| Title | : | In My Mind's Eye: A Thought Diary |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0571340911 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780571340910 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 336 |
| Publication | : | First published September 4, 2018 |
So begins this extraordinary book, a collection of diary pieces that Jan Morris wrote for the Financial Times over the course of 2017.
A former soldier and journalist, and one of the great chroniclers of the world for over half a century, she writes here in her characteristically intimate voice - funny, perceptive, wise, touching, wicked, scabrous, and above all, kind - about her thoughts on the world, and her own place in it as she turns ninety. From cats to cars, travel to home, music to writing, it's a cornucopia of delights from a unique literary figure.
In My Mind's Eye: A Thought Diary Reviews
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I’ve been an admirer of Jan Morris’s autobiographical and travel writing for 15 years or more. In this diary covering 2017 into early 2018, parts of which were originally published in the Financial Times and the Welsh-language literary newspaper O’r Pedwar Gwynt, we get a glimpse into her life in her early nineties. It was a momentous time in the world at large but a fairly quiet and reflective span for her personally. Though each day’s headlines seem to herald chaos and despair, she’s a blithe spirit – good-natured about the ravages of old age and taking delight in the routines of daily one-mile walks down the lane and errands in local Welsh towns with her beloved partner Elizabeth, who’s in the early stages of dementia.
There are thrilling little moments, though, when a placid domestic life (a different kind of marmalade with breakfast each day of the week!) collides with exotic past experiences, and suddenly we’re plunged into memories of travels in Swaziland and India. Back when she was still James, Morris served in World War II, was the Times journalist reporting from the first ascent of Everest, and wrote a monolithic three-volume history of the British Empire. She took her first airplane flight 70 years ago, and is nostalgic for the small-town America she first encountered in the 1950s. Hold all that up against her current languid existence among the books and treasures of Trefan Morys and it seems she’s lived enough for many lifetimes.
There’s a good variety of topics here, ranging from current events to Morris’s love of cats; I particularly liked the fragments of doggerel. However, as is often the case with diaries, read too many entries in one go and you may start to find the sequence of (non-)events tedious. Each piece is only a page or two, so I tried never to read many more than 10 pages at a time. Even so, I noticed that the plight of zoo animals, clearly a hobby-horse, gets mentioned several times. It seemed to me a strange issue to get worked up about, especially as enthusiastic meat-eating and killing mice with traps suggest that she’s not applying a compassionate outlook consistently.
In the end, though, kindness is Morris’s cardinal virtue, and despite minor illness, telephone scams and a country that looks to be headed to the dogs, she’s encouraged by the small acts of kindness she meets with from friends and strangers alike. Like Diana Athill (whose
Alive, Alive Oh! this resembles), I think of Morris as a national treasure, and I was pleased to spend some time seeing things from her perspective.
Some favorite lines:“If I set out in the morning for my statutory thousand daily paces up the lane, … I enjoy the fun of me, the harmless conceit, the guileless complexity and the merriment. When I go walking in the evening, on the other hand, … I shall recognize what I don’t like about myself – selfishness, self-satisfaction, foolish self-deceit and irritability. Morning pride, then, and evening shame.” (from Day 99)
“Good or bad, virile or senile, there’s no life like the writer’s life.” (from Day 153)
Originally published on my blog,
Bookish Beck. -
Disappointing! Apparently, it was felt that Morris had already covered gender identity and travel writing thoroughly, so this essay collection features "thoughts of a curmudgeon" mostly. Well-written, but I felt not particularly "unique" (differentiated), 2.5 stars "meh" read, rounded up.
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A "thought diary" is a fascinating idea for a structure of a book. I'm a big fan of Morris's work.
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I think of myself as reasonably well-read, although admittedly not so much in political, historical or travel writing. And having split my life nearly evenly between the US and UK, I also pride myself on being able to grasp much of the cultural and linguistic idiom of both countries. So I will ‘fess up, with chagrin and even a touch of shame, that when Faber & Faber sent me a copy of Jan Morris’s latest memoir (described by her as a “Thought Diary”) I didn’t really know she was - and was entirely unaware of her long and distinguished career as a journalist and travel writer.
I decided to read the book first, and Google later. I wanted to come to it fresh; with no expectations or pre-conceived allowances. And in my honest opinion, this is a easily digested read which does yield a few pleasures. Morris splits her daily mini-essays fairly evenly between deploring what the world is coming to (most often referring to the political and moral decline of both the US and the UK), and lighter fare (cats, music, nature, walking, Welsh culture and random musings). And in the end, allowances do have to be made because, as Morris frequently tells her audience, she is over 90 years of age and fully aware of the decline of various powers. This is a roundabout way of saying that this book, whilst pleasant, is pretty lightweight.
In the course of reading Morris’s Thought Diary - recorded in the year 2017, so the political/historical events referred to in it are still reasonably fresh - I couldn’t help but glean some knowledge of Morris’s distinguished life and career. But I was still startled, upon reading the Wikipedia entry on her, to discover that Jan Morris used to be James Humphrey Morris and had undergone sex reassignment surgery in 1972. This was undertaken in Morocco , rather than in the UK, because Morris refused to divorce her wife Elizabeth Tuckniss. Should I have known? I suppose I was tipped off by a few big clues: several mentions from her past (being a chorister at Christ Church College in Oxford as a child, Sandhurst in the 1940s, a Mount Everest climbing expedition in the 1950s) did register with some surprise with regard to her gender. But my brief thought - were women allowed into Sandhurst then? - did not cause me to naturally leap to the conclusion that Jan Morris is a trans woman.
Not a word or whisper of this is mentioned in the Thought Diary, although she mentions several children (in fact, she had 5) and grandchildren and freely refers to her female partner Elizabeth. But I have many female friends who have fallen in love with other women in mid-life and left husbands and long-term marriages. Assumptions are made, and they are often not the correct ones.
Does it matter? Should it affect my thinking about the work?
In the end, it doesn’t really . . .
Although I cannot help but think that if I only had one Morris book to choose from, it would hardly be this one. Happily, that is not the case; and having been introduced to this fascinating person, I will certainly seek out more of Morris’s writing. Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is a title which definitely appeals. -
The Traveler in Winter
Review of the Liveright hardcover edition (2018)
Journalist, historian and travel writer Jan Morris (né James Morris)
passed away November 20, 2020 at the age of 94. Still writing into her 90's, her current final books are the diary memoirs In My Mind's Eye (2018) and
Thinking Again (2020). There is a hint (in Day 173 of Mind's Eye) that further books are yet to come via publisher Faber & Faber, as Morris refers to 2 books "in the stocks," and one that is being held back to be published posthumously.
Over a career spanning 7 decades, she wrote 40 books after starting with a major scoop from being the sole journalist accompanying the Edmund Hillary Everest expedition in 1953. Morris' coded message (sent by runner from the base camp to a local village) of the victorious ascent by Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzig Norgay reached London, England in time to be announced on the day of Elizabeth II's coronation.
Coronation Everest (1956) documented those events. Travel writing made up the most of her career with
Venice (1960) and
Trieste and The Meaning of Nowhere (2001) considered to be two of the favourites. In the 1970s, James took the then radical step of sex reassignment surgery to become Jan, events documented in
Conundrum (1974).
After such a dramatic life and career, the diary entries of a nonagenarian might seem to be a bit of a let down, but not for me. Morris is still entertaining, humorous and perceptive about daily life and news and determined to be positive and kind despite the trials of old age. Wife/partner Elizabeth is sinking into dementia but is always up for a ride or a walk. Morris herself does a thousand pace daily walk to keep fit while observing the local Welsh countryside. That and a daily breakfast of tea, cornflakes (actually Fruit & Nut muesli) and toast & marmalade (7 varieties, 1 for each day of the week) seem to be her secret for longevity.
Anyway, I found this to be thoroughly enjoyable, but as I am a senior myself who has also been caregiver to relatives with dementia and organ failure issues, it struck very close to home for me and that is likely a prime reason for the 5-star rating. Younger readers may not be quite able to identify so well.
Thanks for Liisa, Martin & family for the always thoughtful book gift!
Trivia and Link
In Mind's Eye, Morris regularly refers to travels and repairs associated with her beloved car, a Honda Civic Type-R 2006 model. However, most editions of the book show Morris posing proudly on the cover with what must have been a previous beloved vehicle, a blue two-door
Morris Minor. -
Sometime last year, I read an excerpt from this book (can't recall where). It concerned Ms. Morris relating that she has a well weathered copy of Michel de Montaigne's collected essays in her car. She's torn it in two so it will fit in the door pocket, and she reads from it during wait times while she's out driving.
"What do I feel like reading about while I wait? Liars? Idleness? Pedantry? The Power of the Imagination? The Custom of Wearing Clothes? Names? War Horses? The Education of Children? Anger? Cowardice? The Disadvantage of Greatness?
All these and a hundred more are waiting there for my contemplation, but better still, Michel is waiting there too, and there was never a kinder, clever and more beguiling companion to share ideas with, while the old Honda gratefully takes a breather."
I read this and eagerly awaited the publication of In My Mind's Eye. I regret to report that I was disappointed when I finally read the book. I expected many more entries like the above, and instead got numerous discussions of politics (even though Ms. Morris says writes that she’s disgusted with politics) – mostly British (current and past varieties), but occasionally American.
I think that part of the problem is that when someone reaches their 90’s (Jan Morris is in her early 90’s), one’s contemporaries have mostly passed away, and there is less contact with other people. Ms. Morris does have some contact with other people – family, and some friends and acquaintances – but much of the writing concerns concepts, not people. And many of the concepts, unlike the one on Montaigne, aren’t terribly interesting.
There are also several instances of repetition in the book. If Ms. Morris had looked back on what she’d written – she makes more than one comment that she hasn’t done so – or if an editor had exercised some control over the book – the repetition could have been avoided and the book might have been a better one. -
My favourite living writer - best get that out there before I even begin.
This is a nice book, not perfect, doddering and repetitive, but wise and lucid, too. It's an attempt by Jan Morris to record her thoughts in small, bite-sized chunks which fairly wiz by although you do feel the need to insert breaks, take time off and digest things sometimes.
Not surprisingly, especially from such a celebrated practioner of the art, most of these snippets read as pithy journalism, although no such simple designations can restrict Jan Morris. They are thought pieces, ideas, rants and reflections and will do in place of straight-up biography.
If you don't know Jan Morris, look her up and try any of her books.
If you do, and you haven't read this, do so. -
Writings of someone who has reached their ‘90s, the final years (months) of a well-read, widely-traveled, accomplished life. Before starting I read a couple reader reviews and the words curmudgeonly and repetitive came up. In my preconceived notions of the elderly, the very old, that is exactly what I would expect. I went into the book consciously trying to learn what it is like to be alive at 90+ years of age, and if I found the writer curmudgeonly to learn what brings forth that response. Why a curmudgeon when older or why do we younger people view someone as a curmudgeon?
What I found in Morris’ “thought diary” is a person who is reasonably spry, both physically and mentally, yet also a person whose external world is physically very small, contained. Morris seems mostly content with life in her Welsh village, and most frequently in her home in that Welsh village. Even after a lifetime and career of world travel, she seems glad to be settled and aging in a place that she feels is home, a country, culture and land with which she identifies. Life’s pleasures are different now. As a younger person I might call these “small” pleasures – appreciating the row of 7 little jam jars, a different jam for morning toast each day of the week. The daily visit from the mailman up the lane to her home is welcomed even as she curmudgeonly observes he’s only bringing advertisements and bills. Yet she doesn’t lament email and corresponds frequently that way herself.
World news makes a frequent appearance in the diary as her practice is to read the morning news daily. This was written in the year leading up to the U.S. 2016 election and the months thereafter. Even with Brexit such a huge, looming issue in the U.K., I was surprised at how closely U.S. news is followed not just by Morris, in England generally. One of the most poignant observations for me, was Morris’ commentary on world affairs. Firstly, she seemed quite distraught by the internal division in both the U.K. and the U.S. Her lifetime, 90+ years of life, had been lived with this sense that while there were political differences in those countries’ populace, essentially – when pressed – those countries were united. Each was strong in its self-identity, not in danger of tearing themselves apart from within. That there were now political factions in those countries that seemed willing to rip apart the fabric of what she understood the identity of those countries to be, was distressing. But the distress was more in the realization that as she left the world, it would not be the same world in which she lived. It seemed likely that the world was heading to a more fractious, tumultuous state of affairs.
