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perezgeli42's review against another edition
4.0
I listened as an audiobook, which was nice, but I know I will reread this on paper sometime soon in order to annotate the plethora of little wisdoms she dropped so casually. It did feel like it was over before it began, maybe it won't feel so fast on paper. Though she does explore some profound emotional experiences and describes intense internal conflicts, those are still set within (and in contrast to) an *almost* frustratingly charming and peaceful place. As it's a journal and not a novel, I don't have a problem with the lack of a cohesive story being told. Her musings on hopelessness and loneliness might have been discouraging if not for her certainty that it takes courage to despair, and that to constantly marvel and dream and love while despairing is a beautiful, miraculous thing.
sarahrigg's review against another edition
5.0
I'd read an interview with May Sarton about her writing process in my early 20s, and then in 2018 read one of her novels, "Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing," and decided I wanted to read more by her. I really enjoyed "Journal of a Solitude." Her descriptions of nature and the changing seasons, and her thoughts about solitude and relationships were profound. The book also includes a sprinkling of photographs of her life in Nelson, NH. My one sadness in that regard is that there isn't a photo of her parrot, Punch, who comes off as such a character.
I loved this and recommend it. I'm planning to seek out more of her journals/memoirs and likely some of her poetry.
I loved this and recommend it. I'm planning to seek out more of her journals/memoirs and likely some of her poetry.
florencebrino's review against another edition
5.0
Does anything in nature despair except man?
September 15th
I feel inadequate. I have made an open place, a place for meditation. What if I cannot find myself inside it?
For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too much, sense too much, am exhausted by the reverberations after even the simplest conversation. But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate, tormenting, and tormented self. I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose—to find out what I think, to know where I stand. I am unable to become what I see.
September 16th
I make the questions.
I also give the answers.
Naturally.
September 17th
It was a strange relationship, for he knew next to nothing about my life, really; yet below all the talk we recognized each other as the same kind. He enjoyed my anger as much as I enjoyed his. Perhaps that was part of it. Deep down there was understanding, not of the facts of our lives so much as of our essential natures.
September 20th
“There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction—every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour.” P.
September 22nd
I am losing the ability to hold a conversation with people. My voice drowns. My mind wanders. I am holding on to those written words, clinging to them like they were the last piece of wood of a fragile boat that the sea swallowed before. I am holding on to that last trace of whatever it is that makes me human.
...but, what are we looking at? A puppy starving for a glance that fearfully walks away after it gets it; overwhelmed, confused. Connections and detachment fight for a place inside conflicted minds, echoing the struggles of those lonesome beasts of the steppes.
September 23rd
It is raining. I sit by the window and start to look at the world I know, where the jasmines and some white lilies briefly live. Nothing compares to the scent of the jasmines, I think. As I repeat that particular thought inside my head, the rest of them start to ramble. Trapped in the inner world as they contemplate what's outside. They blend with reverie and solitude and begin to restlessly create memories. Brand new memories of things that I have never experienced. A sense of nostalgia towards things that were never real. A feeling of loss at what I have never had. Possibilities are endless and I cannot control anything.
Except the presence of those simple jasmines. And how their fragrance make me feel. For I do not want a mere surface of bright colors or unusual forms. I want everything.
Or nothing at all.
September 25th
This room is a place in the world. Here I breathe, I dream, I read, I write. Do I live? I do feel that universal sense of discontent with life that I wish I could shake off at once. Happiness must exist, somewhere. A moment, a day, a year. A book, a place, a song, a person. And then I think—that inevitable activity that haunts us everyday. And then. And then I am not sure if I want to find that happiness and belong to the flock.
Even though I believe that I am already a part of one.
...
But mirrors await. Poetry emerges from every nook. Time, unforgiving time. Time is everything.
Give me a day and I will give you a year of thoughts. With time, I will accept. I will regret. Fortunately or against my wishes, I will also start to forget. I was never able to forget completely. But things become quiet memories. It all starts to lose its brightness. Its warmth. I thought about someone today. Those faintly aloof eyes.
I smiled. A colder memory now.
September 28th
I am an ornery character, often hard to get along with. The things I cannot stand, that make me flare up like a cat making a fat tail, are pretentiousness, smugness, the coarse grain that often shows itself in a turn of phrase. I hate vulgarity, coarseness of soul. I hate small talk with a passionate hatred. ...it is a waste of time to see people who have only a social surface to show. I will make every effort to find out the real person, but if I can't, then I am upset and cross. Time wasted is poison.
September 29th
'How does one grow up?' I asked a friend the other day. There was a slight pause; then she answered, “By thinking.”
The thing I want to control the most.
*
So intimate, so special, so familiar. These journals reminded me of a book I absolutely adore.
A brushstroke of sweet, melancholic poetry on every page. The deafening sounds of a silent introspection. I have found more words to describe the inexplicable, since my own are never enough.
I am accused of disloyalty because I talk about things that many people would keep to themselves...I am not at all discreet about anything that concerns feeling. My business is the analysis of feeling.
May Sarton merged nature with solitude and, as a result, this beautifully crafted book came into existence. Journals filled with her impressions on the natural world, relationships of all sorts, the creative process and the isolation that it inevitably requires, the ebb and flow of her depression, the moments of peace in between.
A walk through the depths of her complex soul has been portrayed with a most exquisite and honest writing.
Jan 05, 16
* Also on my blog.
ms_tiahmarie's review against another edition
I borrowed this book and am rather sad I have to give it back. Thus, extra quotes to help me remember.
- I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my "real" life again at last. That is what is strange - that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. –
– Must art come from tension? –
– It is never a waste of time to be outdoors, and never a waste of time to life down and rest even for a couple of hours. It is then that images float up and then that I plan my work. –
– But the fact remains that, in marrying, the wife has suffered an earthquake and the husband has not. His goals have not radically changed; his mode of being has not been radically changed. –
– ...people in their thirties mourning their lost youth because we have given them no ethos that makes maturity appear an asset. –
– We have to make myths of our lives, the point being that if we do, then every grief or inexplicable seizure by weather, woe, or work can - if we discipline ourselves and think hard enough - be turned to account, be made to yield further insight into what it is to be alive, to be a human being, what the hazards are of a fairly usual, everyday kind. –
– All aspiring writers say these things: "I will not compromise and write a best seller!" - as if they could! There may be a few totally faked-up books that sell, but on the whole I believe every writer writes as well as he can. It takes a good storyteller to write a best seller, and a good craftsman. The professional will never brush the best seller aside as something he could do if he were willing to compromise. No, it is all a matter of kinds of perception, and of kinds of writing. –
– It is harder for women, perhaps, to be "one-pointed," much harder fro them to clear space around whatever it is they want to do beyond household chores and family life. Their lives are fragmented...this is the cry I get in so many letters – the cry not so much for "a room of one's own" as time of one's own. –
– It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it - and I do and always have - then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation in it. –
- I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my "real" life again at last. That is what is strange - that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. –
– Must art come from tension? –
– It is never a waste of time to be outdoors, and never a waste of time to life down and rest even for a couple of hours. It is then that images float up and then that I plan my work. –
– But the fact remains that, in marrying, the wife has suffered an earthquake and the husband has not. His goals have not radically changed; his mode of being has not been radically changed. –
– ...people in their thirties mourning their lost youth because we have given them no ethos that makes maturity appear an asset. –
– We have to make myths of our lives, the point being that if we do, then every grief or inexplicable seizure by weather, woe, or work can - if we discipline ourselves and think hard enough - be turned to account, be made to yield further insight into what it is to be alive, to be a human being, what the hazards are of a fairly usual, everyday kind. –
– All aspiring writers say these things: "I will not compromise and write a best seller!" - as if they could! There may be a few totally faked-up books that sell, but on the whole I believe every writer writes as well as he can. It takes a good storyteller to write a best seller, and a good craftsman. The professional will never brush the best seller aside as something he could do if he were willing to compromise. No, it is all a matter of kinds of perception, and of kinds of writing. –
– It is harder for women, perhaps, to be "one-pointed," much harder fro them to clear space around whatever it is they want to do beyond household chores and family life. Their lives are fragmented...this is the cry I get in so many letters – the cry not so much for "a room of one's own" as time of one's own. –
– It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it - and I do and always have - then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation in it. –
erinhealea's review against another edition
5.0
SO. Delicious.
"There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over any encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it."
"...necessity for suffering. Sometimes I wonder whether what is often wrong with intimate human relations is not recognizing this. We fear disturbance, change, fear to bring to light and to talk about what is painful. Suffering often feels like failure, but it is actually the door into growth. And growth does not cease to be painful at any age."
"There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over any encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it."
"...necessity for suffering. Sometimes I wonder whether what is often wrong with intimate human relations is not recognizing this. We fear disturbance, change, fear to bring to light and to talk about what is painful. Suffering often feels like failure, but it is actually the door into growth. And growth does not cease to be painful at any age."
kathastrophy's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
3.5
Mucha paz, mucha re introspección, una realidad en otra época, una mujer con anécdotas interesantes. Ansiosa por leer otro libro de ella pronto
barbette's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 stars. A quiet book to savor over time if you value solitude, blooming plants, and writing life. I appreciated Sarton's insights on the challenges that relationships present to creative work. It took me some time to become fully engaged with this book, but I was sad to leave it, stretching the last 20 pages over a week.
bindu1118's review against another edition
5.0
I came across Sarton through her timeless quotes on personality, writing and this picked this book up. I’m glad I did because I resonate a lot with her and she does a remarkable job in laying out the loneliness that accompanies the job of writing. Will be coming back to this book in years ahead for sure.
“This is where poetry is so mysterious, the work more mature than the writer of it, always the messenger of growth. So perhaps we write toward what we will become from where we are. The book is less and more than I had imagined it might be.”
“This is where poetry is so mysterious, the work more mature than the writer of it, always the messenger of growth. So perhaps we write toward what we will become from where we are. The book is less and more than I had imagined it might be.”