Misadventures

by Sylvia Smith

Misadventures is a unique ensemble of mishaps and anecdotes revealing the ups and downs of one woman's life in twentieth-century London. Sylvia Smith's deadpan patter belies the startling complexities, humour and darkness at the heart of this remarkable memoir.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Short Stories, Memoir, Humor

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2001

Reviews

[Tanis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. She's Mrs Pooter. Its true nothing really happens and some of, ok most of the stories are hilariously unfinished or end abruptly but that's what makes you snort out loud with laughter alone on platform five at Woking. I think I've read this three times now.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've seen this book compared to Bridget Jones, but I think Adrian Mole would be a closer fit. Interesting premise of an autobiography in tiny, chronological essays on the people Smith has encountered over 30-odd years. You can't expect to sit down and "read" this one as a regular book; best picked up and put down every few entries.

[Nick Grammos · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all those who suffer the fear of missing out, read this book. This is the only thing you are missing out on.

The small bits of life writ large. The mundane, the ordinary, the common, ie, the stuff that make up 99% of our existence, if only we could acknowledge it, that's what Smith writes about. It's like the philosophy of acceptance, that this is life, this is how it happens, how it feels, what it looks like.

If you didn't get it, you're too scared to accept it.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars
I read Misadventures in 2001, and I recall liking it. It has been survived numerous book declutters, but I had never thought to re-read it... until now.

Yes, it is a memoir of a "nobody" and nothing spectacular happens, but there is something compelling about Sylvia Smith's spartan writing. She gets to the point of the story. There is no dithering or flowery prose. After the recent rash of overwritten jumbles that I have read, Misadventures is a breath of fresh air! It seems to me that Smith was decades ahead of her time. She shared shruggable, who-cares moments of her life, and so people do that every day on various social media platforms.

There are two or three very cringeworthy stories about racism (both overt and subtle), and while it was uncomfortable for me to read, I recognize that the author recounted events that she experienced first or secondhand.

While I do like the book, I think that it may be time to donate it, as I doubt that I will read it a third time.

[Kimmy C · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you could put a cover on the annoying old lady at work who always seems to grab you and tell you some boring, irrelevant anecdote, while you’re trying to not let your eyes glaze over, then you’d have this book. I have no idea why I persevered with it except possibly I hate myself and have yet to discover this fact. What I find incredible is that it was actually published, leaving me to believe that the publisher must have lost a bet somehow.

[Panda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was likened to Albert Camus without the philosophy. I disagree... It was like Albert Camus WITH the philosophy. A banal life of such readability it is almost impossible to put down. A life that all of us live.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true one off, and charming with it. Very very funny. I love this book

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book that started it all. Not as hilarious as Appleby House, but I was delighted to learn that Sylvia dated a guy who got kicked out of the Dave Clark Five for complaining. LEGENDARY.

[Ryan Holden · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's true that these are memoirs of a rather ordinary, prosaic life; however, the author portrays the mundane magnificently and hypnotically. I was hooked!

[Auriel Roe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chanced upon this autobiography by accident whilst looking for books in this genre but seeking ones that dealt with the every day because I didn't feel like I wanted to read about something tremendously heroic or outlandishly unusual. Surely someone's written about the poetry of the humdrum? Sylvia Smith's manuscript was found by chance in the slush pile by just the right person who happened to find it amusing. Smith worked as a secretary in many offices and had many short-term boyfriends, usually meeting them at something called a 'social club'. She lived with her parents until her twenties then moved into various lodgings. The chapters are very short and many of them could be expanded into entire novels or short stories so, although her minimalism is quirky and in a style of its own, she missed some opportunities to expand on her material. Not a lot happens as Smith moves through life as a secretary making her observations, some grotesque, some unusual, some so humdrum they seem bizarre. I like the fact that she rarely delves into her psyche and that what we have at the most is subtext, rather like Pinter or a myriad fragments of a Kitchen Sink drama. It's refreshingly different probably because this is the work of someone who has not had creative writing instruction. No conventions are observed and I wish there were more unconventional books. I laughed out loud a lot at the subtle humour and will read her other books.

[Tricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book wasn’t for me. With some of the stories I didn’t really understand the point.

Others liked it though so maybe it was the writing style that didn’t suit me.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 was saai hoor

[Kris McCracken · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story behind Smith's first book is like something out of a book. Smith, born at the close of the Second World War in the East End of London. She has gone through life as an unmarried, career secretary who has chosen to write her memoirs. Despite the fact that really nothing of note has actually happened to Smith to encourage the belief that her reminiscences might be of interest to the general reader, a publisher chose to publish it.

Essentially a series of short, deadpan, chronologically arranged chapters, Smith records a series of vignettes that each encapsulate the mostly lows and sometimes highs her life. As with any life, it has not been without incident. The thing for me though, is that it the ‘incidents’ of her life are not particularly interesting.

I do understand that these moments are indeed worth recording because they are moments that we all share. Most of us life exceptionally ordinary lives and Smith's biography is no better or worse than might be expected. Some people have described this as “glorious in its saturating bathos”, but I just don’t see it myself.

For me the central problem is with Smith herself, I am not offended or affronted by the dull, but in her monotony of her life, it is not apparent that she has ever learnt or reflected on that life. If the point of this autobiography is that there is no point, I guess that I have the point.

It did have a pleasant cover though. Recommendation to avoid.

[D.A. Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and odd, Sylvia Smith's MISADVENTURES is like a more grown up version of Suri's pillow book. Sylvia led a life of almost unbelievable banality, shifting from one temp admin job to another, dating apparently 100's of men, all of whom she has jolly but totally nonsexual (apparently) times. She starts each chapter in this book with a pithy description of her subject, and then she springs into an anecdote that may at one time be funny, another totally odd, another sad or revealing.

"Brian was a twenty-one-year -old Teddy Boy who rode a Lambretta. I was a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl and we met in a coffee bar. I went out with him once."

There's a whole,story, complete with romance and tragedy and learning, in that brief description. But there are surprises to follow.

Every chapter is like this. I get the feeling Sylvia sees a lot more than she's telling, and she tells a fair bit - about periods, sex, work, marriages. The times they were changing during her lifetime, the wild 60's, the adventures of being a self- supporting woman.

Questions arise. Why did she have so many jobs? Why did she move almost every few months, to a new rooming house or new position? Was she generally unlikeable, or just loose-lifed, moving easily from one thing to another?

I wish I knew. Not sure, though, if we'd be friends. Right now, she makes a great, waspish, non- politically correct read.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small, unique, pleasure of a book. It reminds me a of a Japanese garden. Against a background of banality (the raked gravel) are set the artfully arranged rocks of descriptions of bathetic and pathetic episodes that build into a picture of a remarkably unremarkable life.

I'm pretty sure that this a beautifully constructed, but that I am not sure that it's not biography is testament to the writing.

[Jinjer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sylvia Smith (2 May 1945 – 23 February 2013) was a British author.

I liked this book. It was just quick, easy to read snippets of quirky things that may (or may not) have really happened at the office, with boyfriends, or just day-to-day events. I don't care if anything was real or not. The point was they were all interesting to read.

I did not, however, find the writing humorous at all. I didn't laugh or snort as other readers have.

[Pamela López · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read this book twice now . The second time whilst waiting in the car in a hot spanish carpark, for my husband while he was having chemotherapy. Because of coronavirus I was not allowed to enter the hospital with him . I grabbed the book from the bookshelf before driving to the hospital knowing it would make for easy reading under the circumstances. Sylvia Smith is obviously not a brilliant writer but she writes it how it is ,or rather how it was . Many of her anecdotes made me question the value of my own life .In fact her book made me wonder if indeed I could follow her ‘recipe’ for a novel but it occurred to me that that would be cheating .But ,no doubt some will try to emulate her. She doesn’t take herself seriously as can be seen from her parting shot when she had finished writing her book.She says she’s now taking it to an agent to see if it’s worth publishing, but is wondering if this is yet another misadventure. An easy read when you’ve nothing better to do.

[Thomas Goddard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this it was a cosy read, a collection of non-dramatic slices of life.

