12. Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively
OPD: 2013
format: 234-page paperback
acquired: April 2023 read: Feb 23-29 time reading: 6:20, 1.6 mpp
rating: 3½
genre/style: Personal Essaystheme: TBR
locations: Mainly Egypt and England, but also New England, Wales and Jerusalem
about the author: English author born Cairo in 1933, who moved to England in 1945.

Very different from what I was expecting. I was hoping for a memoir, but really this is a collection of five personal essays on somewhat random topics - on being 80, on her life in light of the Suez crisis of 1956 (as she grew up in Egypt), on memory, on reading (and a little on writing), and on some personal objects and the thoughts they inspire (which is where the title comes from). It's all written with her sharp intelligent prose, that is it reads beautifully. And, reading her essay on being 80, you can't help but be struck by how mentally sharp she is as a writer.

I think if you are in the right state of mind, this is a wonderful book. I came at it wrong. And so, for me, it didn't amount to much more than some light distracting entertainment.

She does have some lovely quotes:

On writing versus life:

You are looking to supply the deficiencies of reality, to provide order where life is a matter of contingent chaos, to suggest theme, and meaning, to make a story that is shapely where real life is linear.

On memory:

We can make a choice from accessible memories...but we can't choose what to remember. There is something disturbing about the thought that, if some other, hither to unavailable retrieval system were activated, I might find myself with a series of entirely unfamiliar memories - an alternate past that happened, but of which I had ceased to be aware.

On Reading:

What happens to all this information, this inferno of language? Where does it go? Much, apparently, becomes irretrievable sediment; a fair amount, the significant amount, becomes the essential part of us - what we know and understand and think about above and beyond our own immediate concerns. It becomes the life of the mind. What we have read makes us what we are - quite as much as what we have experienced, and where we have been and who we have known. To read is to experience.

On education in an Egyptian expat school:

The Iliad and Odyssey spilled out of the lesson time into the rest of the day; I enacted the siege, the wanderings, as I drifted around our garden, because of course I was there anyway - Penelope - so this must be something to do with me personally. The solipsism of the nine-year-old mind. Except that I was there in the wrong part; Penelope is not as beautiful as Helen, she is described as wise and good, qualities that did not appeal. And Ulysses - red-haired and crafty - is clearly not a patch on brave Hector or glamorous Achilles. So I juggled with the narrative - true to the tradition of reworking Homer, had I known it - airbrushed the tiresome Helen, and set myself up with Achilles. And, to bring things more up to date, equipped him with a Matilda tank and a Bren gun, instead of all that stuff with chariots and spears - the Libyan campaign was raging a hundred miles or so away, remember, in 1941.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/358760#8449719 ( )

Memoirs are strange things that can take many forms and tones. This one is quite brilliant and thought-provoking. I'm thinking about the role of memory in my life and what my book collection says about me. I've added many of these books to my own reading lists. This was my first experience with Penelope Lively, but it certainly won't be my last. ( )

“Books are the mind's ballast, for so many of us--the cargo that makes us what we are, a freight that is ephemeral and indelible, half-forgotten but leaving an imprint. They are nutrition, too. My old age fear is not being able to read--the worst deprivation. “

“I can measure out my life in books. They stand along the way like signposts: the moments of absorption and empathy and direction and enlightenment and sheer pleasure.”

“Reading in old age is doing for me what it has always done- it frees me from the closet of my own mind...So I have my drug, perfectly legal and I don't need a prescription.”

This was a pleasant memoir, spanning five decades. It traces Lively's early childhood in Cairo, her boarding school years in London and her development as a writer. Of course, it also covers her love of books, which, of course, were my favorite parts. I will have to read more of her work. I have only read Moon Tiger, which I loved. ( )

DANCING FISH gets off to a fine start, then rambles until Gardening becomes the focus.

"The bricks remember."

Studying memory ends up boring and recursive until "Reading and Writing" and the Ammonites.

For the author, "Taxonomy is crucial, essential." For readers...?

She also writes that she is "...only enjoying it ((a tree)) as an agreeable sight."
Hmm...really...no other connections? ( )

This odd little book is both a memoir and a bit of an homage to books, reading, and writing. Penelope Lively looks back on her 80-plus years, exploring how memory has shaped her as a person and a writer. Lively was born in Egypt and lived there until she was about thirteen. Her early education was based on a curriculum provided to English children being raised abroad, and the methods were unusual by today’s standards. Once in England she followed the traditional path for her class: boarding school followed by a degree from Oxford, where she read history. Her career as a writer came much later.

Lively reveals her life story through a somewhat disjointed approach, touching on a variety of topics while simultaneously connecting them to points in her life. While some aspects were repetitive, reading her thoughts left me feeling like I was sitting in Lively’s kitchen having a nice long chat over cups of tea. Lively is one of my favorite authors, and this book is well-written, but the unusual structure will be most appreciated by her fans. ( )