foggy_rosamund's review against another edition
4.0
This memoir follows Diski's journey to Antarctica, and describes her childhood with her dysfunctional family. I love Diski's narrative voice: spare, wry, bitter, she captures a range of feelings I rarely see expressed. She is a reluctant traveller, unimpressed by both the people she meets on the ship to Antarctica, and by much of the scenery. She is happiest alone in her cabin, enjoying the sight of sea, grey skies, and the occasional iceberg. Her descriptions of her childhood are similarly detached: her parents were deeply dysfunctional, abusing her both emotionally and physically, constantly living beyond their means, and both repeatedly attempting suicide. Diski describes her experiences with a chilling lack of self-pity, but a detachment and understanding that renders her accounts insightful and imaginative. Reading Diski is both a journey into the dark places of the mind, and also a refreshing look at modern life and social norms. I enjoy her work and particularly recommend this book.
rumaho76's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
A memoir and a travelogue about Antarctica. Jenny Diski writes her usual humorous and beautiful prose about the pain of her early life and how being cocooned by whiteness calms her.
qwends's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Moderate: Suicide attempt
veelaughtland's review against another edition
3.0
This was my first experience of Jenny Diski's writing, and I have to say I'm a fan. Whilst I'm not sure that this book was the best one to start with in terms of subject matter, I'm excited to explore more of her work as her writing style is really excellent. I enjoyed learning about her childhood and the relationship with her parents, particularly her mother - I knew pretty much nothing about her or her life going into this book, and was surprised by how dramatic and messed up her child and teen years were. The sections relating her travels to Antarctica were not so interesting to me sadly. I didn't really have much interest in the stories about former explorers in Antarctica, the Falklands, or the fellow passengers she met. However, what did enchant me were her descriptions of the landscape and her travels on the boat, along with her desire to be alone in that unending white place and to feel separate from the world. It was both morose and beautiful at the same time. So I'm glad I read this, and I'll need to research what Diski book is right for me as my second venture into her body of work.
bwrightar's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
3.5
Jenny Diski is a wonderful writer and this book is a testament to that. Despite the story jumping through different timelines and different stories, I found that it still sort of flowed very well. Her writing is witty and her descriptions are super vivid. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Suicide attempt, Drug abuse, Abandonment, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Death of parent
pattricejones's review against another edition
5.0
Brilliant. Insightful. I almost skipped this, although I love Diski's other travelogue and her essays in LRB, because I'm not particularly interested in Antarctica. Or skating. But this isn't about that. Antarctica is there and very vividly described—the icebergs especially—but this unsentimental memoir is about very much more. Read it knowing that you are about to learn what it feels like to be someone who was violated by her mother and that, if your basic trust was not undermined in that way, imagining your way into Diski's mental space will be as much of an expedition as her voyage into the land of the penguins. Approach the book as she did the penguins, knowing that this is a being who may perceive the world in a manner fundamentally different, although exactly the same, as your own.
nineteenpoundsofbones's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
5.0
I have only just discovered Jenny Diski's writing, completely by accident, and I am astonished that she isn't better known. Her writing, at the sentence level, is beautiful, her subjects devastatingly sad but somehow without actually leaving me devastated - rather, by the end of this strangely constructed memoir, I was left feeling oddly hopeful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Moderate: Suicide
schopflin's review against another edition
4.0
Jenny Diski was such a clear and incisive writer. This is an excellent part-memoir, part-travelogue, shocking, moving and funny in places. Apparently her first non-fiction, it's interesting to read having read her later autobiographical writings.