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The World Was Whole
Fiona Wright’s follow-up to her award-winning essay collection Small Acts of Disappearance.
Our bodies and homes are our shelters, each one intimately a part of the other. But what about those who feel anxious, uncomfortable, unsettled within these havens? In The World Was Whole, Fiona Wright examines how we inhabit and remember the familiar spaces of our homes and suburbs, as we move through them and away from them into the wider world, devoting ourselves to the routines and rituals that make up our lives. These affectingly personal essays consider how all-consuming the engagement with the ordinary can be, and how even small encounters and interactions can illuminate our lives.
Many of the essays are set in the inner and south-western suburbs of a major Australian city in the midst of rapid change. Others travel to the volcanic coastline of Iceland, the mega-city of Shanghai, the rugged Surf Coast of southern Victoria. The essays are poetic and observant, and often funny, animated by curiosity and candour. Beneath them all lies the experience of chronic illness and its treatment, and the consideration of how this can reshape and reorder our assumptions about the world and our place within it.
Our bodies and homes are our shelters, each one intimately a part of the other. But what about those who feel anxious, uncomfortable, unsettled within these havens? In The World Was Whole, Fiona Wright examines how we inhabit and remember the familiar spaces of our homes and suburbs, as we move through them and away from them into the wider world, devoting ourselves to the routines and rituals that make up our lives. These affectingly personal essays consider how all-consuming the engagement with the ordinary can be, and how even small encounters and interactions can illuminate our lives.
Many of the essays are set in the inner and south-western suburbs of a major Australian city in the midst of rapid change. Others travel to the volcanic coastline of Iceland, the mega-city of Shanghai, the rugged Surf Coast of southern Victoria. The essays are poetic and observant, and often funny, animated by curiosity and candour. Beneath them all lies the experience of chronic illness and its treatment, and the consideration of how this can reshape and reorder our assumptions about the world and our place within it.
256 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2018
11 people are currently reading
458 people want to read
About the author
Fiona Wright
35 books69 followersFiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic. She is the author of two collections of essays, Small Acts of Disappearance and The World Was Whole, and two poetry collections, Knuckled and Domestic Interior.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
October 18, 2018
A wonderful collection of essays, about illness, the idea of home, the comfort of routines, the joy of dogs and so much more. Wright is one of our finest essayist and this is another brilliant book.
November 24, 2018
Consider this added to my best non-fiction of the year list. Wright’s one of our best essayists and here she explores the body, home, chronic illness, rituals, mental health, Sydney and the messy fabric of life. Stunning sentences offering brutal insights into eating disorders and life in an unruly body or home.
March 9, 2019
I’m attempting to read all the books on the Stella Prize longlist and this was one of them. One of the best books I’ve read this year. A stunning collection of essays about life, chronic illness, friendship, love, family, animals, travel and belonging....particularly the need to feel at home, in many senses of the word. I’ll be seeking out her first book now.
October 1, 2018
Beautiful, frank, elegiac essays about home, travel, illness, animals, Sydney, friendship and self. Fiona Wright is an intense and astute observer of herself and the world, the whole and fragile world.
July 17, 2019
I was a little slow getting into this collection of essays by Sydney writer Fiona Wright, but ultimately found the book evocative and engaging. The essays "A Regular Choreography", "A Gravity Problem" and "Much as That Dog Goes" particularly resonated with me, as a fellow sufferer of chronic illness. The challenges the author faces in living with chronic long-term anorexia and accompanying anxiety form the backdrop to the series of essays and strongly influence all her musings about the importance of "home", familiarity and belonging. While my own chronic illness (fibromyalgia / chronic fatigue) is quite different in character, I found many intersections of experience with those the author described. As with Leigh Sales' excellent "Any Ordinary Day", which I read earlier in the day, I felt Wright's level of research and incorporation of contemporary demographic data provided a strong framework for her personal narrative. "The World Was Whole" won't be to everyone's taste, but I would heartily recommend it to those after a thought-provoking and intelligent read.
February 14, 2019
4 and a half stars
The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright is a difficult book to review. It's a personal collection of Wright's essays, anecdotes and snippets. They are revealing and specific, almost like reading someone's private journal. Yet, all these sketches are written with such emotional intelligence and compassion that they become universal, finding their own connection with each reader.
