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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Anyone who keeps a diary day in, day out for decades knows why Helen Garner, a few years ago, destroyed her early ones, deeming them boring and self-obsessed. Incineration has a long, proud history: think of Henry James, late in life, at his incinerator in Rye, burning all his letters and private papers – that lamentable blaze. The sheer misery and tedium of our early journals can be dejecting. ‘What is the point of this diary?’ Garner asks herself in 1981. ‘There is always something deeper, that I don’t write, even when I think I’m saying everything.’' (Introduction)
Notes
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Epigraph: ‘Several new perceptions of the unfortunate creature that I am have dawned upon me consolingly.’
Franz Kafka, 7 January 1911
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 16 Dec 2019 08:54:48
10-13
https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2019/december-2019-no-417/689-december-2019-no-417/6050-peter-rose-reviews-yellow-notebook-diaries-volume-i-1978-1987-by-helen-garner
'To Stand the Blows' : The Flexile Diaries of Helen Garner
Australian Book Review
Australian Book Review
