On Trying to Keep Still

New
Paperback
2007
$12.98

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 Sami 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.

Synopsis

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 Sami 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.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Edition: New Ed
Publisher: Virago
Published: 01 Mar 2007
ISBN 10: 1844080161
ISBN 13: 9781844080168
Book Overview: * Ad campaign in the TLS, LITERARY REVIEW and GUARDIAN * Author PR activity to include appearances at literary festivals * Review coverage * Reading copies available * Featured on the Virago website * Samplers

Media Reviews

While much of the collection revolves around Diski's attempt to exercise her stupor to its fullest degree, there is nothing lazy about her writing. Combining 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 *

Author Bio

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.