In some very interesting passages, Morris reflects on England, or Great Britain and how, for the first 20-40 years of her life, it was a superpower, the strongest and most influential country in world affairs. She also comments on the emergence of a realization that that power was derived from the colonization of other lands and what are now seen as brutal and inhumane treatment of the local population in those countries. The comment is fleeting, though, and I think even she is observing that while intellectually she knows that her identity as a Briton, formed as a young person, the Great Britain of pre-WWII, the Great Britain of withstanding the war’s bombings, the Great Britain of the ascent on Everest – even while she knows that identity is based on a warped understanding of power and greatness, it is still an identity close to her heart, still essentially part of her. As she observes, England’s influence and power in the world waned after WWII and America’s rose. The U.S. became the superpower and because England and the U.S. are so closely aligned – politically, culturally – it seemed like a natural progression. She felt close to America with many memories of travels here.
Now it seemed from the news in her morning papers that Great Britain and the U.S. both were destined to lose their prominence in the world just as her life was ending. What did that mean for her life, the meaning of her life, the many decisions she had made as a Briton, a westerner? The essential perspective from which she had written her many books, her career of travel – would that specific identity and perspective be relevant in the upcoming years?
As a reader, it was interesting to look at the span of Morris’ life and think of all the history, all the world history, that life witnessed. It has made me reflect on my life, on my identity and what I hold close. I’m not especially fearful of old age but not looking forward to it either. The expectation of confinement, of the world becoming a very small place, one that must come to you because your ability to go out into it is diminished – that expectation was not alleviated by reading this book and it left me melancholy. Like Morris, I do love my home, appreciate the town where I live, my surroundings, my life. It will be odd, when the time comes, to realize there is little to look forward to because there is little future time to be had. One must be happy or at least content with present life circumstances.
All told, the best and most heart-warming passages in the book, were Morris’ frequent mentions of her cat Ibsen who had recently passed away. He was remembered with lots of affection, was clearly a nurtured part of her life and I appreciated that though he was gone, he was not forgotten. -
From BBC radio 4 - Book of the Week:
In Jan Morris's newly published 'diary of my thoughts', abridged for radio by Katrin Williams, the renowned author and traveller covers much ground:
She is devoted to her Honda Civic Type R, she extolls the virtues of small town America, and recalls the recent time when television 'seduced' her into a starring role - with very mixed results!
Reader Janet Suzman
Producer Duncan Minshull.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bg... -
This rambling “thought diary” is like spending time over tea with an elderly acquaintance (if you had one with as long and interesting a life as Jan Morris’). Daily snippets of memories, political observations (Trump, Brexit), complaints about computer trouble, reflections on aging, family, cats, and some light verse. It’s often wry and funny and sometimes repetitive. It made a perfect audiobook because listening to snippets here and there while doing other things was the right speed for it. It did make me think about my morning pages habit and how to break out of my usual complaint rut. Not by name-dropping my reporting on the first summiting of Everest, I guess. But I do have cats!
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Was given this a 'dip in' book but was hooked into a daily read....some repetition of ideas and stories but that doesn't diminish enjoyment. Would that I were as active both mentally & physically at her age!
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A selection of charming anecdotes covering aspects of life as they occur to the author; nothing special in terms of topic but the sort of writing that reminds me why I am a reader and not a writer.
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Jan Morris reminisces and ruminates on a life time of nine decades of people and places, with an anecdote or memory per day. Some of these daily musings get interrupted by challenges of information and communication technology.
This is not the same Jan Morris who was the rather grand-motherly matron of Gilligan House at Wanganui's Collegiate School many moons ago, but looks the same, and the same car as on the cover of the book, if I remember rightly.
This Jan Morris hides out in remote Wales and muses on the human element of kindness, in a world of over-population, climate instability, resource depletion and growing super-power competition. -
Jan Morris foi uma jornalista que se assumiu trans nos anos 70. Na época, ela vivia como James Morris. Nesta época foi para o Marrocos para uma cirurgia de mudança de gênero .
A jornalista de 91 anos(morreu em 2020 com 93 anos) que cobriu para o The Times a primeira subida do homem ao Everest fala neste livro sobre o Brexit, ovelhas, seu velho Honda, seu desgosto com animais presos nos zoológicos , jardinagem , assuntos atuais e lembranças do passado nas 188 entradas do seu diário.
É uma leitura deliciosa! -
I read a NY Times profile of Jan Morris—author, historian, and travel writer who accompanied the first expedition to scale Mt. Everest in 1953. She’s also a transgender woman who has lived with her wife for nearly 70 years. What a long and interesting life, I thought, I have to read this book of daily reflections and observations. And I’m glad I did. WELL DONE, JAN!
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This book is like reading a hundred or so letters from your Granny. I love her marmalade ritual!
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I read this in two settings. After the first few pieces I thought I was disappointed, finding it too slight, but then, at some point, I fell head over heels in love it and the author. Whether this is down to her warmth, her wit or her delicacy in describing her partner's failing health hardly matters, I just loved it. My only criticism has noting to do with her - simply that I would have loved just a couple of black&white photographs, of her desk (I love to see writers' work spaces), her garden, her radio or even her breakfast tray. Also, I would have liked the date of each excerpt as I wanted to know if it was written in the afternoon, at the weekend or in August.
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Breezy read, you can enjoy it during a train ride or some such. I’ve long been a fan of her writing. This is a diary of a year’s snippets, with age and languor clearly taking their toll. Some pieces position her as a bit of a crank, going on so about rap music and obesity and what have you (“You think I’m rambling rather? So?”). It’s a good book about Wales more than anything else. Fair to middling otherwise.
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Jan Morris likes to use the following rather uncommon words - maybe they are just uncommon to me whose English is the second language.
Peripatetic
Although she only used this word once in this book:
I am ashamed that I have not been to the Welsh National Eisteddfod this week – especially as, peripatetic as it is, it is taking place this year on the island of Anglesey, not far from us.
She used it multiple times in Lincoln:
This peripatetic tribunal was a shifting band of old acquaintances. A peripatetic life…
Immemorial
She sometimes used “ancient”, but tended to use “immemorial” more often. How she used immemorial is charming:
There is no immemorial precedent, so far as I know, for my morning conversations with my toothbrush or my night-time expressions of gratitude to the furniture.
Humans riding horses often looked splendid, and navigating sailing ships was fine, but for my tastes the arrival of the machine muddied the immemorial beauties of human travel.
It is a week-long festival of music and the arts which is descended from immemorial traditions of the Welsh culture
Anathema
She emphatically like anathema, for rightful reasons: It rolls well off the tongue, it is rhythmically satisfying and its meaning is ominously indistinct. Anathema! One would hardly wish anathema to one’s worst enemy!
She dedicated an essay for this word, start from lingustic aspect, then her conviction about zoo, end with “ANATHEMA upon them! ANATHEMA!” She is such a passionate person, even at 92 years old.
She also use anathema in Lincoln. I reckon that paragrph is one of the most rhetorically impressive sentences describing slavery: They called American Slavery the Peculiar Institution, and it was certainly a paradox in a country so dedicated to ideas of liberty and modernity-almost everywhere else in Western world the very idea of it was anachronistic anathema!
Effrontery
When I first encountered Effrontery, I thought she just used it to replace insolence or impertinence. For example, she used cheek, insolence hyperbolically:
Imagine the cheek of it! The sheer insolence!
And then, in chastened introspection, it occurred to me that all my work about cities really had been one long bit of cheek.
Then I found she keeps using Effrontery, a predilection notwithstanding, her following usages are not only fitting, but also lucid and vivid :
As a national heritage I am devoted to my own British past, because I like the colour and eccentricity of it, the effrontery, the mixture of greed and benevolence, the admirable, the unforgivable, the bombast and the humour – all of which is still best expressed, I think, by the ambiguous epic of the late British Empire.
You will hardly believe what happy responses this simple deceit affords – the relief of it, of course, but also the pride of ownership and the harmless and, indeed, affectionate effrontery.
I realized with a jolt what gross effrontery it had been, all my life, to barge uninvited and ignorant into such a city and write a totally uninhibited critique about its character! Uninformed! Uninvited! What insolence!
The news each morning from Trump’s America is hardly more inspiring, hardly less saddening, but at least it often startles me with its effronteries.
Ignominy, ignominiously
This word sounds pedantic to me. But the esoteric flavour does add theatrical effects, for example:
PLEASE SAVE ME FROM IGNOMINY IN MY OLD AGE BY FITTING ME WITH A THREE-WAY TRAFFIC INDICATOR, AS ADVOCATED BY J. MORRIS.
He has, and a ghastly old thing it is, obliging me ignominiously to inquire of him how I could make it go backwards. -
“In My Mind’s Eye - A Thought Diary” de Jan Morris, Faber & Faber, London, 2018 (li de 30/01/2021 a 11/03/2021)
“Thinking Again” de Jan Morris, Faber & Faber, London, 2020 (li de 11/03/2021 a 19/03/2021)
Depois de ter lido recentemente o ``Conundrum - História da minha mudança de sexo'', li os dois volumes do diário que a autora publicou nos seus últimos anos de vida. Foi, mais uma vez, um interessante percurso pela escrita diarística de alguém que consegue nos prender nos detalhes mais simples do seu quotidiano no País de Gales.
“Day 1 I have never before in my life kept a diary of my thoughts and here, at the start of my 10th decade, having for the moment nothing much else to write, I am having a go at it. Good luck to me. The first thought that struck me as being worth memorialising entered my mind today as I drove my dear old Honda Civic Type R (a friend for nine years now) into Porthmadog, and on the radio somebody was playing a piano concerto. I sort of knew the tune, but only just, and perhaps what I was remembering came from some other composition altogether? Then it occurred me to think how amazing it is that there are still enough unused groupings of musical notes for people to write yet more piano concertos! Won’t they ever run out? And isn’t it amazing that there are still all too familiar combinations of notes or harmonies, ones I know all too well, that can still bring the tears to my eyes, especially when I am alone driving my car? Nobody to break the spell, I suppose, and perhaps, since my first concentration is upon the driving, the music slides in unaware, like another old friend reminding me of half-forgotten emotions.”
“In My Mind's Eye: A Thought Diary” (2018) e “Thinking Again” (2020) são os dois volumes de que partindo de uma escrita e narrativa subtil prendem os leitores nas suas reflexões. O primeiro volume corresponde a 130 entradas diarísticas iniciadas na primavera de 2018 com intensas referẽncias ao território onde a autora vivia.
Tal como refere o The Guardian: “Kind” emerges as a key term for Morris, the capstone of everything she holds most dear. At times she wonders out loud whether it might not be possible to form a religion around the concept, before remembering that we have several already. So instead she takes great pleasure in recording those many occasions on which complete strangers have gone out of their way to help her when she has been in need – with her car, her shopping, or even her own failing body as she sets out every morning to complete her daily 1,000 paces with her trusty walking stick, come rain, shine or treacherous ice.
No segundo volume a autora reforça esta simplicidade do seu quotidiano aos 93 anos de idade, e as dificuldades que o tempo e as sua passagem nos provocam. São intensos os textos em que Jan fala da demência da companheira de décadas Elizabeth e que nos obrigam, como leitores, a perspectivar os nossos tempos e o modo como os usamos. Igualmente intensos são as entradas centradas na sua própria velhice e nos quotidianos que foi construindo.
São dois volumes que nos obrigam a ler de um outro modo as coisas simples da vida. Leiam. -
This diary by British journalist Jan Morris was a real mixed bag. She's 91, so I can't be too grumpy that she espouses some outdated views. I'd even say she's really quite modern in a lot of ways and she seems to be trying in other cases. However, reader be warned that her discussion of her own prejudice against fat people resolves with the conclusion that fat people should probably smile more. I also found some of her discussions of politics, especially about American racism and British Imperialism, a bit shallow and flippant. As a whole, I wish she'd left politics out of it (some delightful poems mocking leaders who well deserve it excepted), because there just wasn't much substance to them. Her discussions of literature and the arts felt more informed, her discussion of birds and migration less so. Her descriptions of nature and her peaceful daily life in a small Welsh town were the true highlights. Her befuddlement with technology and fascination with AI and bird migration were kind of sweet. The beautiful nature writing, presented in short daily diary entries, was the sort of soothing, easy reading I've been craving lately. Those sections were enjoyable enough to keep this from a dreaded two star rating for me, meaning that overall, I found reading the book a pleasant experience.