Little stories. Anecdotes work like antidotes for me sometimes, make me a little less sad.

Little reminders that your own life is rather comfortable and cosy in relation to other people’s.

Sylvia Smith’s stories are probably a bad example, because very few of them are any worse relative to my own. So I don’t get the benefit of feeling like I’ve got it easier. But they still act as a bit of a balm, because her work is peppered with humour, insight and grace.

Now and then there were moments where the stories really showed their age. Some were a little… caustic maybe? Too raw to be polite? Some revealed social attitudes that were very messed up.

Anyway, I might recommend this to people… but more to dip in and out of.

I almost feel like this was a bit of a blog in tone.

[Mia ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

i’m not sure it’s my fault for expecting something different or what, but I just felt this book was very meh

i love the idea of writing about the mediocre, the everyday, and i did enjoy quite a few of the stories but in general i just didn’t really rate the style of writing. I feel there also may have been too much of a generational difference: as a historical source this book would be great, but as pleasure reading it was at times difficult reading the casual racism.

Also i’m stuck on how sylvia is hung up on 23p never being paid back. i’m not sure how much that would be worth nowadays through inflation, but it really doesn’t seem like enough to care

[Menno Beek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a typical impulse buy. I must say I was expecting somewhat more sophistication and wit when I read the cover, but what I got was a quite tragic, hollow and straightforward story of a single, lonely woman living in London in the late 20th century, struggling with everyday life and living on the border of poverty. This is an easy read, and finding out "how the other halve lives", if I may say so, being them disillusioned lonely people of 50 or women, was worth the effort.

[Heather Hackett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve never read a book like this before. A different format but I enjoyed it a lot. Many quirky stories inside.

[Jacob Atkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most original books I have ever read.

[Ka · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the first book I’ve ever rated because it was just SOOOOO boring! No idea why I finished it except it was the only book in the bathroom.

[Fon E · Rating 2 out of 5]

A kind of diary style account of Sylvia Smith's rather mundane life, beginning in her childhood of the 1940s, right up to the 1990s.

It's an unusual writing format, little stories and anecdotes that might be only a page long for each "chapter". Some of it is humorous, some of it interesting but in general, it is a bit unremarkable, which, I know, is the whole point because this book is an ordinary woman relating her life experiences and she is a person who hasn't really done anything of note in her life that might normally warrant a book being based upon it.

OK as a book to dip in and out of, it's an easy read, very uncomplicated but not one that's gonna grab your attention or possibly even remain in your memory at all once it's finished.

[Micha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull and tedious...

I really struggled to get past the first 100 pages, and once I did I struggled just as much to get to the end.

The book was a gift from a friend who hadn't read it, and wants me to let them know what I think of it before reading it themselves. I'll likely tell them not to bother, it's mostly a record of one woman's minor annoyances with various people she's met through her life.

My gut feeling about this book is that it was published purely because either a) Smith was pushy about the publication or b) to humour Smith.

[Krista · Rating 1 out of 5]

If there is some deeper meaning, I was too bored to catch it. These are the sorts of anecdotes that would be mildly entertaining when told by a favorite aunt to whom you are favorably disposed; from an author, in the form of an alleged book, they're just dull.

Unless I missed something. Other reviews make me think maybe I did. So if you want to work a lot harder to figure it out, give it a try and let me know what you think.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is the third, and least favorite, that I've read of Sylvia Smith's life experiences. My favorite book of hers is Appleby House. These are good little books to read while traveling because they're quick, simply written stories about everyday life. Smith seems very naive and innocent, which sometimes is a bit off-putting, in that she's a mature woman.

[Sally Christie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ummm ... quirky odd little book. Cute in some ways. Some love to love, or "get it", some love to hate, think it's a joke. Nothing happens. Still, it's a view into the author's personality more than anything. A brilliant treatise on mundane life or irony about the human condition? A novelty perhaps? Either way I got bored, but that doesn't mean it isn't any good.

[meg · Rating 2 out of 5]

i picked this up because it is a book full of really short vignettes about people the author has met in her lifetime. a little too pared-down for me, a little choppy, but enjoyable. eh.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

completely forgettable