friends. I found the letters to the Harveys excruciating. She gives herself the identity of the spinster, Miss Pym, and writes about herself in the third person in a false, jokey tone with constant reminders of her single status. Very obvious. I would think the wife would have been wary.

I was just about to give up on her at around 100 pages in, when the book gets into the war and becomes much more interesting. Similarly, it gets more interesting as she ages, although she refers to a lot of people whose role in her life is not explained. (That would have been helpful, although each section begins with an explanatory introduction by the editors.)

She went through about ten years when no one would publish her books because they were no longer thought to be marketable. Then two prominent literary figures independently listed her as one of Britain’s most underrated authors. Her next books were published, and she was eventually shortlisted for the Booker Prize. I felt it was sad that this happened for her just a few years before she died.

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Day 1140: Diaries 1907-1914: Prodigious Youth

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

Cover for Diaries 1907-1914I am not really a diary reader. Even Samuel Pepys was boring to me. So, when my good friend recommended Sergey Prokofiev’s diairies, I wasn’t buying it. As a historian, she finds diaries a lot more enthralling than I do. In any case, she bought me the book, a whopping 800 pages long, and I made a serious attempt to read it.

Let me first say that if you enjoy reading diaries, you will probably enjoy this book a lot more than I did. Prokofiev was a prolific diarist, as is obvious when you consider that this volume only covers seven years. He also wrote very well. But in 1907, he is only sixteen years old. Although he is a prodigy in music and extremely intelligent, he is a teenager. His diaries are concerned with his triumphs in school, music, and chess; his preferences for his female schoolmates, which change daily; and his verbal scoring against his friends and instructors. All of his enthusiasms center around how well he did, how much better than others. He comes off as a competitive little jerk at worst (I wanted to use a different word) and an immature boy at best.

Half of the book covers 1913, which should be a momentous year because of Russia’s slide toward war, but I only made it to 1909. This is probably a great book for someone else, and maybe I’ll try it again later. I would have skipped a few years, but he constantly mentions people, and I was sure I wouldn’t know who half of them were if I skipped ahead.

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