Things I Don't Want To Know, Deborah Levy

Finally read my dream book!

Well, started it. There are two more books: The Cost of Living and Real Estate. I'd especially wanted to read these because the perspective was so different. Here was the real story of a woman writer, who after bringing up a family, suddenly finds herself alone. Deborah Levy investigates her own core in the middle of her sadness. In particular in Things I Don't Want To Know, she wonders or joins the dots of why she became a writer - a question I assume is most central to her identity.

To answer the why, she makes use of a framework established by George Orwell in the essay "Why I Write". This is a line that is stamped all over the book. I had zero context about the essay and hence it didn't register that the chapter titles Political Purpose, Historical Purpose, Sheer Egoism and Aesthetic Enthusiasm were themselves the reasons laid down by Orwell. Of course these were reasons laid down by a man and this is somewhat of a statement too when she sees her life through these lens(es?).

I loved that it started politically. I like that she talks about the influence of other women in her life in such an honest and sympathetic manner. Don't know how else to put it, she never pretends to be more complicated than she is. If a metaphor is simplistic, it just is.

Political Purpose - Being a woman and mother and how roles are defined and it's all a SCAM

Historical Purpose - About her life in Africa and her dad's imprisonment and moving and learning to even speak

Sheer Egoism - This is a tiny part but loved it. That feeling of urgency and importance and wanting to be Somewhere and be Somebody. (Writer with a capital W).

Aesthetic Enthusiasm - A few things stood out to me because they deserved deeper inspection in her context. 

That thing about women not being able to feel their life too deeply because it would enrage them (badly paraphrased by me but taken from Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own). I didn't get-it, get-it but on Googling it was originally written about being forward-looking and not thinking too much about the bad hand that you're dealt because your thoughts determine your path.  The two wolves thing.

Second was her realising that women (including her) are running away from things they didn't want to know. What did she not want to know? Was it knowing her life was going to be a little bit lonely? Was it realising that a lot of her life was role-playing and not.. her? Was it her running away from her what she calls are her 'own desires'? Which you learn to mock before someone else does?

Phrase that sounds beauty but which I didn't understand - opening window like an orange. Writing this down here because I think I'll know it someday when I read it again.

So it's an interesting study overall. Thankful that I wrote this so now I can finally move on to Book 2! YESSSS.