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A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again
I took off my wedding ring - a gold band with half a line of 'Morning Song' by Sylvia Plath etched inside - and for weeks afterwards, my thumb would involuntarily reach across my palm for the warm bright circle that had gone. I didn't throw the ring into the long grass, like women do in the movies, but a feeling began bubbling up nevertheless, from my stomach to my it could fling my arms out. I was free.
A few years into her marriage and feeling societal pressure to surrender to domesticity, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next.
Newly untethered, Joanna returned to the free-spirited writers of her youth and was soon reading in a fever - desperately searching for evidence of lives that looked more like her own, for the messiness and freedom, for a possible blueprint for intellectual fulfillment.
In A Life of One's Own , Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante are all taken down from their pedestals, their work and lives seen in a new light. Joanna wanted to learn more about the conditions these women needed to write their best work, and how they addressed the questions she herself was struggling Is domesticity a trap? Is life worth living if you have lost faith in the traditional goals of a woman? Why is it so important for women to read one another?
This is a radical and intimate examination of the unconventional paths these women took - their pursuits and achievements but also their disappointments and hardships. And in exploring the things that gave their lives the most meaning, we find fuel for our own singular intellectual paths.
A few years into her marriage and feeling societal pressure to surrender to domesticity, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next.
Newly untethered, Joanna returned to the free-spirited writers of her youth and was soon reading in a fever - desperately searching for evidence of lives that looked more like her own, for the messiness and freedom, for a possible blueprint for intellectual fulfillment.
In A Life of One's Own , Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante are all taken down from their pedestals, their work and lives seen in a new light. Joanna wanted to learn more about the conditions these women needed to write their best work, and how they addressed the questions she herself was struggling Is domesticity a trap? Is life worth living if you have lost faith in the traditional goals of a woman? Why is it so important for women to read one another?
This is a radical and intimate examination of the unconventional paths these women took - their pursuits and achievements but also their disappointments and hardships. And in exploring the things that gave their lives the most meaning, we find fuel for our own singular intellectual paths.
253 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 16, 2023
243 people are currently reading
9592 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 222 reviews
January 6, 2023
To make sense of and find a shape to one’s life within the context of one’s literary predecessors is the project of Biggs’s brilliant book, which combines incisive biographies with a personal story of starting over. This book reframed my own life in the most startling and revealing ways, illuminating complicated desires and lifelong debates via the absorbing stories of nine women authors who I now consider sisters, teachers, kin. A deeply moving meditation on reading and writing, friendship, desire, the life of the mind, and the woman writer’s perennial yearning to be free.
March 20, 2023
I loved this book! The author, an Englishwoman and an editor at Harper's Magazine who lives in New York, goes against the grain of her Oxford education, where she was taught to analyze the books she was reading dispassionately, without regard for the author's lives or her own lived experience. Here, she takes us on a tour de force through the writings and lives of Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante. Biggs combines memoir, detailing the aftermath of her divorce and her move from London to Brooklyn, NY, with literary criticism and close reading. Her reading is very different than the standard academic readings you would do in an English class. She weaves snippets from the lives of these trailblazing women with the lessons she learned and how she used their writings and their lives to inform her own life path and thinking. The result is a literary feast. Those who haven't read these seminal works, such as Beloved, To the Lighthouse, and Ariel, will hunger to get their hands on copies. Those who've read them will want to reread them. Highly recommend, with the caveat that there may be some spoilers if you're someone who reads for the plot.
October 13, 2023
"I know that the decisions I make might have consequences I don't intend, and all I can do is promise myself that I can and will deal with those consequences when they happen. The ultimate freedom might be to take the wreckage of your life and write your own story with it."
The simplest way I can describe A Life of One's Own is that it's essentially an essay collection exploring the lives and works of different women writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante.
Author Joanna Biggs does a terrific job making connections between the writers' lives and works, and she goes even further to compare the wisdom they each voiced. There are also personal touches that show Biggs reflecting on her struggles as a woman trying to find her place in the world, especially after a divorce involving no kids.
Overall, I enjoyed Biggs' analysis of the works of women writers through the lens that art imitates life, a different take to "life imitates art"; their writing was often reminiscent of what they and other women have gone through. Like with most essay collections, though, I enjoyed some parts more than others and found some sections repetitive based on what I already knew about the featured writers or their works. Still, one of my favorite parts was actually Biggs' own wisdom, which is less likely to be made available elsewhere and is exactly what made this book so unique.
The simplest way I can describe A Life of One's Own is that it's essentially an essay collection exploring the lives and works of different women writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante.
Author Joanna Biggs does a terrific job making connections between the writers' lives and works, and she goes even further to compare the wisdom they each voiced. There are also personal touches that show Biggs reflecting on her struggles as a woman trying to find her place in the world, especially after a divorce involving no kids.
Overall, I enjoyed Biggs' analysis of the works of women writers through the lens that art imitates life, a different take to "life imitates art"; their writing was often reminiscent of what they and other women have gone through. Like with most essay collections, though, I enjoyed some parts more than others and found some sections repetitive based on what I already knew about the featured writers or their works. Still, one of my favorite parts was actually Biggs' own wisdom, which is less likely to be made available elsewhere and is exactly what made this book so unique.
July 25, 2023
A compelling introduction to some of the most important female writers & feminist ideas since Mary Wollstonecraft. Still, this book fell flat—by the time I got to Eliot, I was already tired of reading about Joanna Biggs’ divorce. Felt repetitive.
Fun quote - « You can take the girl out of the Catholic bourgeoisie, but you can’t take the Catholic bourgeoisie out of the girl. »
Fun quote - « You can take the girl out of the Catholic bourgeoisie, but you can’t take the Catholic bourgeoisie out of the girl. »
August 24, 2023
"...a piercing blend of memoir, criticism, and biography examining how women writers across the centuries carved out intellectual freedom for their lives and how others might do the same.'
A Life of One's Own came into being as Joanna Biggs, as a woman and a writer, was going through a divorce, dealing with her mother's Alzheimers diagnosis, and trying to figure out what she wanted her life to look like. She turned to other women writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante. I am sure you will your favorites among these. I especially loved Biggs discussions of Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison. She says, "Reading Woolf's account of the beginnings of To the Lighthouse, it is strange to me that anyone ever talks of books apart from a writer's life ... Even if a book is about everything else, it is never not about the life the writer lived." And on Morrison she says, "The Black community in both Morrison's life and her fiction is a place where a woman who doesn't fit into normal categories can thrive." Bibliophiles will find much to enjoy and ponder in A Life of One's Own.
I received a drc from the publisher via Netgalley.
A Life of One's Own came into being as Joanna Biggs, as a woman and a writer, was going through a divorce, dealing with her mother's Alzheimers diagnosis, and trying to figure out what she wanted her life to look like. She turned to other women writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante. I am sure you will your favorites among these. I especially loved Biggs discussions of Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison. She says, "Reading Woolf's account of the beginnings of To the Lighthouse, it is strange to me that anyone ever talks of books apart from a writer's life ... Even if a book is about everything else, it is never not about the life the writer lived." And on Morrison she says, "The Black community in both Morrison's life and her fiction is a place where a woman who doesn't fit into normal categories can thrive." Bibliophiles will find much to enjoy and ponder in A Life of One's Own.
I received a drc from the publisher via Netgalley.
June 8, 2024
This book was a slog to get through and nothing insightful was said. It felt like going around in circles with a lost white woman with no nuance to color her life or her idea of life after divorce. The writing style was terrible and I actually wanted to throw this book away. If you want to read about life after divorce, read The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy.
January 7, 2025
I love books about women, and I love literature, and I did like this book. Joanna Biggs’s voice is clear and inquisitive as she sifts through the lives of several great writers, exploring their life philosophies and the struggles they faced. But I have to admit, I found her views on marriage and ordinary life a little silly. She speaks about love as if it’s something that just shows up, and when it’s gone you must move on, as though it’s some fluttery feeling and not something you have to work at. She condemns bank accounts and dinnertime as boring, informing us she much prefers “dancing naked in heels.” I don’t know how old she is but this reads as someone fresh out of high school.
November 21, 2023
I thought I liked this at first, but as days go on, this one just nags at me.
I enjoyed the deep dive into the lives of 7 women writers, all phenomenal. I knew most of of this, but it was nice to revisit them all at once and remind myself there are a few books I still need to read or reread because I was so young when I first read them. It did make me wonder how some of my high school favorites I would take differently now. I am sure there is a lot I missed or would take differently in my 50s.
It was the personal reflections that were hit or miss for me, and mostly miss. The sections dealing with slowly losing her mother to Alzheimers were most interesting to me more so than her failed marriage, which seemed to be more about failing at marriage than any kind of loss. I am not sure really why her marriage failed. Specifically, I am not sure why she couldn't write or couldn't have cereal for dinner sometimes. That last one seems minor, but that's the point. Not my business for sure, but really relevant to the personal conclusions she drew. I wasn't very invested in whether or not she did that because she didn't succeed at putting her own struggles in context.
It has to be said - there is a lot that is tragic and/or distasteful in the lives of some of these writers, and some of them did not not begin again. One attempted and two succeeded at suicide (that we know of).
It felt like she has always searching for something - permission, inspiration, rules - she isn't going to find in anyone else life, in any new place, in any book.
I think I would have enjoyed this more if the lives of these women writers were presented, and she trusted her readers to draw whatever conclusions are relevant to whatever they are going through themselves. But that you can get on wikipedia.
I enjoyed the deep dive into the lives of 7 women writers, all phenomenal. I knew most of of this, but it was nice to revisit them all at once and remind myself there are a few books I still need to read or reread because I was so young when I first read them. It did make me wonder how some of my high school favorites I would take differently now. I am sure there is a lot I missed or would take differently in my 50s.
