Book Description
Jiang Zemin’s life and leadership sweep through almost eighty tumultuous years of Chinese history: Japanese occupation, Civil War, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, and, more recently, dramatic economic growth, tensions with Taiwan, and opportunities and confrontations with America. Jiang’s story is an epic of war, deprivation, revolution, political turmoil, social convulsion, economic reform, national transformation, and international resurgence. To Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a longtime China observer, understanding the legacy of Jiang Zemin is essential for understanding the challenges of contemporary China. By examining Jiang’s life, we observe the clash between China’s traditional culture and chaotic history, and we appreciate how its changes impact the entire world.
In The Man Who Changed China, Kuhn, who was cited by the Asian Wall Street Journal for the “unprecedented access” he was given in the course of writing this book, has produced what the Journal called “probably the closest thing to an authorized biography that’s possible in Communist China.” Here a reader will find a complex and nuanced portrait of China’s senior leader, whose policies continue to exert great influence over the course of his country. Kuhn offers insight into how the Japanese occupation during Jiang’s teenage years imprinted his psyche for life, how he became a Communist, and how, decades later, he struggled to transform the Party in the face of withering criticism.
In a sense, Kuhn argues, Jiang’s early skeptics got it right: He was a transitional figure—but not in the way they had meant. With unshakable if paternalistic vision, a lifelong love of Chinese civilization, and backroom political skills that no one had anticipated, Jiang Zemin became an unexpected agent of change, effecting the transition from a traumatized society to a confident, prosperous country rapidly ascending in the new world order. Kuhn shows how Jiang led China through an amazing metamorphosis—from a fretful country destabilized by the turmoil and crackdown in Tiananmen Square into a vibrant nation that became a primary engine of global economic growth. Above all Jiang is a Chinese patriot—and it is important to appreciate what that really means. In offering this unusually intimate and comprehensive personal and political biography, Kuhn demonstrates that Jiang Zemin’s life personifies the history of contemporary China, giving invaluable insight into what China is today and will become in the future.
Customer Reviews:
Understanding China.......2007-09-20
This book is helpful in understanding China from a Chinese perspective. If Westerners will listen to its message with an open mind (vs. viewing the book in light of Western perceptions of China), it will improve understanding between East and West and could serve to reduce unnecessary tensions, which are frequently due to misunderstandings.
Thinly-Veiled Party Line.......2006-03-05
Senator Feinstein's remarks on the back of the book's cover, as to this being as close as it gets to "official biography," should be ironic warning to the reader (if the presence of a Kissinger quote didn't do it): Kuhn writes a scripted, canned biography that was allegedly fed to him by Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks.
If anyone wonders how it is Kuhn paints such a rosy portrait of the man who was enthroned as China's unelected ruler by conservative Party elders during the Tiananmen Massacre, the story behind the book proves helpful. Jiang Zemin, ever a little self-absorbed, several years back commissioned a group of capable Chinese writers to produce the official word on him and his career. The group did their job, but apparently, a little too well. They dug up enormous amounts of riveting, scandalous material. Jiang, irate as much as nervous, dismissed the group, but not before several (and possibly more, it is believed) of the group made public some of its explosive findings; some of the writings can still be found posted in Chinese online. So disturbing were the findings (including serious evidence of treason) that Jiang reportedly feared he might not find another willing and obedient Chinese writer. Enter Robert Kuhn -- reportedly Jiang felt it would be safest to find an outsider, or foreigner, to write this time, and particularly one with some kind of financial tie (Kuhn has long been a consultant to China's government). They paired Kuhn up with a Chinese researcher and fed him a script that bears little resemblance to history.