I underlined so many sections and googled so many poems so that I could read the whole after being tempted by the snippet (one example being Aubade by Louise Gluck) which is always a sign that a book has affected me or moved me deeply. Wright has a lot to say, from her perspective as someone who has anorexia nervosa, about our bodies, how we perceive ourselves, space, environments, nature, food, habits and rituals.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2019/...
The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright is a difficult book to review. It's a personal collection of Wright's essays, anecdotes and snippets. They are revealing and specific, almost like reading someone's private journal. Yet, all these sketches are written with such emotional intelligence and compassion that they become universal, finding their own connection with each reader.
I underlined so many sections and googled so many poems so that I could read the whole after being tempted by the snippet (one example being Aubade by Louise Gluck) which is always a sign that a book has affected me or moved me deeply. Wright has a lot to say, from her perspective as someone who has anorexia nervosa, about our bodies, how we perceive ourselves, space, environments, nature, food, habits and rituals.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2019/...
March 14, 2019
Essays and thoughts on home and displacement. The displacement of no longer feeling like the house you grew up in, or even your parent's home now, is home anymore for you. So totally relatable. The ever shifting notion of home in renting, the striving and reality of home ownership in Sydney/Australia with well researched and grim statistics. Fiona's thoughts woven with poems or pieces she's read or conversations she's had, reads like a companionable chat over a wine or coffee.
The juxtaposition of wanting to travel, but wanting to feel settled, safe and home. Also, so glaring relatable and revelatory.
About illness, and coming to terms with the notion and ownership of the social model of disability in a medicalised world. Fiona's work around trying to be well, trying to understand her body and it's ills, bouncing back to treatment and away again. The privilege of wellness is starkly felt, as you journey through with her.
The anxiety and swings up and down of mental illness, treatment, the nagging symptoms and accommodations of illness. But also the functional nonfunction is frank, shocking at times, brutally honest, and refreshing to be talked about so openly and in such an exposed way.
As a professional who participates in Supervision, the discussion of that exposure and vulnerability of clients smacked me in the face - like duh, have never actually considered that perspective in my working life.
And lastly, the final essay about the power and unconscious love from Virginia, which is healing and grounding. With hope and warmth and comfort.
The juxtaposition of wanting to travel, but wanting to feel settled, safe and home. Also, so glaring relatable and revelatory.
About illness, and coming to terms with the notion and ownership of the social model of disability in a medicalised world. Fiona's work around trying to be well, trying to understand her body and it's ills, bouncing back to treatment and away again. The privilege of wellness is starkly felt, as you journey through with her.
The anxiety and swings up and down of mental illness, treatment, the nagging symptoms and accommodations of illness. But also the functional nonfunction is frank, shocking at times, brutally honest, and refreshing to be talked about so openly and in such an exposed way.
As a professional who participates in Supervision, the discussion of that exposure and vulnerability of clients smacked me in the face - like duh, have never actually considered that perspective in my working life.
And lastly, the final essay about the power and unconscious love from Virginia, which is healing and grounding. With hope and warmth and comfort.
April 19, 2019
Utterly breathtaking and honest. It was as if many of these essays put into words a feeling or thought or concept I hadn't realised I needed to be articulated until I read the words on the page.
December 3, 2018
Some books you just don't want to return to the library. This book is the only thing that's made me even remotely homesick for Sydney in a very long time. I could read Wright's essays forever.
September 15, 2020
I had read a handful of these essays already (I especially love Perhaps this one will be my last sharehouse on the Sydney Review of Books) and am pretty enamored with Fiona Wright in general but this was a phenomenal collection despite all my biases. I have been self-conscious about my reading ability, or lack there of, during the pandemic and I wish I had been able to see that essay collections, short stories, and poetry are a great way to deal with my attention span while still getting a reading fix. There are sections in these pieces that combine all three at times and I continue to be delighted by the effortless intertextuality some authors exhibit. Wright is teaching at the university I work at this term and I hope her students realise how lucky they are.
February 24, 2019
Fiona Wright is a joy to read – I enjoyed every essay in this collection, but my absolute favourites were ones that I'd already read previously in the Sydney Review of Books, so the overall effect was more muted than I'd expected.
January 23, 2019
This collection of essays from Fiona Wright was so wonderful. It explores ideas related to home, the body, illness, and the ordinary events and routine that make up everyday life. The essays include stories from her life, but also reference ideas from a wide variety of writers, including academics, essayists, and poets.
One of my favourite essays was 'A Regular Choreography', which looks at how familiar routines and habits form part of your sense of 'home'. It celebrates the ordinary rhythms of life, in a world where seeking novelty is so highly valued. "... our modern, global world has developed a 'vocabulary of anti-home', which privileges restlessness over rootedness, the transcendent over the immanent, and it means that we are conditioned to see standing still only as stasis, a kind of living death. But standing still, or moving in repeated tiny orbits - this is how we connect with, and cope with, the much more ordinary existence that really is the stuff of so much of our lives; unspectacularly, perhaps, but beautifully, gently, and in a continual and immanent present."
Another favourite was "A Gravity Problem", where she looks at illness and disability - how we conceptualise what these mean, and also what it means to live with chronic illness.
Overall, I loved this collection - highly recommend it!
One of my favourite essays was 'A Regular Choreography', which looks at how familiar routines and habits form part of your sense of 'home'. It celebrates the ordinary rhythms of life, in a world where seeking novelty is so highly valued. "... our modern, global world has developed a 'vocabulary of anti-home', which privileges restlessness over rootedness, the transcendent over the immanent, and it means that we are conditioned to see standing still only as stasis, a kind of living death. But standing still, or moving in repeated tiny orbits - this is how we connect with, and cope with, the much more ordinary existence that really is the stuff of so much of our lives; unspectacularly, perhaps, but beautifully, gently, and in a continual and immanent present."
Another favourite was "A Gravity Problem", where she looks at illness and disability - how we conceptualise what these mean, and also what it means to live with chronic illness.
Overall, I loved this collection - highly recommend it!
November 22, 2018
Fiona Wright is such a gifted and insightful essayist and The World Was Whole has filled the gaps that her first collection, Small Acts of Disappearance, left for me. This is more externalised, a study of places and spaces and how we fit into them, in both physical and figurative ways. But it also still focuses strongly on her illness and how that influences the way she exists in the world.
I inhabit the same part of Sydney as Wright so there was a lot that was relatable here but even when she’s writing about, say, Shanghai, or Iceland, the breadth of her talent imbues such a sense of familiarity and, I don’t want to say comfort but I feel like it’s something akin to comfort, in her words.
I want to pass this on to as many of my friends as possible because it has reminded me that even in the frustration and freneticism of Sydney life there is still something very real to be found here. Also, the writing kicks arse.
I inhabit the same part of Sydney as Wright so there was a lot that was relatable here but even when she’s writing about, say, Shanghai, or Iceland, the breadth of her talent imbues such a sense of familiarity and, I don’t want to say comfort but I feel like it’s something akin to comfort, in her words.
I want to pass this on to as many of my friends as possible because it has reminded me that even in the frustration and freneticism of Sydney life there is still something very real to be found here. Also, the writing kicks arse.
February 9, 2020
I started reading this book when I moved out from a house into a studio on my own in Sydney. Living on my own for the first time and questioning what home really means and how I occupy the spaces I live in, then having this book fall into my lap was a sort of beautiful divine timing.
Fiona does a great job exploring rituals, spaces and daily subtleties that most would overlook or not have the ability to verbalize. I loved how it made me feel connected to Sydney, in a climate where the rising costs of rent and the instability of not having a 'home' can make me feel like running away from Sydney and never coming back just to escape this incessant chronic low-grade anxiety.
The world is and was and will always be whole. Nothing is missing. Tuning into our days and participating in our own lives...wow...it is an act of bold presence that pacifies any need to run away yet fully understands why you would want to at the same time.
Poetic essays on home, identity and belonging to one's body are an underrated treasure. I'll always remember this book as one that was a companion that made it okay to be exactly where I am.
In Fiona's words: 'but the evening is gentle and the muggy air is close and it's okay.'
