I came to Jenny Diski late. In that, I am not unlike Heidi Julavits, who in her Foreword to Diski's collection of fractured fairy tales, The Vanishing Princess, acknowledges, "My Diski gateway was her nonfiction and when it came to her fiction, I began with her short stories." Indeed, I might take this a little further, which is to say that what has drawn me most to Diski is her disregard of genre lines. Take In Gratitude, her memoir of dying, published just days before her death in 2016. There, Diski eclipses the boundary between two forms: the cancer memoir, which she doesn't want to write ("Embarrassment at first," she grumbles, "to the exclusion of all other feelings. But embarrassment curled at the edges with a weariness") and the coming-of-age saga, which in her case involves not only the usual familial indignities but also a stint in a psychiatric hospital and a few years as (yes) Doris Lessing's ward. It's the stuff, in other words, of fiction, or it could be -- although it also resists being rendered as a coherent single narrative. The genius of the book, as well as, say, Skating to Antarctica or The Sixties, which cover some of the same material, is that Diski is too smart to try.The Vanishing Princess, which was published in England in 1995 but is only now being issued in the United States. Gathering a dozen stories, some of which first appeared in New Statesman and the London Review of Books, it seems to be a book of updated myths or legends before revealing its true, and more subversive, intent. "There was once a princess who lived in a tower," Diski begins the first story, "The Vanishing Princess or The Origin of Cubism." The competing titles, and the tension or disconnection between them, offers a hint of what she had in mind. Diski makes this clear as the opening paragraph continues: "It is hard to say precisely if she was imprisoned there. Certainly, she had always been there, and she had never left the circular room at the top of the long winding staircase. But since she had never tried to leave it, it wouldn't be quite accurate to say that she was imprisoned." Yes, she is saying, we are in the territory of the folk tale, but the outcome, the movement of the narrative, will not necessarily unfold as we might expect.The Vanishing Princess 's more naturalistic efforts, which share a certain restlessness, a dissatisfaction, with the ways such stories have been told. "Everything about human transactions, on the other hand, was devious, including attempts at openness," Diski writes in "Short Circuit," about a woman who wants her lover to be unfaithful -- so the relationship will work. "Housewife," on the other hand, imagines a woman who is herself unfaithful to her loving husband -- or so it appears until the final paragraphs, when Diski reveals a dynamic between the couple that is more nuanced and complex. Nothing is what we think it is, not even narrative itself. This is vividly articulated in "Strictempo," which revisits (or pre-visits) the territory of In Gratitude and Skating to Antarctica to tell the story of a teenager committed to a psych ward, although the experience is less a cause of damage than relief. "So," Diski writes, in a line that could come from one of her memoirs, "at fifteen, in the year the Beatles recorded 'Love Me Do,' she danced her old-fashioned dance and closed down the part of her mind that wrestled with the future." Neurosis, in other words, as protective mechanism, the only rational response to the irrationality of her world.David L. Ulin is the author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he spent ten years as book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times.
Reviewer: David L. Ulin
The Barnes & Noble Review
10/02/2017
Wonderful... Holds riches for all. Longtime fans will celebrate the very fact of more Diski and thrill to familiar preoccupations in new settings and shapes... Those who read Diski for the first time are in for the delight of discovery.” — Nickolas Butler, internationally bestselling author of Shotgun Lovesongs and The Hearts of Men
“Mysterious, beguiling, and quietly radical, readers everywhere are lucky to live in a moment when they can discover, or rediscover, her eccentric charm.” — Alexandra Kleeman, author of Intimations
“If you don’t know Jenny Diski’s impressive body of work—six travel memoirs and two volumes of essays—read the British writer’s brilliant posthumous collection...gorgeous, unruly.” — Elle
“[Shows] that whether writing nonfiction or fiction, Diski remained witty, subversive and determined to tell her truth even when it was difficult.” — Washington Post
“Sharp, funny, clever...There’s much to admire in the book—the energy of the prose, the playfulness with which Diski approaches her stories.” — New York Review of Books
“It’s hard for me to imagine a reader exposed to Jenny Diski’s writing who wouldn’t be hooked... Her prose conveys the illusion of a spontaneous monologue, a mind mainlined onto the page... Her life was material. She was her writing, the sum of it a masterpiece.” — New York magazine
“Caustically funny and ebullient stories. . . . Diski’s is the kind of voice of which we need more, of which we now have one fewer. But she has paved a subversive path through the forest for others to follow.” — Vanity Fair
“Rich with caustic wit and playful invention.” — O, the Oprah Magazine
“Glimmers like found treasure—or a mirage...insightful, imaginative, and wryly clever... Regal, raunchy, revealing—the stories in this collection leave a lasting impression.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Excellent. . . . Diski displays hard-edged humor, incisive perceptions, and a lively imagination.” — Publishers Weekly
“Each story is told in Diski’s clear, authoritative voice and explores how women strain (or not) against the bounds of a confining world. A great introduction to Diski’s works.” — Library Journal
Caustically funny and ebullient stories. . . . Diski’s is the kind of voice of which we need more, of which we now have one fewer. But she has paved a subversive path through the forest for others to follow.
Wonderful... Holds riches for all. Longtime fans will celebrate the very fact of more Diski and thrill to familiar preoccupations in new settings and shapes... Those who read Diski for the first time are in for the delight of discovery.
If you don’t know Jenny Diski’s impressive body of work—six travel memoirs and two volumes of essays—read the British writer’s brilliant posthumous collection...gorgeous, unruly.
Sharp, funny, clever...There’s much to admire in the book—the energy of the prose, the playfulness with which Diski approaches her stories.
Rich with caustic wit and playful invention.
It’s hard for me to imagine a reader exposed to Jenny Diski’s writing who wouldn’t be hooked... Her prose conveys the illusion of a spontaneous monologue, a mind mainlined onto the page... Her life was material. She was her writing, the sum of it a masterpiece.
[Shows] that whether writing nonfiction or fiction, Diski remained witty, subversive and determined to tell her truth even when it was difficult.
Mysterious, beguiling, and quietly radical, readers everywhere are lucky to live in a moment when they can discover, or rediscover, her eccentric charm.”
[Shows] that whether writing nonfiction or fiction, Diski remained witty, subversive and determined to tell her truth even when it was difficult.
Rich with caustic wit and playful invention.
Wonderful... Holds riches for all. Longtime fans will celebrate the very fact of more Diski and thrill to familiar preoccupations in new settings and shapes... Those who read Diski for the first time are in for the delight of discovery.
09/15/2017
★ 2017-09-19
