Wednesday 12 June 2019

Ongoingness by Sarah Manguso




Ongoingness is a quirky little book that is also beguiling.  The author kept diaries for 25 years and then meditates on this practice and whether it helps to retain memories or not.

I can't do her writing justice but this is what some other reviewers have said about this little book:

'deeply examines the nature of time, memory, and diaries…A beautiful book… powerful and provocative reflections.' Boston Globe

A bold, elegant, and honest confrontation of a diarist's motivations and neuroses… Ongoingness reads variously as an addict's testimony, a confession, a celebration, an elegy' The Paris Review

And it was difficult to choose just one extract from the book but I did and here it is:

Before I was a mother, I thought I was asking, How then can I survive forgetting so much?

Then I came to understand that the forgotten moments are the price of continued participation in life, a force indifferent to time.'

3 comments:

  1. This book sounds intriguing...as a writer who has an entire bookcase full of diaries and journals that span the space of 35 years. You find the most interesting books!

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  2. I have been and still am a diary keeper, though I call them journals. I would find this an interesting read.

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  3. This sounds interesting. I'll have to look for it.

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