Fiona does a great job exploring rituals, spaces and daily subtleties that most would overlook or not have the ability to verbalize. I loved how it made me feel connected to Sydney, in a climate where the rising costs of rent and the instability of not having a 'home' can make me feel like running away from Sydney and never coming back just to escape this incessant chronic low-grade anxiety.
The world is and was and will always be whole. Nothing is missing. Tuning into our days and participating in our own lives...wow...it is an act of bold presence that pacifies any need to run away yet fully understands why you would want to at the same time.
Poetic essays on home, identity and belonging to one's body are an underrated treasure. I'll always remember this book as one that was a companion that made it okay to be exactly where I am.
In Fiona's words: 'but the evening is gentle and the muggy air is close and it's okay.'
January 13, 2019
It'll come as no surprise that I loved this book. Fiona Wright has to be one of my favourite essayists of all time.
This book came out the week before I handed in my thesis- which was about Wright's first essay collection 'Small Acts of Disappearance'. I've only gotten around to reading this second collection this year because, perhaps unsurprisingly, I needed a little time away from essays after Honours.
I approached this book with fresh eyes and it did not disappoint. Wright builds on a lot of the discussions from her first book, surrounding issues of healthcare and living with an illness that is both mental and incredibly physical.
This time, Wright delves into issues of illness in relation to the spaces people live in (their homes as well as their bodies). As a broke millennial who will likely be renting until my death, and as someone who has moved house five times in the last six years, Wright's experiences of moving around and never quite getting to settle were familiar and touching.
Wright's essays are a delight to read. Often painful, always beautiful, they represent the growing skill and relevance of Australian essayists today.
This book came out the week before I handed in my thesis- which was about Wright's first essay collection 'Small Acts of Disappearance'. I've only gotten around to reading this second collection this year because, perhaps unsurprisingly, I needed a little time away from essays after Honours.
I approached this book with fresh eyes and it did not disappoint. Wright builds on a lot of the discussions from her first book, surrounding issues of healthcare and living with an illness that is both mental and incredibly physical.
This time, Wright delves into issues of illness in relation to the spaces people live in (their homes as well as their bodies). As a broke millennial who will likely be renting until my death, and as someone who has moved house five times in the last six years, Wright's experiences of moving around and never quite getting to settle were familiar and touching.
Wright's essays are a delight to read. Often painful, always beautiful, they represent the growing skill and relevance of Australian essayists today.
March 25, 2019
This gorgeous collection of essays from Fiona Wright is a wonderful follow-up to her other collection, Small Acts of Disappearance. There are some shared themes, mainly around bodily boundaries and the places where the body comes in contact with the world. All the essays in this book are in some way about homes, and bodies, and homes as bodies, and bodies as homes... it's so beautifully considered, well researched, and does a great job of positioning the personal in its broader context. Wright does a great job of subtly gesturing meaning, and the careful arrangement of these essays means that the accumulated significance of the collection is an important part of why this book works so well.
Particularly loved the writing on dogs, and on routines.
These are memoir essays just as they should be.
Particularly loved the writing on dogs, and on routines.
These are memoir essays just as they should be.
January 18, 2021
'The beach is elemental, and perhaps this is why we expect it to be changeable, mercurial. But so too are our cities, our suburbs, as fluid and mutable as the people who move through them, and whatever weather that they bring. It's just harder to see for our own histories, and the narratives we build from them, the way we try to demarcate our difference or similarity as we do so.'
In this essay collection, Wright is examining her sense of home & place formed by the elements that surround her & the restrictions of her chronic health conditions. She has the ability to draw from everyday observations and conversations and cause them to resonate with poignancy. Her writing is on point, and is able to express place and mood in a sensory way without feeling over written.
A great essay collection I look forward to rereading again and again. I now want to read all her work 👍🌟👍🌟👍🌟👍🌟👍🌟
In this essay collection, Wright is examining her sense of home & place formed by the elements that surround her & the restrictions of her chronic health conditions. She has the ability to draw from everyday observations and conversations and cause them to resonate with poignancy. Her writing is on point, and is able to express place and mood in a sensory way without feeling over written.
A great essay collection I look forward to rereading again and again. I now want to read all her work 👍🌟👍🌟👍🌟👍🌟👍🌟
May 31, 2022
I have to declare that Fiona was one of my teachers at university, in a class called Feature Writing. This was well over five years ago. So it's amazing to finally sit down and read about her in this essay collection/sporadic memoir, more so because I have a general idea of who she really is. And, by gosh, I now feel quite lucky to have been taught by such an amazing author.
This book, The World Was Whole, is a wonderful collection of essays based around various times of Fiona's life. They also surround various subjects, with all tending to revolve around her struggles with anorexia. But while her illness takes the stage in this book, it mostly becomes a complement and sometimes juxtaposition towards the other fascinating facets of her life - including the way she perceives the world.
A wonderful read full of surprises, delightful wisdoms, and touches of intrigue. Highly recommended!
This book, The World Was Whole, is a wonderful collection of essays based around various times of Fiona's life. They also surround various subjects, with all tending to revolve around her struggles with anorexia. But while her illness takes the stage in this book, it mostly becomes a complement and sometimes juxtaposition towards the other fascinating facets of her life - including the way she perceives the world.
A wonderful read full of surprises, delightful wisdoms, and touches of intrigue. Highly recommended!
March 9, 2019
A profound, thought-provoking collection of essays that makes me wish I could distill my own thoughts into such beautifully crafted words on the page. Loved it for many reasons, but particularly enjoyed the essays on Iceland (in which she also explores the relationship between transcendent and immanent time), Shanghai, and the Cronulla riots. I love her ability to observe the world and condense the smallest of moments into perfect gems of sentences. I'll be coming back to this collection some day, and I'll definitely be seeking out her previous work. A shame The World Was Whole didn't make the Stella shortlist yesterday, but it's a very worthy longlister! 4.5 stars.
November 17, 2018
The latest collection of essays by Fiona Wright centers on home and place, expanding out the themes of the body and self in her previous book, Small Acts of Disappearance. Like that book, the prose is marvelous, resonant and rich, without ever becoming cloying or overwhelming. I find reading this book that while there are aspects of Wright's personality and perspective, that I find irritating, a highly subjective view, I do love her writing style and that is what I return for.
Each essay is a perfect jewel, exactly as long as it needs to be leaving the reader satiated, but never stuffed.
Each essay is a perfect jewel, exactly as long as it needs to be leaving the reader satiated, but never stuffed.
June 30, 2020
I wanted to like The World Was Whole and I really thought I would, but I struggled with the form: particularly the first few essays didn’t feel distinct from each other, rather that they were chapters of the same story - but then the theme shifted and we heard some of the same events from a different perspective, so it didn’t feel like a traditional memoir either. The relentless gloom got me down.
April 12, 2020
I loved this set of essays for how they’re framed by life in and around Newtown—my home of the last 5 years. Contemplations of place and urban life are a common thread in the essays, and Wright’s observations of routine, rootedness and transience feel like a very natural way of exploring her illness.
August 19, 2020
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the observations of Fiona's inner and outer worlds. From Iceland to renting, language to chronic illness, inner city life to dogs, it felt warm, at times lonely, and so very familiar.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2024
having grown up in the same area as Wright, and now also dealing with my own chronic medical health issue, I'm glad I'm read this moving and interesting book of essays. autobiographical and chronological in a sense, but with a wonderful warmth given some of the subject matter.
December 18, 2018
3.5/4 stars
March 9, 2019
Wright is a beautiful essayist and this collection contains some fantastic prose and insight
March 18, 2019
Had the pleasure of reading this whilst having Fiona as our guest lecturer for three weeks! A truly great collection of essays.
April 29, 2025
A series of essays based on the author's experiences of coping with anorexia in various hospitals and clinics and at home. Earnest and honest but unremarkable.
7/10
7/10
August 15, 2019
Wright is a beautiful writer. Her ability to communicate a lot with a little reveals herself as a poet; the simplicity and ease with which she traverses place, mental health, trauma, chronic illness is something to behold. There is an intimacy and vulnerability in her musings, that helped me truly get a feel for a life and experiences outside my own. The prose and descriptions ooze of Sydney, which was some welcome nostalgia too.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews