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zoefruitcake's review against another edition
5.0
As someone who has kept a diary in some form on and off for almost 40 years I was excited to read this unusual search for the author of 148 diaries found discarded in a skip. I wasn't disappointed and read it in two sittings over a 24 hour period.
The author (of the diaries rather than the book) never re-read them which cheered me somewhat as I rarely revisit mine and I thought I was strange for it. It's always reassuring to find you aren't alone. I donated my early paper diaries to The great diary project last year https://www.thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk/ and I hope these eventually end up there too
The author (of the diaries rather than the book) never re-read them which cheered me somewhat as I rarely revisit mine and I thought I was strange for it. It's always reassuring to find you aren't alone. I donated my early paper diaries to The great diary project last year https://www.thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk/ and I hope these eventually end up there too
moveslikewind's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
artemiscat's review against another edition
Things I found aggravating about this book, in no particular order. Spoilers everywhere.
“The diaries teach us that it is too much to be inside anybody’s head. It is a horrible place. All the repetition; that endless analysis that doesn’t analyze, just mulls a point over and over until it drops dead from banality. What goes on in a person’s brain is the opposite of what makes a story live.”
So the writer warns us, after 198 pages of inviting us into his own head and thoughts concerning these discarded diaries.
I was drawn to this book via a selection of the diaries published in The Paris Review- but this book is largely not the diaries, but his commentary on them.
One gets the impression that the writer who discarded these 148 is rather good, and while he’s reading her scratch book of musings and life records she may be working in something else entirely. He seems challenged by her. He goes out of his way to belittle her work, to slam her drawings, to assume she did nothing with her life. His own writing and drawings offer nothing of real contrast. Unless this is all repetitive humor that rushes past me... in which case it is the humor of a woodpecker working steadily on concrete.
He assumes she is a failure. Why? Because she doesn’t praise herself in these books? To judge a human being on this thin a sample, it’s like someone trying to extrapolate all of the films of Bergman by his gym attendance records or his transit tickets or his luggage tags in combination with a burning desire not to know because only anonymity will allow the author to peruse the ideal.
But back to gender, I half expect him to say, “Can you imagine my shock and bewilderment? I thought I was in a room of human beings and there was A WOMAN!”
He treats the existence of women, and the possibility of reading a woman’s words as a frightening revelation. He goes out of his way to avoid a woman’s sexuality, and when it does confront him attempts to make it heteronormative for far longe than the text supports.
I don’t know how many more punchlines about “the curse” I can bear, any more than I understand how a man got through his entire life without a woman letting him know how cramps hurt.
Still, I’m moved by her work, I’m moved by his framing narrative (though too little gets in past the snark) I’m glad I’m reading it, though frustrated when he deliberately avoids clarity and answers.
Are there some finely put forward insights? Sure. But when the author argues that writing held her back from other dreams because of the time involved, after stating she spent about half an hour a day, when one of those dreams was becoming a musician, a practice which involves something more like 5 Hours + a day, I don’t credit him.
Post script- this problem with this review is everything I dislike so strongly turns out to be admired right by the actual protagonist. Can I hold on to my disagreements when it turns out he is in the right?
“The diaries teach us that it is too much to be inside anybody’s head. It is a horrible place. All the repetition; that endless analysis that doesn’t analyze, just mulls a point over and over until it drops dead from banality. What goes on in a person’s brain is the opposite of what makes a story live.”
So the writer warns us, after 198 pages of inviting us into his own head and thoughts concerning these discarded diaries.
I was drawn to this book via a selection of the diaries published in The Paris Review- but this book is largely not the diaries, but his commentary on them.
One gets the impression that the writer who discarded these 148 is rather good, and while he’s reading her scratch book of musings and life records she may be working in something else entirely. He seems challenged by her. He goes out of his way to belittle her work, to slam her drawings, to assume she did nothing with her life. His own writing and drawings offer nothing of real contrast. Unless this is all repetitive humor that rushes past me... in which case it is the humor of a woodpecker working steadily on concrete.
He assumes she is a failure. Why? Because she doesn’t praise herself in these books? To judge a human being on this thin a sample, it’s like someone trying to extrapolate all of the films of Bergman by his gym attendance records or his transit tickets or his luggage tags in combination with a burning desire not to know because only anonymity will allow the author to peruse the ideal.
But back to gender, I half expect him to say, “Can you imagine my shock and bewilderment? I thought I was in a room of human beings and there was A WOMAN!”
He treats the existence of women, and the possibility of reading a woman’s words as a frightening revelation. He goes out of his way to avoid a woman’s sexuality, and when it does confront him attempts to make it heteronormative for far longe than the text supports.
I don’t know how many more punchlines about “the curse” I can bear, any more than I understand how a man got through his entire life without a woman letting him know how cramps hurt.
Still, I’m moved by her work, I’m moved by his framing narrative (though too little gets in past the snark) I’m glad I’m reading it, though frustrated when he deliberately avoids clarity and answers.
Are there some finely put forward insights? Sure. But when the author argues that writing held her back from other dreams because of the time involved, after stating she spent about half an hour a day, when one of those dreams was becoming a musician, a practice which involves something more like 5 Hours + a day, I don’t credit him.
Post script- this problem with this review is everything I dislike so strongly turns out to be admired right by the actual protagonist. Can I hold on to my disagreements when it turns out he is in the right?
katerina_l's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
3.75
ktscarf's review against another edition
2.0
I would count 'Stuart: A Life Backwards' by the same author as one of my favourite books, but unfortunately won't be adding A Life Discarded to that list. I found the concept intriguing but struggled to stick with it while reading - at various times I felt lost, and that the author was referring to points or people in the life of the diarist that I couldn't remember being mentioned before or couldn't work out how they fitted in. Around 4/5s of the way through the book, the author reveals that he hadn't yet read all of the diaries and, more importantly, had never arranged them into chronological order - which explained my confusion! Even a small reference to this near the start of the book would have made my reading experience much more pleasurable, and although I did find the eventual conclusion of the story satisfying, it didn't do enough to make up for my disengagement during the first section.
gemmaduds's review against another edition
5.0
‘A Life Discarded’ begins with Alexander and his friends finding 148 journals discarded in a skip. From there on, Alexander attempts to unravel the mysterious writer of these journals – leading us into the oddly fascinating life of an entirely unremarkable person.
There are moments throughout Alexander’s work that are really astonishing, reminding us that at times the truth (and life) can be entirely unexpected.
A few previous reviews of this book mark Alexander down because his narrative surrounding the journals is often more appealing than the journal itself. I think that they have completely missed the point – his argument throughout is exactly that; works of fiction, newspaper articles, biographies, are all written for an audience and are supposed to be entertaining. The mundane ramblings of an ordinary person struggling through their life in their journals is not intended to be for an audience – and Alexander has done such a wonderful job of moulding the subject’s life workings into something that we can really read and enjoy.
It took me quite a long time to finish this biography despite it being a quick read; after every few pages I suddenly felt the urge to write in my own journal – and although I am not quite as dedicated to mine as the subject of this biography, it certainly helped me to get more words down onto paper.
This is a really enjoyable read – very funny, entertaining and strangely suspenseful.
There are moments throughout Alexander’s work that are really astonishing, reminding us that at times the truth (and life) can be entirely unexpected.
A few previous reviews of this book mark Alexander down because his narrative surrounding the journals is often more appealing than the journal itself. I think that they have completely missed the point – his argument throughout is exactly that; works of fiction, newspaper articles, biographies, are all written for an audience and are supposed to be entertaining. The mundane ramblings of an ordinary person struggling through their life in their journals is not intended to be for an audience – and Alexander has done such a wonderful job of moulding the subject’s life workings into something that we can really read and enjoy.
It took me quite a long time to finish this biography despite it being a quick read; after every few pages I suddenly felt the urge to write in my own journal – and although I am not quite as dedicated to mine as the subject of this biography, it certainly helped me to get more words down onto paper.
This is a really enjoyable read – very funny, entertaining and strangely suspenseful.
plaidpladd's review against another edition
3.0
The premise of this book is really interesting. I'm a faithful diary keeper myself, and often wonder what a stranger would think upon reading my journal--especially all the definitely TMI descriptions of my health problems, so the subject of this book and I have things in common! The format and structure were so... odd? It was meant to mimic the author's own journey of discovery about the author of the diaries, but it didn't work for me. Also could have done without the asides about the author's personal life, particularly the details about his friend dying of cancer. Usually once someone gets cancer, I immediately stop reading a book, but I figured since it was tangential to the narrative at best it wouldn't come up much here. I was wrong!