Thus the book, aside from its warm, flattering portrayal of Jiang, is marked by peculiar absences. We might ask: Where is Jiang's complicity in the Tiananmen Massacre? His role in the booming, government managed organ harvesting blackmarket trade? Or the executions (tied to the organ trade) of as many as 10,000 prisoners in a single year? What of China's becoming the world's leading jailer of journalists under Jiang Zemin? Or Jiang's inability to keep personal vendettas in check and thus launching a terribly brutal, if not expensive and irrational, persecution of the Falun Gong? Wasn't it during the Jiang Zemin era that China's environment suffered what is probably irrevocable devastation, with a staggering 15 of the world's 20 most polluted cities being in China by the time of Jiang's abdication? What of his disastrous mishandling of the 1998 floods? Or giving away of 1.3 million square kilometers of would-be Chinese land to Russia in December of 1999? So startlingly many are the silences in Kuhn's account.
I was delighted to see recently a hard-hitting rebuttal to Kuhn's fairytalesque work. It is titled "Anything for Power: The Real Story of China's Jiang Zemin" and is available online in English translation at the website of The Epoch Times newspaper (http://english.epochtimes.com/211,100,,1.html). In incredible detail it unravels Kuhn's account and articulates the history it seemingly sought to silence. It draws on inside Party sources, and appears to incorporate the findings of the initial, disbanded biography group.
Other biographies of Jiang (eg, those of Willy Lam and Bruce Gilley) similarly render Kuhn's account, though indirectly in this case, deeply suspect. That Kuhn does not take into account their work, although it was published before his piece, suggests a serious agenda; clearly his motive is not to build on the analysis, insights, and research of those who came before him as would normally be done.
Tepid and Fawning.......2005-10-17
In China, the 1990s brought sizzling economic growth, cool political stability and a steady expansion of personal freedom for urban residents. Shanghai, Beijing and other cities became modern and cosmopolitan. Peace reigned on all borders. Was it brilliant leadership that won these triumphs for China? Or was it a combination of circumstances, only mildly affected by the man in charge at the time, Jiang Zemin?
In a new biography of Jiang, Robert Lawrence Kuhn tries to credit the former Communist Party chief with a primary role in China's advances. Yet by telling Jiang's story in detail, Kuhn's book reveals Jiang to be an above-average Party official, most skilled in the art of pleasing his superiors, whose great feat was simply political survival. The title of the book is `The Man Who Changed China.' But Jiang did not change China in any significant way. He climbed into the driver's seat at a time when the steering wheel was held by others. Only after years as Communist Party chief did Jiang assume real power, and once he had it, he showed no special flair for leadership. He just kept driving on the road laid out for him by Deng Xiaoping.
How Jiang rose - from his first job fixing machines at a Shanghai ice cream company through a series of middling administrative positions to become Mayor of Shanghai and then China's Communist Party chief - certainly is a good tale. Jiang was born into an educated family in Yangzhou, north of Shanghai. His uncle was a Communist revolutionary who died in battle, giving Jiang an important credential for future leadership. Trained as an engineer, Jiang was known as a big reader with a good memory and a talent for making friends. At Jiang's first job, in the ice cream company, he was on hand when a Party official named Wang Daohan came to visit on day in September, 1949. Jiang gave a presentation and a factory tour, and impressed Wang with his energy and optimism. Wang eventually decided to take Jiang under his wing, and over the next 40 years, he nurtured Jiang's rise by winning him jobs in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Changchun.
Jiang was an intelligent but cautious administrator. He had no special charisma. As Kuhn reports, he was frequently underestimated. Meaning, he often came across as a lightweight. But over time he would prosper, primarily by diligent work and an ability to offend no one. He survived the Cultural Revolution and other political campaigns by keeping his head down.Kuhn's book is thorough. He recites a month-by-month summary of Jiang's years in power, often including details about the leader's taste for reciting poetry or the Gettysburg address, and singing songs. Jiang loved to perform, and to show off.
For anyone who needs a compendium of Jiang's public appearances and political acts during those years, this is an excellent guide. Readers looking for real insight into Chinese politics will be disappointed. One strength of Kuhn's book is the access he gained, interviewing Jiang's sister and several of his close aides, including Wang Daohan. They offer intriguing personal anecdotes that inevitably show what a wise and thoughtful man Jiang has been. Kuhn's book is weakest where it counts most. At Jiang's critical moments - the Tiananmen protests and crackdown in 1989 that led to his ascension, the demise of political rivals Yang Shangkun and Chen Xitong - Kuhn offers little insight or fresh information.
