On Trying To Keep Still
On Trying To Keep Still
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Summary
From the award-winning, fabulously unique writer - comes a most unusual series of journeys from Lapland to New Zealand to Somerset. Now in paperback. 'A luminous, brilliantly witty account of the trials of seeking stillnes' Joanna Kavenna, Telegraph
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On Trying To Keep Still by Jenny Diski
'I was so absorbed by her writing it was unreal . . . I find myself hungry to find the next morsel of who Jenny was and what her life was like' EMILIA CLARKE (on Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told?) Jenny Diski's attempt to keep still and mentally idle resulted in a year in which she travelled to New Zealand, spent two months almost alone in a cottage in the country and visited the Sámi people of Lapland. Diski fails to keep still and, like the philosopher Montaigne, keeps a record of her ramblings both mental and physical hoping as he did in time to make her mind ashamed of itself. Interspersed with ill-tempered descriptions of these trips are digressions on the subject of her sore foot; her childhood desire for 'a condition', thoughts about growing older, spiders, fundamentalism and the problems of keeping warm.
While much of the collection revolves around Diski's attempt to exercise her stupor to its fullest degree, there is nothing lazy about her writingCombining philosophy with travelogue and personal memoir - in particular, memories of her difficult childhood - On Trying to Keep Still is unflaggingly engaging. It is also very funny * Sophie Ratcliffe in the New Statesman *
Sometimes, as though she can't help it, Diski slips very enjoyably into a travel-writer mode, but On Trying to Keep Still is really a voyage round the author's head. It's a brave and moving admission of a way of life that society isn't geared up to cope * The Herald *
Diski epitomises the pleasure of travelling alone... She seeks a mental inertia yet her book proves that, even when idling, the mind is always at work, remembering, recording, revising * Mark Sanderson, Sunday Telegraph *
This is unique, and wholly wonderful * Stephanie Cross, Daily Telegraph *
Sometimes, as though she can't help it, Diski slips very enjoyably into a travel-writer mode, but On Trying to Keep Still is really a voyage round the author's head. It's a brave and moving admission of a way of life that society isn't geared up to cope * The Herald *
Diski epitomises the pleasure of travelling alone... She seeks a mental inertia yet her book proves that, even when idling, the mind is always at work, remembering, recording, revising * Mark Sanderson, Sunday Telegraph *
This is unique, and wholly wonderful * Stephanie Cross, Daily Telegraph *
Jenny Diski is the author of eight novels including ONLY HUMAN and AFTER THESE THINGS plus two memoirs: Skating to Antarctica and Stranger on a Train. She lives in Cambridge.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781844080168 |
| ISBN 10 | 1844080161 |
| Title | On Trying To Keep Still |
| Author | Jenny Diski |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2007-03-01 |
| Number of pages | 320 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |