An engrossing study of seven generations of Juliet Nicolson’s literary family
Scroll down to read text below 
“Nothing has really happened unless it is written down,” the author’s father was fond of telling her, quoting Virginia Woolf whose letters he edited. This engrossing book charts seven generations of a family who were obsessive documenters of their lives through diaries, letters, memoirs and autobiographical novels. But Nicolson – the granddaughter of Vita Sackville-West – probes the premise too, questioning the subjectivity of memory, the fleeting nature of occurrences, and experiences beyond the remit of expression. Focusing on the women in her family, she grapples with that which has still neither been written down or said, eloquently exploring the silences.
Nicolson notices many patterns emerging through the generations, some that she finds disturbing – secrets that parents kept from children, a fear of intimacy, a “lack of self-worth and self-belief”, a slipping into loneliness and isolation, and “numbing unhappiness in an addictive dependence on drink, money and sex. MORE
Nicolson notices many patterns emerging through the generations, some that she finds disturbing – secrets that parents kept from children, a fear of intimacy, a “lack of self-worth and self-belief”, a slipping into loneliness and isolation, and “numbing unhappiness in an addictive dependence on drink, money and sex. MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment