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marcolcam's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
liralen's review against another edition
4.0
Gildiner's memoir reads like a chatty, choice selection of her best-of memories -- which is impressive, considering that this is her third memoir. Hers seems to have been, if not a charmed life, an adventure-packed one. Studying at Oxford when Oxford was very much an old-boys club; biking through a glass window; almost dying of exposure while hiking in Wales; teaching Ginsberg to students at an inner-city school; unknowingly moving into a housing complex for the blind; unknowingly moving into a house full of Quebec separatists; unknowingly moving into a big-time drug dealer's apartment (are we sensing a theme here?); making forays into her boyfriend's old-world Jewish family...
About half the book covers her time at Oxford. This is the 60s, a time of short skirts and war protests and liberation -- except, perhaps, at Oxford. As one of only two women in her college, Gildiner did not have the luxury of being retiring or faint of heart -- this was a place where, as she tells it, class was a defining factor; as an American (and a female American at that) she had to both operate outside the normal structure of things and push her way into it.
I'm deeply saddened by Gildiner's telling of a near rape at Oxford, not only because she had to cope with it but because in so many places I wouldn't be surprised to hear the same reactions today. You were naked at the time? the police ask. I was in the shower, she retorts. Even in England one has to be naked in the shower. But this doesn't seem to compute to them, and the men around Gildiner -- because it is almost all men -- seem to view her assault as something that she should, if not be ashamed of, be ashamed to talk about. It's just not done.
Her telling of Oxford revolves largely around class and social structure, but with detours (frostbite! Jimi Hendrix!) as she sees fit. When she returns to North America, social structure takes a different form: there is no old money or easy trading of classical quotations in her year teaching English in Cleveland, nor in her housing arrangements in Toronto. While I would happily have kept reading had her Oxford adventures taken over the whole book, it would be hard to fault her for choosing the stories she does for the second half of the book. It's part chance and part willingness to throw herself into things that makes her land in each place she does, I think, and...well. She has a lot of stories to tell and a good pace for telling them. Really am going to have to read her earlier memoirs as well.
I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.
About half the book covers her time at Oxford. This is the 60s, a time of short skirts and war protests and liberation -- except, perhaps, at Oxford. As one of only two women in her college, Gildiner did not have the luxury of being retiring or faint of heart -- this was a place where, as she tells it, class was a defining factor; as an American (and a female American at that) she had to both operate outside the normal structure of things and push her way into it.
I'm deeply saddened by Gildiner's telling of a near rape at Oxford, not only because she had to cope with it but because in so many places I wouldn't be surprised to hear the same reactions today. You were naked at the time? the police ask. I was in the shower, she retorts. Even in England one has to be naked in the shower. But this doesn't seem to compute to them, and the men around Gildiner -- because it is almost all men -- seem to view her assault as something that she should, if not be ashamed of, be ashamed to talk about. It's just not done.
Her telling of Oxford revolves largely around class and social structure, but with detours (frostbite! Jimi Hendrix!) as she sees fit. When she returns to North America, social structure takes a different form: there is no old money or easy trading of classical quotations in her year teaching English in Cleveland, nor in her housing arrangements in Toronto. While I would happily have kept reading had her Oxford adventures taken over the whole book, it would be hard to fault her for choosing the stories she does for the second half of the book. It's part chance and part willingness to throw herself into things that makes her land in each place she does, I think, and...well. She has a lot of stories to tell and a good pace for telling them. Really am going to have to read her earlier memoirs as well.
I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.
crabbygirl's review against another edition
3.0
the third and final memoir in her series. I still loved the first one the best, but the first half of this book was quite funny in its own right. interestingly enough, if you just read this one, you'd wonder why someone deigned her life worthy of a memoir - it's not terribly exciting or pressing - but I imagine there was a clamor for her first 2 books to continue.
emmkayt's review against another edition
3.0
The third and final installment of Catherine Gildiner's memoirs, which takes her to Oxford as a student, then student teaching in Cleveland, and finally emigrating to Toronto. A light and entertaining read, and I enjoyed the description of Toronto's Rochdale College. On balance, however, this final volume is my least preferred of her memoirs. Some sameyness with the anecdotes and style at this point, and the historical coincidences pile up in a manner that could strain credulity. 2.5 stars.
anndouglas's review
5.0
A fabulous conclusion to Catherine Gildner's three-volume memoir of what has been both a wonderfully ordinary and truly extraordinary life. I read the three books back-to-back, which allowed me to immerse myself in all things Catherine. What a treat!
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