Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir
by Diana Athill
List Price:
Our Price: $5.92
You Save: $19.03 (76%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Diana AthillEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-01-05
ISBN: 039306770X
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Book Reviews of Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir
Book Review: Athill's observations are for anybody, of any age, who wants to peer into the further corners of life
Summary: 5 Stars
I want to make it clear that this memoir is not only for those euphemistically known as "seniors" (an appellation I despise). Although it was written by a woman now 91, and it is about aging, it is not just about that; it also journeys through reading, writing, religion (or the lack thereof), children (or the absence thereof), death, sex, luck and friendship.
For Diana Athill's contemporaries, the book must be immediately relevant. For me, almost 30 years younger (and thus, according to her, "still within hailing distance of middle age"), it is a reassuring dispatch from my all-too-near future. I can't speak for younger generations, but I think that they too will find more meaning and sustenance in this slim (183-page) volume than in a hundred self-help books.
Athill was for 50 years a brilliant London book editor; among her writers were Jean Rhys, V.S. Naipaul and Margaret Atwood. She wrote about all this in STET, an amazing memoir of her publishing days that she produced at 80. Although she had written other memoirs and a novel before that, her discovery of herself as a full-fledged writer came relatively late. Athill is emphatic that the ability to "make things" --- art, music, books --- is a crucial factor in having a lively and resilient old age, yet for most of her long career (she retired at 75), she seems to have been content to let others do the making, while she remained a behind-the-scenes figure.
Athill, in fact, was brought up with a very British horror of attention-seeking or boastfulness: "YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PEBBLE ON THE BEACH might have been inscribed above the nursery door," she writes, "and I know several people...who still feel its truth so acutely that only with difficulty (if at all) can they forgive a book written in the first person about that person's life." This may be one reason that SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE END is so un-narcissistic and so devoid of self-pity. Athill does express modest delight in her own accomplishments, and she does complain a bit about her deafness (mentioned so fleetingly I almost missed it) and her bad legs (making her grateful for the perfect vision that still allows her to drive). But she never strikes a smug or dismal note. You don't think Who cares? Or Poor soul! What you think is: Me, too! And: Could we have lunch together if I took a plane to London? She is that smart, honest, unpretentious and funny.
Reading her book, I realize how much first-person writing (including my own) is flashy, self-conscious, more about showing off than saying something useful. With Athill you always register a quiet intelligence at work. You can sense her mind figuring out the most eloquent and accurate way to get at the truth. And, good lord, does she ever take on tough subjects!
She starts off briskly and frankly with sex, the topic most often mentioned by reviewers (the book has already appeared in England, where it won the 2008 Costa Biography Award). In her 70s, she says, "she ceased to be a sexual being." It's a fact, not a tragedy; indeed, with the ebbing of biological forces, Athill reports, a certain clarity arrived about other things, such as the non-existence of God. A lifelong atheist, she finds her beliefs (that the universe is mysterious and unfathomable) vastly preferable to religion, which she compares to "fairy stories." This despite the imminence of death, which she comes to see, in her sensible way, as quite ordinary. That doesn't mean she is unaffected by her mother's passing; the poem she wrote on that occasion captures exactly a child's ambivalence about a parent's death. An excerpt:
"What did I feel? Like Siamese twins, one wanting her never to die,
the other dismayed at the thought of renewed life,
of having to go on dreading pain for her, go on foreseeing
her increasing helplessness and my guilt
at not giving up my life to be with her all the time."
SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE END isn't all Big Issues. It also touches on topics like intergenerational friendship ("One should never, never expect [the young] to want one's company, or make the kind of claims on them that one makes on a friend of one's own age"); adult-education classes in sewing and drawing; gardening ("Getting one's hands into the earth, spreading roots, making a plant comfortable [is] a totally absorbing occupation"); and how her reading habits have changed (less fiction, more nonfiction, especially the kind of book that lets you "take a holiday from oneself"). By the way, she has never watched TV. Perhaps that, too, accounts for her graceful aging (in which case I am doomed).
Refreshingly, Athill does not have many regrets: primarily the narrowness of her life (she claims to have lacked the courage and energy to take risks) and what she calls "a stubborn nub of selfishness" (however, judging from her unstinting care of a former lover and longtime friend who has been bedridden for years, this diagnosis may not be entirely accurate). What she has achieved, she attributes partly to temperament, largely to luck. Granted, certain crucial things went right for her (a fortunate childhood, a place to live, good health), but I suspect she doesn't always give herself enough credit for how well she manages.
An inspiring book that is blessedly free of homilies is a rare thing. SOMEWHERE TOWARDS THE END is about a life being lived right now, vibrantly and enthusiastically, not about a slow descent into night. Paradoxically, by writing about old age, Athill seems almost to transcend it. At any rate, she eludes easy categories ("For oldies only"). Her observations are for anybody, of any age, who wants to peer into the further corners of life.
--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman
Summary of Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir
Winner of the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography and a New York Times bestseller: a prize-winning, critically acclaimed memoir on life and aging ??An honest joy to read? (Alice Munro).
Diana Athill is one of the great editors in British publishing. For more than five decades she edited the likes of V. S. Naipaul and Jean Rhys, for whom she was a confidante and caretaker. As a writer, Diana Athill has made her reputation for the frankness and precisely expressed wisdom of her memoirs. Now in her ninety-first year, "entirely untamed about both old and new conventions" (Literary Review) and freed from any of the inhibitions that even she may have once had, Athill reflects candidly, and sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old?the losses and occasionally the gains that age brings, the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Distinguished by "remarkable intelligence...[and the] easy elegance of her prose" (Daily Telegraph), this short, well-crafted book, hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph) presents an inspiring work for those hoping to flourish in their later years.
Memoirs Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Memoirs Books
Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Centuryby Hunter S. Thompson
Penguin Books, Limited (UK); Published: 2008-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.11
Price in other shops:
Never Have Your Dog Stuffedby Alan Alda
Arrow Books; Published: 2007-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.59
Price in other shops:
The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire, and Ambitionby John DeLucie, Graydon Carter
Ecco; Published: 2009-05-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.63
Price in other shops:
Brotherhood of Warriors: Behind Enemy Lines with a Commando in One of the World's Most Elite Counterterrorism Unitsby Aaron Cohen, Douglas Century
Ecco; Published: 2008-04-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.94
Price in other shops:
Not Lost Forever: My Story of Survivalby Carmina Salcido, Steve Jackson
William Morrow; Published: 2009-10-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Unlocked: The Life and Crimes of a Mafia Insiderby Louis Ferrante
Harper Perennial; Published: 2009-02-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Writing Places: The Life Journey of a Writer and Teacherby William Zinsser
Harper; Published: 2009-05-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.09
Price in other shops:
Got the Life: My Journey of Addiction, Faith, Recovery, and Kornby Fieldy
William Morrow; Published: 2009-03-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.98
Price in other shops:
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.)by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.14
Price in other shops:
The Ride of My Lifeby Mat Hoffman
It Books; Published: 2003-09-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.95
Similar Books and other products
Emily, Alone: A Novelby Stewart O'Nan
Viking Adult; Published: 2011-03-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.40
Price in other shops:
Blue Nightsby Joan Didion
Knopf; Published: 2011-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.19
Price in other shops:
Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdomby Mary Catherine Bateson
Knopf; Published: 2010-09-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.55
Price in other shops:
Stet: An Editor's Lifeby Diana Athill, Diane Athill
Grove Press; Published: 2001-04-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $109.16
The Laws of Evening: Storiesby Mary Yukari Waters
Scribner; Published: 2004-05-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.90
Price in other shops:
After a Funeral: A Memoirby Diana Athill
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2010-06-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoirby Diana Athill
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2009-12-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.44
Price in other shops:
Instead of a Letter: A Memoirby Diana Athill
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2010-06-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.09
Price in other shops:
Stet: An Editor's Lifeby Diana Athill
Grove Press; Published: 2002-03-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.64
Price in other shops:
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Readingby Nina Sankovitch
Harper; Published: 2011-06-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.25
Price in other shops: