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lilaloveluzie's review against another edition
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.5
fionnualalirsdottir's review against another edition
I bought the first episode of Deborah Levy's living autobiography series back in 2013—probably before she had even conceived of it as part of a 'living autobiography'. That first episode, [b:Things I Don't Want to Know|20210614|Things I Don't Want to Know|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394234108l/20210614._SY75_.jpg|24027184], was marketed as a response to George Orwell's essay, [b:Why I Write|9644|Why I Write|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388379786l/9644._SY75_.jpg|1070685], which Penguin had reissued in a lovely companion edition to Levy's.
I bought both books at the same time, intending to read them together—and I did read the Orwell but somehow the Levy sank to the bottom of the pile.
In 2018 and 2021, Deborah Levy added two more books to her living autobiography series, [b:The Cost of Living|36360030|The Cost of Living|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1524598103l/36360030._SY75_.jpg|58043514] and [b:Real Estate|54546064|Real Estate|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1595404828l/54546064._SY75_.jpg|85108564]. In the meantime, I'd been reading some autobiographical-type novels by Annie Ernaux, Tove Ditlevson and Claire Louise Bennet, and realised that the three titles in Deborah Levy's autobiography series would fit right in to that reading project. So I dug out her initial slim volume and read about the 'Things' she didn't want to know, the circling of which seemed to help her discover the 'Why' of her own writing, in response to Orwell's book.
Orwell had written, I don't think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in—at least this is true in tumoultous, revolutionary ages like our own—but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck in at some immature stage, or in some perverse mood: but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write.
In Things I don't want to Know, Levy examines many aspects of her experience in order to discover the 'emotional attitude' that informs her writing, but she also looks at the other elements Orwell had deemed essential—political purpose, historical impulse (her childhood love of writing stories), aesthetic enthusiasm (her relationship with the written word) and sheer egoism.
Her political purpose seems to revolve around the difficulties of women writers, and like Virginia Woolf, she's determined to kill off the 'angel of the house', the mother figure. She says: it was becoming clear to me that Motherhood was an institution fathered by masculine consciousness... we had a go at canceling our own desires and found we had a talent for it…
She spent a number of years trying to be a talented mother while trying to be a writer at the same time and experienced huge frustration in both domains, concluding, the world loved the delusion (of the mother) more than it loved the mother.
She goes on to say, Perhaps when Orwell described sheer egoism as a necessary quality for a writer he was not thinking about the sheer egoism of a female writer. Even the most arrogant female writer has to work overtime to build an ego that is robust enough to get her through January never mind all the way to December.
In spite of the challenges, Levy managed to get some books published. I'd read two of her novels in the past, [b:Swimming Home|11700333|Swimming Home|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328777389l/11700333._SY75_.jpg|16647492] and [b:Hot Milk|26883528|Hot Milk|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631266011l/26883528._SY75_.jpg|46932640] (as yet unpublished when she was writing Things I don't want to Know) and I was pleased to find little clues in her examination of why and how she writes that helped me better understand the veiled themes in those two novels. I also found echoes of Ernaux, Ditlevson and Bennet in Levy's account of her childhood and her growing relationship with the written word. She had always been determined to be a writer but found it nearly impossible to make a living from writing— 'A Room of her Own' was far away. That is the case with Claire-Louise Bennet too who wrote the final version of her semi-autobiographical account of her reading and writing life, [b:Checkout 19|58386758|Checkout 19|Claire-Louise Bennett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1630346616l/58386758._SY75_.jpg|87473457], as recently as 2020 in a room in someone else's house.
Deborah Levy expands on that subject in the second volume of her living autoiography project, The Cost of Living, which she wrote in a friend's garden shed. The shed sounded like a modest version of Virginia Woolf's garden room at Rodmell where her desk still sits today. Levy would set out every day from the cramped high-rise apartment where she lived with her two daughters, and cycle to her friend's garden crossing London's Abbey Road to get there. I mention that area because I have since read her novel, [b:The Man Who Saw Everything|42972048|The Man Who Saw Everything|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550727470l/42972048._SY75_.jpg|66799847], published in 2019, and recognised the setting of the main event of that novel in an episode in The Cost of Living where Levy is knocked of her bike crossing Abbey Road. It's clear that Levy eventually uses many events in her life as triggers for her fiction. About the notebooks she carries everywhere, she tells us: I was always gathering evidence for something I couldn't fathom.
When I finished The Cost of Living, I started the third part of her living autobiography, Real Estate, where her preoccupation with acquiring that elusive 'Room of her Own' continues. A lot of the third book happens in Paris where she gets to live and write in a city centre apartment thanks to a nine-month bursary she won in 2020. Then it's back to the high rise apartment in busy London where another friend's garden shed becomes her writing room for the time being.
But no matter where she writes, Levy's thoughts and reflections are interesting, and I particularly enjoyed the sections on books she's reading. If she writes a fourth volume in her autobiography series, I will read it. And I sincerely hope it will tell of finally getting a room of her own.
[bc:Why I Write|9644|Why I Write|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388379786l/9644._SY75_.jpg|1070685] [bc:Things I Don't Want to Know|20210614|Things I Don't Want to Know|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394234108l/20210614._SY75_.jpg|24027184]
I bought both books at the same time, intending to read them together—and I did read the Orwell but somehow the Levy sank to the bottom of the pile.
In 2018 and 2021, Deborah Levy added two more books to her living autobiography series, [b:The Cost of Living|36360030|The Cost of Living|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1524598103l/36360030._SY75_.jpg|58043514] and [b:Real Estate|54546064|Real Estate|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1595404828l/54546064._SY75_.jpg|85108564]. In the meantime, I'd been reading some autobiographical-type novels by Annie Ernaux, Tove Ditlevson and Claire Louise Bennet, and realised that the three titles in Deborah Levy's autobiography series would fit right in to that reading project. So I dug out her initial slim volume and read about the 'Things' she didn't want to know, the circling of which seemed to help her discover the 'Why' of her own writing, in response to Orwell's book.
Orwell had written, I don't think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in—at least this is true in tumoultous, revolutionary ages like our own—but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck in at some immature stage, or in some perverse mood: but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write.
In Things I don't want to Know, Levy examines many aspects of her experience in order to discover the 'emotional attitude' that informs her writing, but she also looks at the other elements Orwell had deemed essential—political purpose, historical impulse (her childhood love of writing stories), aesthetic enthusiasm (her relationship with the written word) and sheer egoism.
Her political purpose seems to revolve around the difficulties of women writers, and like Virginia Woolf, she's determined to kill off the 'angel of the house', the mother figure. She says: it was becoming clear to me that Motherhood was an institution fathered by masculine consciousness... we had a go at canceling our own desires and found we had a talent for it…
She spent a number of years trying to be a talented mother while trying to be a writer at the same time and experienced huge frustration in both domains, concluding, the world loved the delusion (of the mother) more than it loved the mother.
She goes on to say, Perhaps when Orwell described sheer egoism as a necessary quality for a writer he was not thinking about the sheer egoism of a female writer. Even the most arrogant female writer has to work overtime to build an ego that is robust enough to get her through January never mind all the way to December.
In spite of the challenges, Levy managed to get some books published. I'd read two of her novels in the past, [b:Swimming Home|11700333|Swimming Home|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328777389l/11700333._SY75_.jpg|16647492] and [b:Hot Milk|26883528|Hot Milk|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631266011l/26883528._SY75_.jpg|46932640] (as yet unpublished when she was writing Things I don't want to Know) and I was pleased to find little clues in her examination of why and how she writes that helped me better understand the veiled themes in those two novels. I also found echoes of Ernaux, Ditlevson and Bennet in Levy's account of her childhood and her growing relationship with the written word. She had always been determined to be a writer but found it nearly impossible to make a living from writing— 'A Room of her Own' was far away. That is the case with Claire-Louise Bennet too who wrote the final version of her semi-autobiographical account of her reading and writing life, [b:Checkout 19|58386758|Checkout 19|Claire-Louise Bennett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1630346616l/58386758._SY75_.jpg|87473457], as recently as 2020 in a room in someone else's house.
Deborah Levy expands on that subject in the second volume of her living autoiography project, The Cost of Living, which she wrote in a friend's garden shed. The shed sounded like a modest version of Virginia Woolf's garden room at Rodmell where her desk still sits today. Levy would set out every day from the cramped high-rise apartment where she lived with her two daughters, and cycle to her friend's garden crossing London's Abbey Road to get there. I mention that area because I have since read her novel, [b:The Man Who Saw Everything|42972048|The Man Who Saw Everything|Deborah Levy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550727470l/42972048._SY75_.jpg|66799847], published in 2019, and recognised the setting of the main event of that novel in an episode in The Cost of Living where Levy is knocked of her bike crossing Abbey Road. It's clear that Levy eventually uses many events in her life as triggers for her fiction. About the notebooks she carries everywhere, she tells us: I was always gathering evidence for something I couldn't fathom.
When I finished The Cost of Living, I started the third part of her living autobiography, Real Estate, where her preoccupation with acquiring that elusive 'Room of her Own' continues. A lot of the third book happens in Paris where she gets to live and write in a city centre apartment thanks to a nine-month bursary she won in 2020. Then it's back to the high rise apartment in busy London where another friend's garden shed becomes her writing room for the time being.
But no matter where she writes, Levy's thoughts and reflections are interesting, and I particularly enjoyed the sections on books she's reading. If she writes a fourth volume in her autobiography series, I will read it. And I sincerely hope it will tell of finally getting a room of her own.
katyboo52's review against another edition
5.0
The third in Deborah Levy's autobiographical trilogy, Real Estate is perfection. If you loved the first two books, this is more of the same. If you've never read the others, you could still read this and find it richly fulfilling. A book about what it is to be a woman writing to find herself and finding ways to live to write and vice versa. Full of charm, humour, poignancy and a stellar eye for the absurd. I didn't want any of these books to end.
shaguftap's review against another edition
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
A triumphant finish to this three volume memoir! I loved this exploration of what it means to be a woman creating her own life over and over again. A beautiful book.
adriancurcher's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0