It was the personal reflections that were hit or miss for me, and mostly miss. The sections dealing with slowly losing her mother to Alzheimers were most interesting to me more so than her failed marriage, which seemed to be more about failing at marriage than any kind of loss. I am not sure really why her marriage failed. Specifically, I am not sure why she couldn't write or couldn't have cereal for dinner sometimes. That last one seems minor, but that's the point. Not my business for sure, but really relevant to the personal conclusions she drew. I wasn't very invested in whether or not she did that because she didn't succeed at putting her own struggles in context.
It has to be said - there is a lot that is tragic and/or distasteful in the lives of some of these writers, and some of them did not not begin again. One attempted and two succeeded at suicide (that we know of).
It felt like she has always searching for something - permission, inspiration, rules - she isn't going to find in anyone else life, in any new place, in any book.
I think I would have enjoyed this more if the lives of these women writers were presented, and she trusted her readers to draw whatever conclusions are relevant to whatever they are going through themselves. But that you can get on wikipedia.
August 12, 2023
memoir/critique/essay of how nine women writers begin again (and again). Thought provoking about what kinds of relationships we regard as most important in our lives. And what happens if we change our minds and dismantle everything, and try again? (slightly reminiscent of Deborah Levy's living biography series, but more so in a world where everyone's feet touch the ground). And also, the specific lessons and struggles that these specific women writers faced in order to create a writing life for themselves. I learned a lot, and found looking out the open window into each writers inner world inspiring, and in good company through the less inspiring parts. Biggs writes simply, providing a clear view. Will be thinking on this book for a long time.
July 5, 2023
I just loved this book and thinking about the lives of women through the works of these iconic authors-I learned so much about their lives and I now want to reread so many books! I appreciate the author telling her own story woven through the text too. My Favorite line: “divorce should feel like expansion.” I loved her question of what a marriage or relationship looks like that supports writers and also her exploration of mother/daughter relationships and friendships among women. So many connections!
October 31, 2025
“Even if a book is about everything else, it is never not about the life the writer lived.”
Tenderly luminous, personally rigorous, and compulsively enjoyable - in this collection of tessellating essays, a writer examines the (dis)contents of her life as it is echoed and refracted through her literary predecessors. I loved the writers she references, and loved them even more through Joanna Bigg’s hands and words. So often, the art of close reading in pursuit of a sharpened point of criticality can end up feeling distant, but Biggs’ sustained thought and rereadings, and the resultant writing that blooms from it, even haltingly or sinuously, suggests that all acts of close reading feel truest (at least for me) when it is sited not just in the parent text but in the shifting currents of the writer’s and reader’s lives (which are texts too).
The “personal” has always been my ethics of relation and the lodestar of my reading and writing, and it’s heartening to see it championed earnestly and lovingly by Biggs. This book was a kind of emotional call and response between Biggs and her various interlocutors (and literary models), it was grounding and expansive to be brought into the folds of their conversation. For me, the book was a kind emotional relay - bridges upon bridges, upon a groundwork of a kind of devotional and attentive close reading, a love for books and writing, and how we live to try and even better, if we get to read and write about it.
“…the women we invent have changed the course of our lives as surely as the women we are.”
Tenderly luminous, personally rigorous, and compulsively enjoyable - in this collection of tessellating essays, a writer examines the (dis)contents of her life as it is echoed and refracted through her literary predecessors. I loved the writers she references, and loved them even more through Joanna Bigg’s hands and words. So often, the art of close reading in pursuit of a sharpened point of criticality can end up feeling distant, but Biggs’ sustained thought and rereadings, and the resultant writing that blooms from it, even haltingly or sinuously, suggests that all acts of close reading feel truest (at least for me) when it is sited not just in the parent text but in the shifting currents of the writer’s and reader’s lives (which are texts too).
The “personal” has always been my ethics of relation and the lodestar of my reading and writing, and it’s heartening to see it championed earnestly and lovingly by Biggs. This book was a kind of emotional call and response between Biggs and her various interlocutors (and literary models), it was grounding and expansive to be brought into the folds of their conversation. For me, the book was a kind emotional relay - bridges upon bridges, upon a groundwork of a kind of devotional and attentive close reading, a love for books and writing, and how we live to try and even better, if we get to read and write about it.
“…the women we invent have changed the course of our lives as surely as the women we are.”
May 25, 2025
I love a book about writing or a book about reading or a book that reminds me that my future is my own to make up how I want and this checked all the boxes! I’ve been telling every single person in my life to read this and I will continue to do so it made me so happy
June 10, 2024
Hmmm, a very vanilla and beige retelling of nine female writers who tried to go it alone or seek independence of a sort through their writing. The usual suspects of Wollstonecraft and Woolf inevitably pop up! They're like a female writers go-to duo aren't they?! Like Little and Large, or Cannon and Ball! 😂😂😂😂
There were snippets of interesting facts but overall this was pretty bland. I didn't learn anything profound or new.
