Ongoingness : the end of a diary /
Manguso, Sarah, 1974-,
Ongoingness : the end of a diary / Sarah Manguso. - 97 pages ; 20 cm
Autobiographical essay.
"In her third book that continues to define the contours of the contemporary essay, Sarah Manguso confronts a meticulous diary that she has kept for twenty-five years. "I wanted to end each day with a record of everything that had ever happened," she explains. But this simple statement belies a terror that she might forget something, that she might miss something important. Maintaining that diary, now 800,000 words, had become, until recently, a kind of spiritual practice. Then Manguso became pregnant and had a child, and these two Copernican events generated an amnesia that put her into a different relationship with the need to document herself amid ongoing time. Ongoingness is a spare, meditative work that stands in stark contrast to the volubility of the diary--it is a haunting account of mortality and impermanence, of how we struggle to find clarity amid the chaos of time that rushes around and over and through us"--Publisher's website. The author traces the documentation of her own life in diaries over twenty-five years, exploring the struggle to find clarity in life.
1555977030 (hardcover) 9781555977030 (hardcover)
2014950981
Manguso, Sarah, 1974-
Authors, American--21st century--Biography.
Diaries--Authorship.
Time--Psychological aspects.
Autobiographies.
Essays.
Ongoingness : the end of a diary / Sarah Manguso. - 97 pages ; 20 cm
Autobiographical essay.
"In her third book that continues to define the contours of the contemporary essay, Sarah Manguso confronts a meticulous diary that she has kept for twenty-five years. "I wanted to end each day with a record of everything that had ever happened," she explains. But this simple statement belies a terror that she might forget something, that she might miss something important. Maintaining that diary, now 800,000 words, had become, until recently, a kind of spiritual practice. Then Manguso became pregnant and had a child, and these two Copernican events generated an amnesia that put her into a different relationship with the need to document herself amid ongoing time. Ongoingness is a spare, meditative work that stands in stark contrast to the volubility of the diary--it is a haunting account of mortality and impermanence, of how we struggle to find clarity amid the chaos of time that rushes around and over and through us"--Publisher's website. The author traces the documentation of her own life in diaries over twenty-five years, exploring the struggle to find clarity in life.
1555977030 (hardcover) 9781555977030 (hardcover)
2014950981
Manguso, Sarah, 1974-
Authors, American--21st century--Biography.
Diaries--Authorship.
Time--Psychological aspects.
Autobiographies.
Essays.