Jenny Diski
| Jenny Diski | |
|---|---|
| Born | Jenny Diski July 8, 1947 London |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Genres | Autobiography, Fiction, Non-fiction, Screenplay, Travel |
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www.jennydiski.co.uk |
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Jenny Diski FRSL (née Simmonds,[1] born 8 July 1947) is an English writer. Diski was educated at University College London, and worked as a teacher during the 1970s and early 1980s.[2] She won the 2003 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking around America With Interruptions.
Jenny Diski is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books; the collections Don't and A View from the Bed include articles and essays written for the publication.
Contents |
[edit] Critical comment
Jenny Diski has been described as 'proto-post-postmodern', in being an author who 'sees in the belief in epistemological systems and logic, whether postmodern or otherwise, the general psychosis of postmodern societies'.[3]
'In a market where, increasingly, authors are encouraged to be reader-friendly...Diski pursue themes that make for a difficult, troubling yet fascinating read: depression, madness, sado-masochism, and chaos'.[4] However, her later writings may at times take on a more positive tone: 'The warmth of Apology for the Woman Writing is a stark contrast to much of Diski’s writing, which shows life as pointless, something at best to be endured, at worst something that should never have happened...Yet the narratives show forward movement, even if that movement is towards breakdown'[5]
'In Diski's most interesting and original novels she has abandoned any pretence at realism and embraced the possibilities inherent in fantasy and imagination'.[6]
Stylistically, 'her voice - deeply ironic and funny even when confronting the most harrowing of material - is unique'.[7] Interestingly enough, 'as a young woman, Jenny Diski was "adopted" by Doris Lessing; although she does not discuss this time, Diski’s portrayal of the intricate consciousnesses of thinking women links the two', and arguably 'Diski is in fact a more elegant stylist than Lessing; the style is spare and precise, mirroring the detachment and coldness of many of her heroines and fictional environments'.[5]
[edit] On "The Sixties"
Diski sets out in her personal memoir to describe 'the Sixties then and now as I lived them then and now. I lived in London during that period, regretting the Beats, buying clothes, going to movies, dropping out, reading, taking drugs, having sex, teaching'[8] - almost a stereotypical Sixties life-style.
With respect to the countercultural cult of 'casual sex. We tried hard to make sex as casual as sleeping' - Diski notes offhandedly that 'on the basis that no means no, I was raped several times by men who arrived in my bed and wouldn't take no for an answer'.[9]
Like many others, Diski found 'the anti-psychiatry movement of the Sixties...incredibly seductive. The mad hero became a teacher...shamans, gurus, speakers in tongues'.[10]
Diski returns several times to the vexed question of how far 'the legacy of the permissive Sixties...caused the greed and self-interest of the Eighties by invoking the self, the individual, as the unit of society'.[11] She concludes mordantly that 'one crucial truth about the Sixties' is that the gulf between the set of beliefs whereby '"the Underground puts self at the centre of its spectrum"[1970]...and those of Conservative government of the Eighties was, in practice, very much slighter than we had imagined'.[12]
[edit] Personal life
She married Roger Diski in 1976, and their daughter Chloe was born in 1977;[13] the couple separated in 1981[1] and divorced.
Her current partner is Ian Patterson, known as "the Poet" in Diski's writings, who is also a translator and Director of English studies at Queens' College, Cambridge.
[edit] Bibliography
- Nothing Natural (1986)
- Rainforest (1987)
- Like Mother (1988)
- Then Again (1990)
- Happily Ever After (1991)
- Monkey's Uncle (1994)
- The Vanishing Princess (1995) (short stories)
- The Dream Mistress (1996)
- Skating to Antarctica (1997) (memoir)
- Don't (1998) (essays)
- Only Human: A Comedy (2000)
- Stranger on a Train (2002) (travelogue) - Winner of the 2003 J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography
- A View from the Bed (2003) (essays)
- After These Things (2004)
- On Trying to Keep Still (2006)
- Apology for the Woman Writing (2008)
- The Sixties (2009) (memoir)
- What I don’t Know About Animals (2010) (nature)
[edit] References
- ^ a b Katharine Viner Obituary: Roger Diski, The Guardian, 8 March 2011
- ^ http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth29
- ^ Gerd Berger, in Vanessa Guignery ed., (Re-)mapping London (2007) p. 24 and p. 31
- ^ Nick Turner "Critical Perspective"
- ^ a b Turner
- ^ Nick Rennisson, Contemporary British Novelists (2005) p. 44
- ^ Rennison, p. 44
- ^ Jenny Diski The Sixties, London 2009, p.7
- ^ Diski, Sixties p. 59 and p. 61
- ^ Diski, Sixties p. 126-8
- ^ Diski, Sixties p. 136
- ^ Diski, Sixties p. 87-8
- ^ Steve Crawshaw "Roger Diski: Social entrepreneur who championed sustainable tourism to post-conflict countries", The Independent, 10 March 2011
[edit] External links
- Jenny Diski at Contemporary Writers
- Jenny Diski's official website
- Jenny Diski's blog
- Diski's writings at the LRB
