In a memoir that pierces and delights us; Jill Ker Conway tells the story of her astonishing journey into adulthood—a journey that would ultimately span immense distances and encompass worlds; ideas; and ways of life that seem a century apart. She was seven before she ever saw another girl child. At eight; still too small to mount her horse unaided; she was galloping miles; alone; across Coorain; her parents' thirty thousand windswept; drought-haunted acres in the Australian outback; doing a "man's job" of helping herd the sheep because World War II had taken away the able-bodied men. She loved (and makes us see and feel) the vast unpeopled landscape; beautiful and hostile; whose uncertain weathers tormented the sheep ranchers with conflicting promises of riches and inescapable disaster. She adored (and makes us know) her large-visioned father and her strong; radiant mother; who had gone willingly with him into a pioneering life of loneliness and bone-breaking toil; who seemed miraculously to succeed in creating a warmly sheltering home in the harsh outback; and who; upon her husband's sudden death when Jill was ten; began to slide—bereft of the partnership of work and love that had so utterly fulfilled her—into depression and dependency. We see Jill; staggered by the loss of her father; catapulted to what seemed another planet—the suburban Sydney of the 1950s and its crowded; noisy; cliquish school life. Then the heady excitement of the University; but with it a yet more demanding course of lessons—Jill embracing new ideas; new possibilities; while at the same time trying to be mother to her mother and resenting it; escaping into drink; pulling herself back; striking a balance. We see her slowly gaining strength; coming into her own emotionally and intellectually and beginning the joyous love affair that gave wings to her newfound self. Worlds away from Coorain; in America; Jill Conway became a historian and the first woman president of Smith College. Her story of Coorain and the road from Coorain startles by its passion and evocative power; by its understanding of the ways in which a total; deep-rooted commitment to place—or to a dream—can at once liberate and imprison. It is a story of childhood as both Eden and anguish; and of growing up as a journey toward the difficult life of the free.
#659545 in Books Peri Alexis 2017-01-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.10 x 1.30 x 6.30l; .0 #File Name: 0674971558384 pagesThe War Within Diaries from the Siege of Leningrad
Review
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Superb insight into memoiristsBy CustomerSpell-binding; well-researched; and highly sensitive to the diarists---a must read for academics and lay history buffs alike.2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. What Leningraders really thought.By DRB"The War Within" is an account of the true thoughts and feelings of the people of Leningrad as they experienced the dreadful siege from 1941 to 1944. Based upon 125 unpublished diaries of residents of Leningrad which have recently become accessible; it differs considerably from the official accounts; which have always selected and emphasized the heroic aspects of the situation. Under the terrible stess and anxiety of starvation. bombardment; isolation; and the death of a large portion of the population; these individuals considered at the deepest levels their relationships to neighbors; family; government; life - everything. The book is a remarkable study of the human condition. Prof. Peri writes with grace and verve. While treating the diarists with sympathy and insight; she reports on the often harrowing events and reflections unflinchingly. It is fascinating; and thought-provoking; reading.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. perspective of those blokadniki who endured??By Hung-Tak LeeThis is an attempt to write down the dire situation the blokadniki or the blockade-sufferers found themselves in during the Leningrad siege. Despite the rather detailed descriptions on the life of the blokadniki; one gets a bit queasy to find Peri too much theorizing on social difference based on the bath-house and psychologizing on the bread-line. Why not write down what the many diarists had put down in their "innocuous" diaries; staying away from hypotheses rather untenable? Verbatim quotations are sometimes better than theories not supported by facts in the everyday life of the blokadniki.