Most annoying is Kuhn's tendency to repeat Communist pablum as though it were anything beyond a Party line, such as Jiang's `core beliefs' in socialism and Party control, obviously a prerequisite to any government position. Kuhn, an advisor to the Chinese government as well as host of a PBS television series, sometimes writes like an American businessman freshly introduced to the vast potential of the China market: breathless, overly credulous, and looking for opportunity. Yet Kuhn's approach to Jiang's story - getting every detail - generally yields a basic accuracy to major trends and events. For instance, Kuhn describes the decision in 1992 to accelerate economic growth that led to China's broad flourishing over the following decade.
It was a decision made by Deng Xiaoping, and at first resisted by Jiang and other leaders, who feared that it would lead to inflation and social unrest. True to his nature, Jiang saw that it was in his interest to follow, and then champion, Deng's views. But it was Deng who insisted on moving faster. He was the man who truly changed China. Not Jiang.
good book.......2005-09-13
Well grounded on recent history and developments in China, this book provides a healthy balance to all the negative stereotypical repetition of the same old tired fairy tales about China out there. The author shows the world it's possible to be positive about China and be objective at the same time.
Official truth?.......2005-05-07
The author went to China compiled what gov't provided and interviewed his former teachers and friends to give readers a taste what the most powerful former leader of PRC was like. As a censored country the people he interviewed were cautious in providing politically correct ans during an interview. There is no question Jiang loved his fatherland and was loyal dearly to CCP. In the book there was no mentioning about his disastrous failure to stop corruption when there was time to do so. He is still remembered by the religious group as the instigator in curbing freedom of religion. He was not a good student at the unviersity. Many close friends and faculties were suprised he was appointed as mayor but alone as head of a state. I wonder what went through his mind when he declared his recent retirement as he could stay on forever as head of state like Mao or Deng. As China is slowly transfoming and open to outside this is a good source to understand politics, what it works and what is politically correct. Should the author take his time interviewing more people outside of China it could be a more accurate account of the past leader of China.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Mississippi Quarterly, published by Mississippi State University on December 22, 1996. The length of the article is 514 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Mississippi Delta and the World: the Memoirs of David L. Cohn. (book reviews)
Author: J.B. Smallwood
Publication:
The Mississippi Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 1996
Publisher: Mississippi State University
Volume: v50
Issue: n1
Page: p183(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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The Bel Air Kid
Alphonzo Bell with Marc L. Weber
Manufacturer: Trafford Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Biographies & Memoirs
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ASIN: 1553693787
Release Date: 2006-07-06 |
Product Description
Alphonzo Bell, born in 1914, former U.S. Congressman for Los Angeles, recounts his lifestory along with that of California. Starting with his father, who founded Bel Air, Bell evokes all the diversity of the 20th century with stories of cowboys, the civil rights and environmental movements, and people such as William Randolph Hearst, John Wayne and Richard Nixon.
Customer Reviews:
Worth Reading!.......2004-07-13
This book depicts a man who had compassion for other people. He'd been through many trials and tribulations in his life. This book is intriguing and I recommend it to anyone out there, interested in politics or not.
Amazon.com
"I am not entirely content with the degree of whiteness in my life. My bedroom is white: white walls, icy mirrors, white sheets and pillowcases, white slatted blinds. It's the best I could do."
Jenny Diski's obsession with the cool purity of white began early in life, when as a small child, she was taken for weekly skating lessons at the local ice rink. Between practicing figure eights, she would watch the Zamboni move across the ice scraping away the pitted, blade-scored surface: "It was all taken away in minutes and underneath was pure, untouched surface again, gleaming milky white, virgin, immaculate ice." This gleaming, immaculate ice stands in stark contrast to Diski's dark and emotionally fraught home life with two abusive parents. Skating to Antarctica is an unusual blend of travel essay and personal memoir, one that uses the phases of a physical journey to trace the trajectory of the inner life. Both journeys begin for Diski when her 18-year-old daughter Chloe decides to search for the maternal grandmother she has never met. It has been 30 years since Diski last saw her mother, and she has no desire to find her; is it merely coincidence that she books her passage to Antarctica shortly after Chloe begins the hunt?
Weaving painful memories of a childhood spent entangled in her parents' vicious sexual psychodramas and an adolescence in and out of mental wards into an account of her slow journey south, Diski imbues both voyages of discovery with a resonance that comes largely from twinning these tales. Like all polar travelers, she has the experiences of Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton before her; instinctively she rejects the "heroism" of Scott's pointless death in a blizzard, embracing, instead Shackleton's pragmatic rescue of his stranded crew. "The will to live was not strong in my family," Diski writes near the end of her book; Skating to Antarctica, however, is proof that this apple at least fell far, far from the tree.
Book Description
So writes Jenny Diski of the parent she has neither seen nor heard from since 1966, the year her father died.
In search of an escape from her suicidal sexually abusive parents, Diski spends her teenage years in the oblivion of heavy drug use and psychiatric wards. As an adult she finds a new haven: the boundless, blank iciness of Antarctica where everything "is colored white and filled with a singing silence."
This blistering account interweaves the story of the author's journey to the end of the earth, her daughter's search for Diski's missing mother, and Diski's own search of her memory-hardened heart.
Customer Reviews:
Two Extraordinary Voyages In One!.......2004-04-01
"Antarctica. And along with it a desire as commanding as any sexual compulsion that Antarctica was what I wanted, and therefore I had to have it." So writes Jenny Diski in her strange, humorous and often painful memoir cum travelogue to the bottom of the world. "The Arctic would have been easier, but I had no desire to head north. I wanted white and ice for as far as the eye could see and I wanted it in the one place in the world that was uninhabited."
Ms. Diski weaves two voyages into one here - the longed for trip she made a few years ago to the white land of snow and ice and a parallel journey into her own heart, soul and past. Her descriptions of her fellow travelers, boredom, group activities and various ports of call are often quite witty and caustic. Her take on the natural world, elephant seals, variety of birds, penguins, and the barren landscape in different shades of white are vivid and, at times, haunting.
Also explored in "Skating to Antarctica" is Ms. Diski's past - her suicidal and abusive parents, stays in psychiatric institutions, an almost lifelong estrangement from her mother and her own search of her "memory-hardened heart." The reader is saved from depression at these revelations through the author's extraordinary use of humor at her desire to bury her childhood memories under, literally, tons of snow.
Diski's writing style is spare, clipped and very effective. Given some of the painful content it might sound ridiculous to write that I "enjoyed" the book - but I did. Her descriptive narrative of the trip to the world's southern-most continent are fascinating - not just another travel book, and her personal revelations are striking in their honesty.
JANA
Not your stereotypical memoir.......2004-02-08
In the only 250 pages of Skating to Antarctica, Jenny Diski manages to captivate her audience with stunning anecdotes and descriptions that send the reader on a rollercoaster of emotions until the last page where it ends; plain and simple, just like it began. Behind the guise of memoir she repeatedly lectures to the reader on the value of truth and its many bastardized forms. When all is said and done, this narrative leaves you wanting more, yet glad to close the back cover.
Diski's autobiography sets and maintains its direction right from the start. Her dedication to her daughter naturally flows into the first sentence, "For Chloe without whom...I am not entirely content with the degree of whiteness in my life." From here Jenny springs into her love of everything white, which originated from her time spent institutionalized for mental disorders. In the end she travels to the greatest white canvas on Earth, Antarctica. Diski meshes stories from her past with those of the present in a frame story format that at times is confusing, but portrays and fully explains her actions throughout her troubled years.
Jenny Diski was the child of sexually abusive dysfunctional parents. Her father was a con-artist, her mother a self-serving, mentally ill woman. Jenny's future hung in limbo. Her parents split up multiple times and both attempted suicide at one point or another. Diski's eventual mental hospitalization stemmed from problems at home. This book attracts readers because often the reader can relate to Jenny's desire for a "normal" childhood. Skating to Antarctica brings a person inside the head of one who was subjected to constant sorrow and lack of stability as a child. Jenny's account informs whoever leafs through her memoir of the importance of providing a good home life for one's offspring. Her less than perfect childhood and distaste for her parents is ever-present when numerous times Diski repeats the phrase, "my father died in 1966 and I haven't seen or heard from my mother since that date" (20). I found myself on the rollercoaster feeling sorry for Jenny at these points, but soon climbed to a state of anger when she remains a static character throughout her memoir.
When I think of autobiographies/memoirs, I envision someone's completed life retold to many awaiting viewers. Jenny's "incomplete" account shocked me. I flipped pages in hope that her problems would vanish and she would become a "normal" human being, but was disappointed that when by page 250, Jenny still had emotional and psychological issues. My hopes for a so-called happy ending vanquished, leaving me frustrated and glad to set the book aside. However a disappointment this may be, in hindsight this technique left a lasting impact. This unresolved ending caused me to realize that some things do not and cannot vacate one's psyche, ever!
Within her sorrowful narrative Jenny masterfully weaves imagery at its finest. She can describe white to an extent that it becomes a color or an emotion as she does here in a relapse of depression: "White walls, staring into peopleless landscapes, heading for the snow and ice. Not to stay, but to be in it for a while. Death, of course, as Melville knows, is what it is. A toying with the void that finally toys with us. In the face of the waiting I can't escape, I head straight for its image and rest there for a while" (191). Reading this passage chills me with how well it portrays someone with a mental illness, wanting to visit Death for tea time. Jenny also throws a curveball with some vulgar language in her "accurate" description of seals, which she names the "flaccid [male genitalia] seal." That sure came out of left field. Jenny maintains a delicate, easy-reading prose but then throws in phrases that make the reader do a double-take and reread to see if she actually said that. Words like "[bird poop]" and the "[fudge]-it factor" just jump off the page, but without delay we're back to the flowing narrative leaving me puzzled over what just happened.
Truth and doubt appear be focal points in Jenny Diski's writing. However, I found her views on truth to be almost hypocritical. When each of her parents shares the truths about their spouse, Diski brings up the point that truth is relative to a situation; this I found striking, yet understandable. She also brings up the idea of relative truth in stereotypes. Someone no learned of a particular culture would easily believe a fact from someone they trusted not knowing that it is false. Hypocrisy comes into play when Diski instills doubt in the mind of the reader regarding the validity of her narrative, which I think is bad. She says that there are "infinite ways of evading truth, including non-fiction" (229), and quotes "Malone Dies": "I wonder if I am not talking yet again about myself. Shall I be incapable, to the end, of lying on any other subject?" The reader is led to ponder what is fact or fiction within Diski's autobiography. Maybe she did meet with her mother between 1966 and her death, but chose to leave that out to strengthen her argument of an intolerable childhood. Only Jenny knows.
Despite some unanswered questions about Jenny's insanity, failed marriage, and future, she successfully writes both to relieve her internal pain, and, in my opinion, to inform the reader on the importance of being attentive parents and the value of seeking help when needed. Jenny's experience should never be repeated. Her novel flows taking the reader in and out of intense subject matter in a way that makes it palatable while expressing true emotion. Though jerks exist between mental jumps, Jenny pulls the reader back into her dismal life and continues on. Skating to Antarctica is a thought-provoking memoir that intertwines humor, anger, and sadness with ideas of truth, death, and depression that ultimately leaves the reader in shock and reflection, a reaction typical of this subject matter. My prayer for Jenny to rise above her troubles and become "normal" went unanswered, leaving me grateful to put this book back on my shelf.
White Oblivion.......2004-01-31
Skating to Antarctica
by Jenny Diski
"I am not entirely content with the degree of whiteness in my life. My bedroom is white: white walls, icy mirrors, white sheets and pillowcases, white slatted blinds."(1)
Jenny Diski's book, Skating to Antarctica explores the meaning of whiteness in her life. Jenny clearly states her psychological need to have whiteness all around her, and it annoys her if that isn't so. This whiteness that she desperately wants represents her need to forget her past. Jenny says "White hospital sheets seemed to hold out the promise of what I really wanted: a place of safety, a white oblivion. Oblivion, strictly speaking was what I was after..." The meaning of oblivion, according to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, means the fact or condition of forgetting or having forgotten. Throughout this book, Jenny searches for this white oblivion by traveling to Antarctica, but her past always seems to interrupt this search for pure whiteness.
Skating to Antarctica is a memoir about a woman who struggles with her sexually, physically, and verbally abusive parents. Jenny tells her story of her past, by weaving it together with her adventure to Antarctica. Eventually, the problems of her past resurface because of her daughter's inquisitive nature.
Through this idea of whiteness, Diski presents the novel in a clear precise, way. She paints the book in images of whiteness, and by doing so gives the reader an idea of the world that Jenny would like to live in, of pure whiteness. Diski sets the reader up to understand this need for whiteness, so her longing to travel to Antarctica does not come as a surprise because of the lack of colors that exist there.
Jenny's comments lead one to believe that a lot of objects that surround her in life remind her of her past. Diski allows the reader to see how color interrupts Jenny's world, and exactly to what extent it interrupts her world. Jenny said, "I wanted my white bedroom extended beyond reason. That was Antarctica, and only Antarctica." (Page five) Jenny's strength is giving her reader the sense of this desperate desire to get away from color, as if color was filling her brain and she needed to escape. By surrounding herself in all white she doesn't run the risk of running into any of those painful memories.
Diski describes the quantum theory of how one is able to put things into a box, and forget about what is in the box and not know if the things in the box exist or not. It is this very box that has interrupted the author's world of whiteness. Diski has creatively used the quantum theory in such a way that it reveals Jenny's state of mind.
On page fifty, Diski focuses on Jenny leaving to see a glacier. But what is interesting about this, is how Diski intricately places a "dead furry thing" (Page fifty) in her path. Diski demonstrates her creative skill of describing how the muscles of the animal are gone and how the legs are cocked at different angles. Jenny is unable to focus on the whiteness but on the problem set before her. One can see how Jenny is unable to get beyond her memories, and that they still interrupt her white oblivion.
After Jenny thinks of her mother, and the possible conclusion that she may be dead, she sees white in the sky. "..[A]nd all I could see was a shadowed white out there, unless I raised myself up and then I would see the inky sea and shadowed white." (Page eighty-three) Diski once again, subtly drives the meaning home about whiteness, that it is there, and that it just on the horizon, and she's about to reach that conclusion, that final peace of mind.
Diski's attention to details becomes a key element to this book. She allows readers to know more about the barriers that keep her from reaching oblivion, and how that affects her. On page 177, Diski repels the idea that her parents are caring and loving towards her by focusing on the behaviors and interactions of the penguins. She exudes the emotion that she wants this kind of relationship that the penguins have with each other. Another example of Diski's gift of attention is on page 221. She discusses how the ice burgs are blue and have many different levels making the parallel to her own life.
Diski's biggest weakness is not satisfying the reader's desire to see Jenny in Antarctica. The book has focused on her deep psychological desire to be there, and one is left wondering if she was able to get her whiteness and be engulfed in her oblivion. By stopping at this point, Diski leaves the reader wondering if these memories of hurt and sadness can never be erased, or if she went to Antarctica and embraced the whiteness of the land, and her oblivion.
Diski's grace and her skill of writing is what makes this book work. Her gentle and subtle way of depicting Jenny Diski's desperate desire to be overcome in whiteness and her "passion for oblivion" (Page 235) is relieving in the sense that she doesn't overbearingly reveal all of her emotions and feelings, and leaves room for implications to be made. Diski's ability to paint the world white, and splash color is incredibly delightful. Jenny Diski certainly does bring new meaning to whiteness in her book, Skating to Antarctica.