Just ok.
Donated to the library, see if someone else can enjoy it a little more.
There were snippets of interesting facts but overall this was pretty bland. I didn't learn anything profound or new.
Just ok.
Donated to the library, see if someone else can enjoy it a little more.
July 17, 2025
Sometimes, you need a few tries, before reading a book. That one, from Joanna Biggs, has been sitting in my audio library for almost two years. This summer, something worked : timing I supposed.
I loved taking morning walks listening to this audiobook and immersing myself in the lives of the 9 women writers Biggs writes about. It was inspiring, lovely, comforting. I was surrounded by ghosts and savoured every moment of it. I felt whole and happy again, confident, less alone. I was reminded of the power of writing and reading again, which I needed (but didn’t know I did).
“I don’t want to admire writing for its erudition anymore. I want to be changed by it. I want to know what it’s like to be someone else. I want to have that moment of recognition, finding something on the page I felt but haven’t put into words. I don’t want just to accumulate knowledge, but to be transformed by it.”
(Ps: the quote is transcribed by myself from the audio book as I listened)
I loved taking morning walks listening to this audiobook and immersing myself in the lives of the 9 women writers Biggs writes about. It was inspiring, lovely, comforting. I was surrounded by ghosts and savoured every moment of it. I felt whole and happy again, confident, less alone. I was reminded of the power of writing and reading again, which I needed (but didn’t know I did).
“I don’t want to admire writing for its erudition anymore. I want to be changed by it. I want to know what it’s like to be someone else. I want to have that moment of recognition, finding something on the page I felt but haven’t put into words. I don’t want just to accumulate knowledge, but to be transformed by it.”
(Ps: the quote is transcribed by myself from the audio book as I listened)
December 26, 2024
Leí a Joanna como haberme sentado a conversar largo y tendido con una amiga que me trae el chisme de otras amigas, las otras amigas son de mis escritoras favoritas. Me gustó descubrir datos que no había conocido, me gusta leer a Joanna contándome el proceso de la construcción de este libro, el porqué de cada una de las elegidas. 3.5 estrellas rounded
January 25, 2024
Joanna Biggs wanted to reinvent her life, so she sought inspiration and solace through the writings of eight other writers: Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Elena Ferrante, Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir. Biggs was going through a divorce, and also losing her mother to dementia, both life-changing, of course, but the other aspect of Biggs' journey that she only touched on was that she was not born into a family where intellectual pursuits are the norm, so she was working without a script on many fronts. Biggs comes across as a little lost and lacking in confidence which doesn't make sense given her accomplishments (editor at Harpers and London Review of Books, contributor to the New Yorker, etc.,). But I think her choice to leave her marriage to seek a different kind of life is fraught with insecurity inducing moments. She has courage, if not confidence.
She turned to female writers who led lives that manifested great change, and her book consists of biographical and literary analysis of each writer. I thought she was very good on Wollstonecraft, Eliot, Plath, and Woolf. Her connection to Morrison seemed tenuous, like Morrison was added for diversity, and Biggs only researched her for the book, without previous knowledge of Morrison's writing. But Morrison is an excellent choice for her thesis, nonetheless.
Biggs inspires enthusiasm for her subjects; I felt that surge of excitement that I used to feel in early university when the whole literary world was open and available to me. She was not as good at connecting the work of the women to her own life. Her passages on her adventures in change lacked focus and felt self-conscious. She would talk about her truth without making it into a literary truth, that is, she would describe her activities without circling back to her main thesis to tie in her progress with a universal experience of change and growth. Consequently, her biographical sketch of herself often fell flat.
Despite the short-comings, I did enjoy reading the book, and may even read it again (after I have read Elena Ferrante, thanks to Biggs' glowing recommendation). I look forward to watching what Biggs will write next.
She turned to female writers who led lives that manifested great change, and her book consists of biographical and literary analysis of each writer. I thought she was very good on Wollstonecraft, Eliot, Plath, and Woolf. Her connection to Morrison seemed tenuous, like Morrison was added for diversity, and Biggs only researched her for the book, without previous knowledge of Morrison's writing. But Morrison is an excellent choice for her thesis, nonetheless.
Biggs inspires enthusiasm for her subjects; I felt that surge of excitement that I used to feel in early university when the whole literary world was open and available to me. She was not as good at connecting the work of the women to her own life. Her passages on her adventures in change lacked focus and felt self-conscious. She would talk about her truth without making it into a literary truth, that is, she would describe her activities without circling back to her main thesis to tie in her progress with a universal experience of change and growth. Consequently, her biographical sketch of herself often fell flat.
Despite the short-comings, I did enjoy reading the book, and may even read it again (after I have read Elena Ferrante, thanks to Biggs' glowing recommendation). I look forward to watching what Biggs will write next.
August 14, 2024
Save yourself £11 and just read the Wikipedia pages of each of the authors, because this book adds absolutely NOTHING. Beyond self-interested repetition about how she went to Oxford, and shallow comparisons between fictional characters and her own life (which I ended up skipping over every time I saw ‘divorce’ ‘Oxford’ and every personal pronoun), absolutely nothing is analysed in any depth at ALL. And I’m so mad this was branded as a feminist book, because she would begin with a tiny nudge on something slightly interesting and feminist, and then completely skip over it to talk about her self!!!! What a waste of paper. This just should have been a blog. I really hoped to get something new, interesting, nuanced, thoughtful, something I could use at uni, or just a new feminist perspective on a classic book. But all I got was an autobiography with some poetic lines attempting to merge with a badly written group biography with absolutely no feminist analysis. :( this should have been advertised as an autobiography because I don’t think anyone actually interested in the authors she writes about will enjoy this book.
September 25, 2023
Even though I am very interested in these women writers, this book was very difficult to read. I just couldn't get into it and I wanted to. I can't say I recommend it.
January 16, 2024
female friendships & writing & not letting marriage or the lack of one define you purrrr
March 15, 2025
When Joanna Biggs reached a point in her life when she was frequently more sad than happy, and when she had more questions than answers, she turned for help to the thing she was closest to, namely, books. More correctly though, it was the writers of books, all women, who in some fashion began life again in circumstances and at ages when it might have seemed an inappropriate step to take. “Beginning again” clearly resonated with Ms. Biggs at this time in her life.
The women she selects are Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante. In most of the cases, she had read these women’s works, but there were one or two she hadn’t read, even though she had opportunities to do so in younger days. As she explored and studied the biographies of these women, she found many touchpoints common to her own life, and she drew strength and wisdom from the choices these women faced and the decisions they made.
The result is that A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again is an extraordinarily revelatory and intimate memoir narrating one woman’s rise from depression and despondency to an elevated sense of self-awareness and a new, invigorated appetite for life. Ms. Biggs’s narrative crisscrosses many aspects of her life, including family, marriage, friends, and various jobs of work.
Along the way, she affords readers fascinating biographical details of all nine women, many of which resonated comfortably with my own modest range of knowledge. I have read everything written by George Eliot and Elena Ferrante, and only A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir. I’ve read nothing by any of the others (although I have read Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft…but I suppose that doesn’t count). What I didn’t know but learned has resulted in the pleasant consequence of creating a strong desire to read the works of those women writers still foreign to me.
But while I relished learning more about these women, I considered the numerous instances of Ms. Biggs’s courageous and cathartic soul-baring a far bigger reward. Reflecting on her failed marriage, for example, she doesn’t flinch from confessing: “I shouldn’t have collapsed myself into my marriage; I shouldn’t have made my husband the arbiter of my worth as a writer, or a person, or anything else. I should have spoken up about the things that bothered me…By leaving my husband, I discovered, like [Sylvia] Plath, that I hadn’t grown up yet. I hadn’t found a mature identity of my own and it has been unending, agonizing, confusing work over these past years to find one. But I have had the chance and support to do it, which Plath didn’t.”
And when she admits the following, it makes one want her as a close friend, and to be her close friend. “All of my closest friends now have seen me cry; they have heard me say I love them; they have seen me angry, withdrawn, vicious, and petty; they have had to remind me to behave better. They have stood with me while I was messy, and I have tried my best to stand with them when they have needed me.”
I’m unsure why I purchased this book and then compellingly raced through it as if on a deadline, but I’m certainly glad I did. My literary consumption comprises books that I consciously choose to read, and books that choose me. I have great success with books I choose, but inevitably, I like some much more than others. With books that choose me—the category into which A Life of One’s Own falls—well, the mystique of that process is matched only by its unerring results, for I have loved every book that has chosen me!
I highly recommend A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again. It is a deeply satisfying read, not least of all because of Ms. Biggs’s seemingly effortless and beautiful prose, free of any bumps in the road for readers. But I feel it is only fitting to give the author the last word on how, with an appreciative nod to American zeitgeist, she set about acquiring a life of her own. “My life had been so sad; watching my mother fade away had been grueling; my divorce exhilarating then confusing; depression had exhausted me. I’d changed because of the events in my life and it felt like I was better fitted to American openness: I was embarrassing the English with my need to earnestly remake my life, but Americans understood wanting a life of one’s own.”
The women she selects are Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante. In most of the cases, she had read these women’s works, but there were one or two she hadn’t read, even though she had opportunities to do so in younger days. As she explored and studied the biographies of these women, she found many touchpoints common to her own life, and she drew strength and wisdom from the choices these women faced and the decisions they made.
The result is that A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again is an extraordinarily revelatory and intimate memoir narrating one woman’s rise from depression and despondency to an elevated sense of self-awareness and a new, invigorated appetite for life. Ms. Biggs’s narrative crisscrosses many aspects of her life, including family, marriage, friends, and various jobs of work.
Along the way, she affords readers fascinating biographical details of all nine women, many of which resonated comfortably with my own modest range of knowledge. I have read everything written by George Eliot and Elena Ferrante, and only A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir. I’ve read nothing by any of the others (although I have read Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft…but I suppose that doesn’t count). What I didn’t know but learned has resulted in the pleasant consequence of creating a strong desire to read the works of those women writers still foreign to me.
But while I relished learning more about these women, I considered the numerous instances of Ms. Biggs’s courageous and cathartic soul-baring a far bigger reward. Reflecting on her failed marriage, for example, she doesn’t flinch from confessing: “I shouldn’t have collapsed myself into my marriage; I shouldn’t have made my husband the arbiter of my worth as a writer, or a person, or anything else. I should have spoken up about the things that bothered me…By leaving my husband, I discovered, like [Sylvia] Plath, that I hadn’t grown up yet. I hadn’t found a mature identity of my own and it has been unending, agonizing, confusing work over these past years to find one. But I have had the chance and support to do it, which Plath didn’t.”
And when she admits the following, it makes one want her as a close friend, and to be her close friend. “All of my closest friends now have seen me cry; they have heard me say I love them; they have seen me angry, withdrawn, vicious, and petty; they have had to remind me to behave better. They have stood with me while I was messy, and I have tried my best to stand with them when they have needed me.”
I’m unsure why I purchased this book and then compellingly raced through it as if on a deadline, but I’m certainly glad I did. My literary consumption comprises books that I consciously choose to read, and books that choose me. I have great success with books I choose, but inevitably, I like some much more than others. With books that choose me—the category into which A Life of One’s Own falls—well, the mystique of that process is matched only by its unerring results, for I have loved every book that has chosen me!
I highly recommend A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again. It is a deeply satisfying read, not least of all because of Ms. Biggs’s seemingly effortless and beautiful prose, free of any bumps in the road for readers. But I feel it is only fitting to give the author the last word on how, with an appreciative nod to American zeitgeist, she set about acquiring a life of her own. “My life had been so sad; watching my mother fade away had been grueling; my divorce exhilarating then confusing; depression had exhausted me. I’d changed because of the events in my life and it felt like I was better fitted to American openness: I was embarrassing the English with my need to earnestly remake my life, but Americans understood wanting a life of one’s own.”
December 13, 2024
I will start with the positives: Thanks to this book, I discovered the writing of Zora Neal Hurston. "Their eyes were watching God" truly is a phenomenal piece of writing.
Another great thing is that I finally read "Native son" (Nobel-worthy work).
Now to the actual meat of the book:
Girl. You are 40. Honestly, you don't need to write a 200-page book to vent about your divorce that happened years ago and was amicable but made you unhappy.
I wanted an inspiring story of some female writers. Instead, I got childish complaints from a woman in her 30s who can't handle the fact that as a grown-up, you need to decide what to make for dinner every day.
Oh, by the way, did you know the author went to Oxford? You will be reminded of that all the time. That educational endeavor happened 20 years ago, but she still can't get over the feeling like she doesn't belong there.
And, she was traumatized by some girl not wanting to be friends with her when she was 9, too.
Sometimes, when she started describing her Oxford interview or whine about her divorce (again!), I really wanted to meet her just to tell her to get over herself.
Honestly, this book is the definition of "first-world problems." I appreciate the idea of weaving the books you read into your experience, but if your experience is just not that rich, you don't have to try to make it sound more dramatic than it was.
Another notable thing that stood out to me was a really flat reading of Simone de Beauvoir.
She was such a complex political thinker (and I don't necessarily mean this as a compliment): and her collaboration with the Vichy is mentioned in one sentence, her apologetic stalinism is ommited all together. Instead, we get your standard story of a woman with a convoluted love story torn between Sartre and Aulgren. And what is this shade, thrown at the translators?
Of course, an author makes all the stories in the book about herself. This feels especially sad when it comes to the stories of Hurston and Morrison. It is evident that Biggs has a hard time relating to their experiences (see the pattern?). This becomes especially obvious when you contrast those with essays about Plath and Woolf.
But where this "make everything about yourself" approach shines is the essay about Ferrante. Since Ferrante doesn't share much about her personal life, Biggs really used an opportunity to describe really unnecessary episodes from her own routine in painstaking detail. This doesn't do justice to Ferrante at all.
To sum up this long rant, I want to say: if you need to publish a book to describe your doubts about which kind of writer you want to be, and you are not 16, you don't have to be a writer. That's OK, not everybody has to. Figure out what type of writer you want to be on your own. Or, may be, start a blog or smth. Many fine trees lost their lives for this book to see the light of day.
Biggs herself mentions that Tony Morrison started with writing a book she wanted to read, and it did not exist yet. May be before writing this, Biggs should have considered that we already have enough unnecessary navel-gazing books about the first-world white people discovering depression.
Another great thing is that I finally read "Native son" (Nobel-worthy work).
Now to the actual meat of the book:
Girl. You are 40. Honestly, you don't need to write a 200-page book to vent about your divorce that happened years ago and was amicable but made you unhappy.
I wanted an inspiring story of some female writers. Instead, I got childish complaints from a woman in her 30s who can't handle the fact that as a grown-up, you need to decide what to make for dinner every day.
Oh, by the way, did you know the author went to Oxford? You will be reminded of that all the time. That educational endeavor happened 20 years ago, but she still can't get over the feeling like she doesn't belong there.
And, she was traumatized by some girl not wanting to be friends with her when she was 9, too.
Sometimes, when she started describing her Oxford interview or whine about her divorce (again!), I really wanted to meet her just to tell her to get over herself.
Honestly, this book is the definition of "first-world problems." I appreciate the idea of weaving the books you read into your experience, but if your experience is just not that rich, you don't have to try to make it sound more dramatic than it was.
Another notable thing that stood out to me was a really flat reading of Simone de Beauvoir.
She was such a complex political thinker (and I don't necessarily mean this as a compliment): and her collaboration with the Vichy is mentioned in one sentence, her apologetic stalinism is ommited all together. Instead, we get your standard story of a woman with a convoluted love story torn between Sartre and Aulgren. And what is this shade, thrown at the translators?
Of course, an author makes all the stories in the book about herself. This feels especially sad when it comes to the stories of Hurston and Morrison. It is evident that Biggs has a hard time relating to their experiences (see the pattern?). This becomes especially obvious when you contrast those with essays about Plath and Woolf.
But where this "make everything about yourself" approach shines is the essay about Ferrante. Since Ferrante doesn't share much about her personal life, Biggs really used an opportunity to describe really unnecessary episodes from her own routine in painstaking detail. This doesn't do justice to Ferrante at all.
To sum up this long rant, I want to say: if you need to publish a book to describe your doubts about which kind of writer you want to be, and you are not 16, you don't have to be a writer. That's OK, not everybody has to. Figure out what type of writer you want to be on your own. Or, may be, start a blog or smth. Many fine trees lost their lives for this book to see the light of day.
Biggs herself mentions that Tony Morrison started with writing a book she wanted to read, and it did not exist yet. May be before writing this, Biggs should have considered that we already have enough unnecessary navel-gazing books about the first-world white people discovering depression.
August 15, 2024
Joanna Biggs is someone you can so transparently tell is a genuine devotee to literature, especially women’s literature, and the way she writes about the nine women authors mainly featured in this book is in a way so heartfelt yet still informative that you can feel secondhand the priceless relationship she harbors with these acclaimed women, as so many of us also foster for our favorite authors, and I am sure these nine contributors fall into that category for so many women I know. I found a similar sensation of passion for literature in the essay collections by Elisa Gabbert and Suzanne Scanlon, two other women you can so warmly tell have been significantly influenced by countless other writers, and have coped with the hardships in their life with the help of literature and the kinship of words written by women with similar experiences to them. Biggs touches on the following nine female authors: Simone De Beauvoir, Elena Ferrante, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath, Zora Neale Hurston, Mary Wollstonecraft, and on Biggs herself. Each woman is approached with such precise care and personal interest, their history and significant experiences explored in a well- rounded but not overly superfluous manner, while also providing a melancholy enlightening into the ways Biggs aligns herself and her own tumultuous adulthood with the struggles and undertakings of the writers she adores. As someone who has also deeply incorporated literature, especially by women, into her own life in order to cope, feel less alone, and attempt to identify my own feelings through the elaborations of others of things I have trouble communicating myself, I can heavily appreciate and recognize this same profound cherishing of literature in Biggs’ writing, and found myself repeatedly adoring her approach to exploring these writers and their incomparable oeuvres and inspiring lives. For all of us who cannot imagine our lives without the incredibly powerful influence of the authors we so thoroughly and uncannily identify with, this book will leave you feeling incredibly seen and dying to read every work by the women included, immediately voraciously scrounging for every piece referenced to consume as soon as possible.
August 6, 2024
Autor ühendab oma elu - abielulahutuse ja sellest alguse saanud depressiooni ning hingelise raputuse - tuntud autorite üle- ja läbielamistega ning sellega, kuidas nad siiski jalad taas alla võtsid ja mitmesuguseid metsikusi tegid (kuigi Woolfi ja Plathi käsi lõpuks siiski ju hästi ei käinud), vahepeal rääkides rohkem kirjanike eludest ja siis jälle rohkem endast ja enda muljetest ning hingelisest suhtest nendega. See vist ka kõige rohkem häiris mind, vahepeal oli side ühe ja teise vahel väga punnitatud, samuti oli mõnest autorist lugu pigem elulooline ja teisest rohkem isiklik, kuna viimane peatükk oli Elena Ferrantest, kellest vist senimaani keegi üldse ei tea, kes ja mis autor on, siis seal kokkus "kirjeldan kirjaniku elukäiku ja siis seon selle ebamääraselt enda omaga" eriti läbi. Ühesõnaga, vahepeal läks tüütuks, aga samas sain mitmetest autoritest palju teada, ilma, et oleksin pidanud nende wikiartikleid lugema. Ei saa keegi öelda, et ka vanasti ei oleks huvitavalt elatud.
