Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir Author: Penelope Lively | Language: English | ISBN:
B00DMCV8CC | Format: EPUB
Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir Description
The beloved and bestselling author takes an intimate look back at a life of reading and writing“The memory that we live with . . . is the moth-eaten version of our own past that each of us carries around, depends on. It is our ID; this is how we know who we are and where we have been.”
Memory and history have been Penelope Lively’s terrain in fiction over a career that has spanned five decades. But she has only rarely given readers a glimpse into her influences and formative years.
Dancing Fish and Ammonites traces the arc of Lively’s life, stretching from her early childhood in Cairo to boarding school in England to the sweeping social changes of Britain’s twentieth century. She reflects on her early love of archeology, the fragments of the ancients that have accompanied her journey—including a sherd of Egyptian ceramic depicting dancing fish and ammonites found years ago on a Dorset beach. She also writes insightfully about aging and what life looks like from where she now stands.
- File Size: 2429 KB
- Print Length: 241 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0670016551
- Publisher: Viking Adult (February 6, 2014)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00DMCV8CC
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,670 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #29
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > World > 20th Century - #32
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors - #85
in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
- #29
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > World > 20th Century - #32
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors - #85
in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir by Penelope Lively is an insightful and fascinating consideration of old age and memory which will leave you with the thought whether it’s the traveling that’s better or having arrived at the destination. The Man Booker Prize-winning novelist’s memoir is driven by wistfulness and reminisce her journey of over eighty years, wondering if one remains the same or experiences change during the course of life. It is a deeply personal reflection which is both charming and compelling.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the memoir is the audacity of the author to honestly and candidly scrutinize the landscape of old age from the viewpoint of someone in her sunset years, which certainly wouldn’t be an easy task. Old age appears to be the overriding theme of the book. Though the memoir comes short on various fronts, the author’s masterful storytelling, sharpness and creativity makes it an enjoyable read.
Though age may no longer be on her side, her writing is as brilliant as ever, reminiscent of the time when she won the Booker for her book Moon Tiger in 1987. Reading the first section on “Old Age” makes one more thankful for her life. What flows all throughout the book is her recollection of her childhood years in Egypt. The section on “Life & Times” is informative and the section on “Six Things” is heavily reflective and personal. The book is all about Penelope Lively and there is not much information about her family. As she mentioned in the book, Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir “…. is not quite a memoir. Rather, it is the view from old age.” And that’s what it is!
By Khamneithang Vaiphei
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Lively has entered that time she feared, "that hazard light worn by the old- slow potentially boring, hard going." While I share that status with Lively, I also believe this book has much to inform those entering the ranks of the aged. After all, there appear to be a lot of us and more on the way. The task to place oneself in the world comes as a reality for us all. I agree with Lively that we are a bit invisible, out of the way, no longer the dominant. I also find it a relief. However, present we are, and Lively's thoughts are instructive and sprightly.
I am quite charmed by the ways of viewing age in this book. In particular the review of treasured belongings. Of course I also share with her that legal addiction, reading. Her prose is witty, self deprecating, and literate. Lively's own works are part of my library, and it find enchanting the peppering of titles that share her own life. She has a dignity about diminishment that I admire, and a wry regret that I enjoy. Last, but not the least, the memoirs that apply to her own life come as illustrative of a life culminating in her present state.
I would urge you to read this book. The thoughts have a comfort and a wisdom. After all, "the poor have always been with us, now the old are too."
By Amelia Gremelspacher
TOP 500 REVIEWER
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