This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey -
If you, like me, obsess with what it's going to be like when/if you reach your ninth decade, this will give you some comfort. You can still clean up after yourself. You can still make a good sentence and add a couple of interesting observations together to reach a worthwhile conclusion. You can be happy. You can be loved.
If you are Jan Morris, at least. And who among us is Jan Morris? She doesn't play up her successes or fame; she doesn't boast of her accomplishments, and she doesn't plaster all over the writing that she was once a man, and an accomplished military man at that.
It's pure delight to read of her thoughts, of anyone's thoughts at this age, and have them be so precious (in a good way), and so focused on enjoying the little blessings of a quiet, regular, simple life. It's a way to get you thinking about your own life and the quiet moments and simple enjoyments we are often in a hurry to rush through.
Getting into Jan's thoughts allowed me to get into my own thoughts and enjoy them so much more. If she can be at peace and be aware and be appreciative and grateful for every day, even days when she drops things, forgets things, gets confused, then, well, get busy paying attention to the life you have right now. After all, you made all the decisions to become the person you are, in the situation you find yourself in, on this day, in this space in time.
It's funny - you get yourself out of your head, lose yourself in someone else's thoughts, and when you're finished reading, you are a different you. It's why you read, right? -
A light diversion with nothing earth-shattering about it, but a lot of charming little observations from Morris. Her ability to write a solid sentence and put together a well-constructed thought remains undiminished, although I did wonder whether the repetition of certain ideas (her fondness for Ibsen, especially) was an actual re-creation of nonagenarian absent-mindedness, or a clever piece of artifice. I can't say that I agree with Morris on nostalgia for the Empire -- something she anticipates in some misty future, as if it hasn't been present since the beginning -- and I am positively aghast at her take on #metoo, but like so many elders, she somehow wins a pass, even as I suspect I shouldn't be so forgiving.
This was easier to read during COVID19 than some of the other books I've tackled, because of its easily-digested short-form format. If Morris couldn't inspire me to write more regularly in my own journal, I must concede that nothing can.
[An addendum to remind myself that Morris on Charlottesville showed the strength and drawbacks of this book: She remembers the town as she first knew it with rose-tinted glasses, and seems to feel that Lee's statue should remain in the town just as Jefferson's does. And her analysis of white supremacy in the USA in 2017 fails, because she doesn't much account for its long history here. But at the same time, her lament for the coarsening of American civic life is well-written, and deeply felt.] -
When James at Faber and Faber reached out to me and asked if I'd like to read this book, I jumped at the chance. I had not heard of Jan Morris before, but after doing a quick Google search, her many accomplishments and accolades impressed me. Still, I had no idea what to expect from a transgendered 92 year old author and former reporter. It turns out her writing is as interesting and engaging as I had hoped.
In My Mind's Eye is structurally unique in that Morris documents an observation or musing about something different for 188 days (why, oh why, did she stop there?). She chronicles the mundane (her daily marmalade routine, or her thoughts about cats, particularly her beloved, late Ibsen) to the deeply political (from her Welsh identity to the waning dominance of Britain on the world scale, to - dare I even write his name here - Trump) in ways that are humorous and likeable. Her voice is warm and captivating - and I found myself nodding along in agreement or smiling at the way she articulates her ideas about things I too have considered but hadn't thought to express aloud. I highly recommend giving this one a read.
Thanks again to Faber & Faber for sending this book over to me. I simply adored it! -
This was a little disappointing, I'm sorry to say. I love Jan Morris, and there were flashes of her charm and brilliance here and there, but all in all, it was underwhelming. But she was in her 90s, so she gets a pass: If I had written anything as good as this, ever, I'd be proud, and she probably just dashed it off for fun, to do her publisher a favor by giving them one more book from her.
Seems to have been written in 2017, so she's a bit too light in her remarks about Trump (not that she was a fan, of course, but given what we've been through, it's hard to see anyone take anything other than the severest hard line on him). So that may have soured me a bit on this project. But it makes me want to read more of her other work, since I've only read a few of her books and she wrote many.
Still, I'm still glad I bought the book, for the cover photo alone.