June 26, 2024
I love the concept of turning to literature for any reason. Biggs examines the work and life of women writers in a quest to discover and define her own life. This book is as much feminist literary criticism as it is a philosophical approach to life. I found the intense analysis of characters in the writers novels a bit tedious at times.
August 14, 2024
Beautiful, while it is mostly biographies, that is not what I take from this book. I don’t really care to nitpick Beauvoirs life and I also can’t remember this much info packed in a short essay. What I take from it is how intertwined these women are, centuries apart and how they and we all think and want similar things. How they found their voice and freedom in a world that didn’t allow them either.
It made me more aware on how to read and why.
“Even if a book is about everything else, it is never not about the life the writer lived.”
It made me more aware on how to read and why.
“Even if a book is about everything else, it is never not about the life the writer lived.”
December 29, 2023
This book was better than I ever could have hoped. Biggs is *such* a great critic. She taught me so much—even about writers I’ve studied myself. And she did it in such a casual, colloquial way that it almost felt like I was reading a gossip column! I loved every page of this amazing book.
June 24, 2023
(3.5)
Really solid writing, loved the mix of memoir and criticism, just wish I could have connected more to the personal aspects.
Really solid writing, loved the mix of memoir and criticism, just wish I could have connected more to the personal aspects.
April 23, 2023
***I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway***
Oh man, this is a book that I did not expect to resonate with SO MUCH but it really struck something in me and I'm sure it will be influencing my book choices for awhile. Which is honestly just so cool.
The author documents 9 women writers whose lives faced significant turmoil (particularly once they reached that fun era called "middle age"). She compares their lives to her own and talks about how their stories (both written and autobiographical) have informed hers as she navigates through her mother's death and a divorce. I'm usually not a fan of author's putting their own story in the mix when discussing these legendary authors (Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, etc) but Joanna Biggs walks this line beautifully. Her story helps put the others in perspective, it brings them back to Earth where they belong.
This book is a reminder that women's literature is more than just the words on the page. It is connection, it is community, it is conflict, and it is love. I am glad I read this and plan to use it as a jumping off point for reading more literature written by these beautiful and complicated women.
Oh man, this is a book that I did not expect to resonate with SO MUCH but it really struck something in me and I'm sure it will be influencing my book choices for awhile. Which is honestly just so cool.
The author documents 9 women writers whose lives faced significant turmoil (particularly once they reached that fun era called "middle age"). She compares their lives to her own and talks about how their stories (both written and autobiographical) have informed hers as she navigates through her mother's death and a divorce. I'm usually not a fan of author's putting their own story in the mix when discussing these legendary authors (Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, etc) but Joanna Biggs walks this line beautifully. Her story helps put the others in perspective, it brings them back to Earth where they belong.
This book is a reminder that women's literature is more than just the words on the page. It is connection, it is community, it is conflict, and it is love. I am glad I read this and plan to use it as a jumping off point for reading more literature written by these beautiful and complicated women.
January 2, 2024
I love the existential nature of reading about writer’s writing about writing and the challenges it can and does present. To tether this to a singular love for our women writer forebears may not seem like a unique strategy, but it is a devilish one. Why? Because it reminds you, chapter by chapter, of the experiences of falling in love with your favourite authors for the first time; and then you fall all over again.
There is a rawness to Biggs writing, an honesty, that I really admired and to which I was drawn. At times, as with Zambreno’s “Drifts” or Shadrick’s “Cure for Sleep” it feels as though the book speaks directly to you, articulates the specific pains you’ve experienced, soothes a few furrows from your own brow.
I borrowed this from the local library in a judicious attempt to make my reading more sustainable, but I fear it may be one I have to buy, as there are bits I know I’ll want to return to and reread. Ordinarily, as with “Drifts”, it would be annotated liberally, but it has to be returned and the joy shared. I genuinely hope Biggs writes the novel she wants to write one day! I’ll be first in line.
There is a rawness to Biggs writing, an honesty, that I really admired and to which I was drawn. At times, as with Zambreno’s “Drifts” or Shadrick’s “Cure for Sleep” it feels as though the book speaks directly to you, articulates the specific pains you’ve experienced, soothes a few furrows from your own brow.
I borrowed this from the local library in a judicious attempt to make my reading more sustainable, but I fear it may be one I have to buy, as there are bits I know I’ll want to return to and reread. Ordinarily, as with “Drifts”, it would be annotated liberally, but it has to be returned and the joy shared. I genuinely hope Biggs writes the novel she wants to write one day! I’ll be first in line.
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