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Jump to navigationJump to searchWhat to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness by Candia McWilliam (view source)
Revision as of 14:24, 30 September 2011
, 14:24, 30 September 2011no edit summary
For the variety of her life and contacts with writers and artist, the recreation of family life on the Scottish island of Colonsay or in Edinburgh, the twists and turns of her two marriages and relations with her children are all suffused by an intelligent, well informed and, most importantly, fundamentally literary mind grappling with these issues. The books which have been her life are also the lens through which she tries in her darkness to understand what and why, how it came to be like this, and how to adjust. And that is the enduring significance and beauty of the book, not the solutions but the stature of the search for understanding.
Memoirs of literary life are not uncommon, but Susan Hill's [[Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill|Howards End is on the Landing]] is an unusual take, when the author decides not to buy a book for a year, but reread, and thus relive, her old collection. Much more challenging, but also witty, wise and often completely hilarious, is [[Untold Stories by Alan Bennett]] , the continuing medication meditation on his past and the people and books that surround it. Bennett was writing this as he was under the 50/50 prognosis of survival from cancer which makes for poignant comparison with McWilliam.
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