Skating to Antarctica- The Chilling Truth.......2004-01-30
How long is too long to dwell on something painful? If it is a tragedy that has left your soul in shambles it may be hard to simply turn the memory away. In Jenny Diski's intensely personal tale, Skating to Antarctica, we read of the author's search into her broken past, and the journey she must travel to unveil the truth behind her tragic childhood. In this fascinating memoir Diski ventures to Antarctica to escape the realities that plague her heart. In an "all white, solitary and boundless" land Diski discovers that if she has the will, she can overcome her painful past and begin to experience the future (7). Skating to Antarctica is a brutally honest account of one women's exploration into a cold place; a land few choose to visit, a place too many ignore.
Published in 1997, Diski's memoir became a means of expression for her dispirited voice. Skating to Antarctica is the author's experience, a tale of her liking. "There are infinite ways of telling the truth, including fiction, and infinite ways of evading the truth, including non-fiction" (229). Diski reveals only what she wishes to reader, and we are therefore reminded that the book is an individual's report. Her story is unusual; however, her quest for truth in a world of uncertainty is common. Diski's bare writing exposes the significance of our childhoods and their effect upon our lives.
Facing "intolerable blankness" Diski addresses the period in her life where she endured the storms of depression, and touches upon a condition that is prevalent in our society today (190). Every person who picks up this book may not have been diagnosed with depression, but all have experienced feelings of utter loneliness at one time or another. Diski's vulnerability is revealed when she shares early on her desire to head north. She discloses a real helplessness in her opening paragraphs, and does not hold back or conceal these hopeless emotions. Instead, in her completely barren state, Diski shares her feelings and the reader begins to see how she pursues a controlled and simultaneously wavering lifestyle.
This memoir is far-reaching and impressive because it is truthful writing. Individuals who have fought depression or experienced broken childhoods will understand Diski's struggle to confront her past. By viewing this book as an honest report of one women's struggle to find answers, we can admire the author for her honest writing. "The choice on offer is the assumption that for thirty years I repressed curiosity about my mother's existence because thoughts of her were intolerable, or that, all unknown to me, I was contentedly, not to say harmoniously, living out a recognized phenomenon of the known physical universe" (24). It is with Diski's open tone that the depth of her pain is revealed, and the reader becomes involved.
One very impressive trait of Diski's style is her direct voice. Because the book examines intense and personal themes: painful memories, depression and guilt, hurt and longing, Diski is specific and concrete in confirming her ideas. "I've lived long enough to know it is a fact that most people find activity useful and conforming, but I am not one of those people; on the contrary, I find it alarming and alienating" (64). Diski's very clear and almost obvious style allows readers to peer into her soul, and search through the shattered pieces of the past, beside her.
Skating to Antarctica chronicles Diski's self-searching adventure. As a memoir, the book remains a means through which Diski discloses her thoughts, occasionally selfish or overly dramatic. Although Diski shows little appreciation for her parents, it is important to recall how deep her scars run. The few passages that describe Diski's self-pity are understandable and illustrate her transition into fully understanding her history. It seems only justified to allow Diski the opportunity to listen to her former neighbor, Mrs. Rosen, share memories of her as a child, and it is moving to read of Diski's self-discovery: "someone had been watching, it wasn't just me, myself and I waiting for it to end. I wasn't entirely a figment of my imagination, and up to that point, I could have been" (194). Diski's journey becomes a vulnerable account of the process of facing the truth about herself.
This book is a personal genre of non-fiction. Diski may travel to the end of the world, but if you are looking to learn about an individual's adventures in Antarctica-search elsewhere. The memoir shares not the explorer's experience at her destination, but instead the journey along the way. Skating to Antarctica was not written for the enjoyment of the reader. This book exists because it was Diski's method of breaking down the barriers of her past, and searching through the remains. Her story leaves you with questions, ideas only Diski herself can explain. For this very reason Skating to Antarctica captivated me.
well-written, heartfelt and self-involved.......2004-01-30
"The one truly generous act of my mother's that I could really put my finger on: her leaving me alone," says Jenny Diski in her memoir, Skating to Antarctica (28). Diski reveals herself to the world by taking the reader on a journey through her troubled childhood with sexually abusive and suicidal parents, drug abuse and psychiatric institutions, her daughter's search for her mother and a trip to Antarctica. It is a well-written and heartfelt, although sometimes too self-involved, book about the search for peace of mind.
The book alternates between Jenny Diski's journey to Antarctica and her past. The balance creates a link between the two stories and allows the reader to understand her thoughts and actions better in both settings. The detailed and approachable way that she describes the setting and her own feelings really helps the reader become immersed in the book. Although a very serious work, it is lightened by Diski's dark humor. She takes her poor relationship with her mother very lightly. She is able to describe a possible meeting with her mother on the street as and encounter with, "a wild, screaming old woman coming down the street, probably with a kitchen knife in her hand, yelling at me," with ease (29). Perhaps this is her way of dealing with bigger problems, but it adds interest and much needed humor to the book.
This memoir is a much more heartfelt and close view of Jenny Diski than her personality is described to be. She continuously reveals her need for nothing and shows her fear of closeness. She says that she avoids waiting, puts things off till another day like Scarlett O'Hara and cherishes distant and superficial relationships like with the Roths (83). Anything that gets too close might hurt her and she stays away from it. However, when reading this book one does not feel any barrier. She is very honest and upfront when telling her story.
A prevalent theme throughout the book is the distinction between memory and truth, fiction and nonfiction. She says, "Memory is continually created, a story told and retold, using jigsaw pieces of experience. It's utterly unreliable in some ways, because who can say whether the feeling or emotion that seems to belong to the recollection actually belongs to it..." (154). She is also very wary of the truth, saying that it is subjective (100-1). Regarding fiction and nonfiction she says, "There are infinite ways of telling the truth, including fiction, and infinite ways of evading the truth, including nonfiction" (229). Diski not only doubts the `truth,' she says that often it doesn't matter. For her, with so many repressed memories, mixed reactions and disbelief, it is better to simply remember things the way she wants to. She portrays this very well in the book so that the reader understands her perspective.
The fact that this is a memoir allows her to share her own reactions and feelings. The memoir genre enables her to express a greater degree of closeness and personal relationship with her audience than other genres would. She is given liberty to give her own interpretations of her memories instead of feeling obligated to stick to the straight facts. I also find her book to be a necessary release from the tension and pressure that her life has created. One gets the impression that Diski wrote this book more for herself than anyone. At times this gets in the way of her writing.
Even though the book is very well written and heartfelt, and Diski's messages are conveyed well, sometimes it becomes repulsively self-involved. At times it is difficult for the reader to relate and not be turned-off by self-pity and her self-involved approach to life. An example of her whiney attitude is shown when she is deciding if she wants to set foot on Antarctica. She says, "The rush of pleasure at not doing what is expected of you, of not doing what you expect of yourself. If it was originally about disappointing other people, it has become refined into a matter of pleasing myself" (228). Such self-centeredness can create a distraction for the reader. Despite the fact that it is a memoir and a portal into Diski's personal experiences and thoughts, at times the things she says are better suited for a journal than a publication.
Skating to Antarctica is really about Jenny Diski's search for peace of mind. Does she find it? I think she does. Although she may not completely deal with all of her issues, she definitely comes to a point of peace with her past. She said, "Some things I'll never get away from, not even in the farthest reaches of the South Atlantic, but, with a bit of effort, I can recognize them as a passing wind blowing through me, chilling me to the bone, an act of nature that isn't personal, or not any more. The past can still make me shiver, but no bones are broken" (175). One criticism of the book that I find completely invalid is that it lacks closure. It is true that she does not reunite with her mother and make amends. That is not the kind of closure needed. In addition to the quote on p. 175, on p. 250 Diski expresses contentment in knowing about her mother. This is a true account of a person's life, and it does not end in a fairy tale way. It ends in a manner true to Jenny Diski and true to life.
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