I've been reading "Must you go?" by Antonia Fraser (Lady Antonia Fraser officially, Lady Antonia Fraser Pinter if you really want to be technical) and lolling in her diary-inspired world for the past couple of weeks.
Truth be told I tear through books, but I've been browsing this one slowly, looking at her timelines, her short, honest entries, and admiring the fact that she, as an honest-to-goodness published writer of many books, used this format to chronicle her chance tale of meeting the love of her life in her forties, in 1975, a decade where women were expected to have chosen the course of their lives by about, oh, say, 21. She boldy went.
Her writing is plain in contrast to the memoirs of today with their similes and adjectives, their decorative language. She denudes it all with the simplicity of her statements, her obvious joy with her soul-mate, and above all her gratitude at life, living it every moment, broke, flush with wealth, on holiday, with a cold, raising her children, selling her house.
I love it all.
January approaches and I want to commit to shorter, timelier posts, and I will be switching to more 'journal' type entries, to re-acquaint myself to not fall asleep through the days. One day they will dwindle to memory, and as I re-read my journals of the 90s and early 00s I marvel at who I was, who I was becoming. My entries were often labourious, scribbled late at night when I was at my most exhausted, but also my most honest, most lucid.
The new year, with all its shiny promise....beckons.
Gorgeous.
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