Welcome to Litsy!

NOT what I was expecting. And all the better for it.

The author is 59. Her youngest daughter is leaving home, her banana tree is part of the family, & the chances of her acquiring the grand house she‘s always planned are receding. So what Real Estate does she have? Or Un-Real Estate, come to that?

A surprisingly funny, wise, relatable, comfort-ready memoir-of-a-year in-essays type-thing. I will read her novels.

Audio read by Julia Stevenson👍

Unpopular opinion, but I didn‘t really enjoy this.

This memoir was such a pleasant weekend read. A beautiful meditation on women's condition and the relation with their emotional baggage and material possessions. Wisely chosen literary references and meaningful geographical locations added depth and relevance to the message.

"There were spectres in the shadow of my own life too: childhood, Africa, love, loneliness, ageing, my mother, all the unreal estate in my property portfolio."

The others in this autobiographical series have been hit and miss for me, but I enjoyed this one much more. Especially her reflections on trying to sell a screenplay without resorting to female stereotypes, and supporting her daughters as they left home.

I asked Agnes why playing mothers, grand mothers, great-aunts and eccentric spinsters was seen as a demotion? It occurred to me that what was wrong with the scripts was that the mothers and grandmothers were always there to police the more interesting desires of others, or to comfort them, or to be wise and dull.

I had met a writer from Romania who arrived in Switzerland as a refugee in 1987. She had...made her Zurich room look similar to her room in Bucharest.... I had written a book...called Swallowing Geography.....She told me that she had pinned to the wall by her bed the words of the female narrator:
Each new journey is a mourning for what has been left behind. The wanderer some times tries to recreate what has been left behind, in a new place.

Someone else has requested this at the library, so I better get reading...

A must for all her fans, Deborah Levy in on bbc radio 4 Desert Island discs on Sunday 16th January 2022

I enjoyed the exploration of home and material vs non-material possession

September 2021 Reading Wrap-Up:
5 🌟
Real Estate: Deborah Levy 📖
4 Star⭐
Light Perpetual: Francis Spufford 🎧
Vista Nostra: Marina & Sergey Dyachenko 🎧
3.5 Star⭐
The Galaxy and the Ground Within: Becky Chambers 📖
China Room:Sunjeev Sahota 📖
An Island: Karen Jennings 📖
3 Star⭐
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton: Julia Quinn 🎧
A Psalm For the Wild Built: Becky Chambers 🎧
Tales of the City: Armistead Maupin 🎧
2 ⭐
Tangerine: Christine Mangan🎧

A gem. I loved this wise and beautifully paced memoir of a year in Levy‘s life. The writing is exquisite, great rhythm & tightly edited. Interesting on many levels: personal, as she examines her life with maturity & self-awareness; intellectual, with literary references used judiciously to add depth; & the setting, from London to Paris to Greece. It‘s like virtual travel with a smart friend. Invigorating & comforting at the same time.

A gem. I loved this wise and beautifully paced memoir of a year in Levy‘s life. The writing is exquisite, great rhythm & tightly edited. Interesting on many levels: personal, as she examines her life with maturity & self-awareness; intellectual, with literary references used judiciously to add depth; & the setting, from London to Paris to Greece. It‘s like virtual travel with a smart friend. Invigorating & comforting at the same time.

5 ? her writing is brilliant and seamless. Written the year she turned 60. " it took me a long time to discard the desire to please those who do not have my best interest at heart and who cannot live warmly with me."
Highly recommend!

Deborah Levy is an author who can restore my faith in humanity. And do it with humour. At the Edinburgh festival today she said, “I would never give anyone advice… in case they take it.” I will follow her advice anyway—actually the advice she gives herself—which is to always keep pushing forward.

I supposed that what I most value are real human relations and imagination. It is possible we cannot have one without the other. It took me a long time to discard the desire to please those who do not have my best interests at heart and who cannot live warmly with me.

#midyearfavrs #day5 of 10
A bit of a cheat today with books two AND three, that I read this year, of Deborah Levy‘s ‘working‘ memoir…
I absolutely loved her novel Hot Milk last year, and this year I decided to try her non fiction ….
Just so good! Part memoir, part feminist manifesto, a beautiful look at a writer‘s life, a woman aging, her nest emptying…. She muses on life so wonderfully. I‘m now an even bigger fan. 📚💕

I just loved this 3rd part to this “living autobiography”. As Levy contemplates the meaning of home, and muses on a fantasy ‘unreal‘ estate, I became more in love with her writing. Both straightforward and also dream-like, I love the way she expresses the simplest action or deepest felt emotion so expertly.
This series of memoirs, give such insight into the inner life of a writer, but also somehow speaks as feminist manifesto for a woman‘s life.