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lectrice's review
4.0
4.5: I’m a longtime Lively groupie and this memoir-in-essays hits all the notes I find in her best fiction, especially the way her passion for History has shaped her work as a novelist, her observational skills and genuine curiosity about people and about the past, and her precise and direct prose.
scarpuccia's review
2.0
I learned Penelope Lively’s three favourite novels are What Daisy Knew by Henry James, The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford and The Inheritors by William Golding. I’d like to say I learned lots more of interest from Lively but I’m afraid I didn’t. I was often rather bored by her musings in this book of rather disconnected essays. I’d describe this as a pastime rather than any kind of inspired performance. Overall it came across as a writer writing for the sake of it. I’ve got a lot of love for Penelope Lively but this felt like a waste of my time.
pennyriley's review
4.0
Despite the fact it is called :A Memoir, it really isn't what I expect from a memoir. It's a reflection on a life well-lived, and the role that our age and memory plays in the way we react to the events of our life. Written from that perspective, at the age of 80 I suspect that older readers will get more from it than younger.
lonesomereader's review against another edition
5.0
Do you think of your life as a narrative? Casting your mind back do you hit upon “landmark” moments that set you on a course to becoming the person you are now? Last year I started spending more time with an acquaintance who I’d casually known for years. Increasingly we discussed books and went to events together although we didn’t really know all that much about each other. So one evening while we were having dinner he suddenly looked up at me and asked “Who are you?” I had to mentally scramble around quite quickly picking up and arranging all those introductory phrases and things you say at social gatherings to present a coherent answer to this. We’re accustomed to constructing narratives, forever tweaking and refining them, to make sense of our lives. It’s not that we necessarily try to fictionalize elements of the past, but that we attempt to make our lives into a complete comprehensible story rather than a series of slapdash experiences dependent upon chance and sporadic bursts of willpower which is the existence of most people. As Lively writes, “Most of us settle for the disconcerting muddle of what we intended and what came along, and try to see it as some kind of whole.” The trouble is that giving an approximate linear shape to our lives doesn’t really convey the experience as it was lived or how that experience has been translated into the memories inside our heads. Penelope Lively is very aware of this problem. Our lives don’t play through like a grand fictional narrative on a movie screen starting at birth and ending in death. Life exists in the sensory moment and in the scattered fragments of memory flitting through our minds throughout every day.
Read my full review on LonesomeReader review of Ammonites & Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively
Read my full review on LonesomeReader review of Ammonites & Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively
ssindc's review against another edition
3.0
This was a memoir I had to read ... for many reasons. Lively has long been one of my favorite novelists, a Booker Prize winner (although her Booker Prize winner, Moon Tiger, is very good, it is by no means my favorite of her work), the female author I've read more of than any other over a lifetime of reading. Indeed, I fondly remember - in the 1980's and early 1990's - buying her earlier works in London bookstores (Foyle's - remember Foyle's, wow! - or Blackwell in Oxford or...) before all of her work became so widely available here in the U.S. I always adored her (sparse but effective) prose, her observant eye, her window into the human experience, her consistency.
And now, having passed into her ninth decade, she looks back. Granted, this is a very different vehicle than her prior, highly stylized childhood retrospective, Oleander, Jacaranda. Was her life so unique that it merited two memoirs? Why not? First, the two memoirs are very different, indeed.
More importantly, what a life! Raised in Egypt, displaced and exiled to the UK by WWII, and a relatively circuitous path to being a highly prolific, respected novelist. From observing Charles de Gaulle in his dressing-gown as a child to becoming Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (which, of course, doesn't even merit mention in this memoir), it's an extraordinary life. Granted, in the Internet era, we (often) are able to learn as much (or too much) about authors (or celebrities, generally) as we'd want to know. But this is her story, and therein lies the attraction.
On a more critical note, I have to assume that, but for her reputation and readership, this book would never have been published. It's a collection of reflections, musing, almost rambling observations on - in order - aging (senior citizenship - this was, to my mind, the most surprising or unexpected), life in the context of the world around her, memory, books and reading and writing, and - and this is the most quirky - six (seemingly) random objects of meaning in her home/life. Fortunately, it's Penelope Lively, so there is no rambling, and each vignette is thought-provoking and, more often than not, prompts more questions than answers. (I'm highly amused by the number of pages that I dog-eared for additional investigation, reading, research, and inquiry.)
Not for everyone, but I'm glad she wrote it, and I'm pleased I finally read it.
And now, having passed into her ninth decade, she looks back. Granted, this is a very different vehicle than her prior, highly stylized childhood retrospective, Oleander, Jacaranda. Was her life so unique that it merited two memoirs? Why not? First, the two memoirs are very different, indeed.
More importantly, what a life! Raised in Egypt, displaced and exiled to the UK by WWII, and a relatively circuitous path to being a highly prolific, respected novelist. From observing Charles de Gaulle in his dressing-gown as a child to becoming Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (which, of course, doesn't even merit mention in this memoir), it's an extraordinary life. Granted, in the Internet era, we (often) are able to learn as much (or too much) about authors (or celebrities, generally) as we'd want to know. But this is her story, and therein lies the attraction.
On a more critical note, I have to assume that, but for her reputation and readership, this book would never have been published. It's a collection of reflections, musing, almost rambling observations on - in order - aging (senior citizenship - this was, to my mind, the most surprising or unexpected), life in the context of the world around her, memory, books and reading and writing, and - and this is the most quirky - six (seemingly) random objects of meaning in her home/life. Fortunately, it's Penelope Lively, so there is no rambling, and each vignette is thought-provoking and, more often than not, prompts more questions than answers. (I'm highly amused by the number of pages that I dog-eared for additional investigation, reading, research, and inquiry.)
Not for everyone, but I'm glad she wrote it, and I'm pleased I finally read it.
soapyporridge's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
'The past is irretrievable, but it lurks.'
The earlier sections of this I found heavy which is a shame because there are some beautiful turns of phrase.
'The past is irretrievable, but it lurks.'
The earlier sections of this I found heavy which is a shame because there are some beautiful turns of phrase.
satyridae's review against another edition
4.0
I loved the initial essay on old age very much. The rest of the book was engaging and interesting, but that first essay is what I will carry away from this. Also the dancing fish of the last essay- in which Lively shows us six object which are essential to her.
This is my first Lively, and it won't be my last. Her penetrating, warm voice is a goodness.
This is my first Lively, and it won't be my last. Her penetrating, warm voice is a goodness.
lil's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful writing. It took me several days to read as I wanted to savor it.