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Review
`An intriguing self-portrait of a thoroughly interesting person.' --The Times, January 18, 2011
`Like Montaigne, the essayist on whom she modeled her early attempts at writing, she elevates naval gazing into something beyond self absorption' --Daily Telegraph,
`An intelligent discursion on what it means to be a no-longer-youthful female in a world obsessed with staying young ... Her thoughts are refreshing, provocative and a pleasure to read'
--Metro,
`I loved this book so much I gulped it down in just two sittings... Jane Shilling is a peerlessly elegant and evocative writer' --Mail on Sunday
`Shilling is brave and endearingly frank' --The Scotsman
`She writes beautifully. Her perceptions are acute, her imagery memorable' --The Sunday Herald
`Imagine Montaigne as a thoroughly modern unmarried mother and freelance journalist living in south London... Everywhere there is detail, and nuance, and care about others, and about words' --The Guardian
`Shilling is a gorgeous writer and there are chunks of this book that I would happily steal... If this woman wrote a novel I would buy it in a heartbeat... Shilling puts the ageing process under the microscope and, as we read, we squirm' --The Observer
`Shilling's style, dashingly cavalier and artfully artless, bubbles with wit and brio. Never was a lament less lugubrious' --The Independent
'This `memoir of middle age' shuns self-pity and bubbles with wit. The gap between soaring mind and sluggish body becomes a source of rueful comedy' --The Independent, I
'Jane Shilling is an outstandingly good writer...The Stranger in the Mirror shows that she also has emotional and intellectual courage' --The Spectator
`Shilling's thoughts on love and ageing are so wise and so memorably expressed that they would grace a literary novel... Shillings mild obsession with control and with the delicate, the equisit and the theatrically miniature almost makes her into a latter day Jane Austen' --New Statesman
`Wry, quietly fuming and often moving memoir of a midlife cri de couer... exceptionally companionable, occasionally bejewelled and richly sustaining broth of a book... Highly recommended' --The Sunday Telegraph --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
`Like Montaigne, the essayist on whom she modeled her early attempts at writing, she elevates naval gazing into something beyond self absorption' --Daily Telegraph,
`An intelligent discursion on what it means to be a no-longer-youthful female in a world obsessed with staying young ... Her thoughts are refreshing, provocative and a pleasure to read'
--Metro,
`I loved this book so much I gulped it down in just two sittings... Jane Shilling is a peerlessly elegant and evocative writer' --Mail on Sunday
`Shilling is brave and endearingly frank' --The Scotsman
`She writes beautifully. Her perceptions are acute, her imagery memorable' --The Sunday Herald
`Imagine Montaigne as a thoroughly modern unmarried mother and freelance journalist living in south London... Everywhere there is detail, and nuance, and care about others, and about words' --The Guardian
`Shilling is a gorgeous writer and there are chunks of this book that I would happily steal... If this woman wrote a novel I would buy it in a heartbeat... Shilling puts the ageing process under the microscope and, as we read, we squirm' --The Observer
`Shilling's style, dashingly cavalier and artfully artless, bubbles with wit and brio. Never was a lament less lugubrious' --The Independent
'This `memoir of middle age' shuns self-pity and bubbles with wit. The gap between soaring mind and sluggish body becomes a source of rueful comedy' --The Independent, I
'Jane Shilling is an outstandingly good writer...The Stranger in the Mirror shows that she also has emotional and intellectual courage' --The Spectator
`Shilling's thoughts on love and ageing are so wise and so memorably expressed that they would grace a literary novel... Shillings mild obsession with control and with the delicate, the equisit and the theatrically miniature almost makes her into a latter day Jane Austen' --New Statesman
`Wry, quietly fuming and often moving memoir of a midlife cri de couer... exceptionally companionable, occasionally bejewelled and richly sustaining broth of a book... Highly recommended' --The Sunday Telegraph --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
A remarkable and poignant memoir about one woman's attempt to understand middle age
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was given this book as a present, because it's about middle age. I think I am its target reader.
It wasn't an easy read. I don't mean that in the sense that James Joyce isn't an easy read, or even in the sense that Lolita isn't. It's not the subject matter (I am probably not alone in finding material that so nearly reflects my own situation fascinating) nor the style or structure that's challenging, it's more how much, and how little, she describes of herself.
A review in Mslexia Magazine commented that the book was too objective and impersonal. I disagree. The style is rather distancing, certainly, prone to metaphor and at times an affected. Describing the years 20 to 50, she writes: "Time passes, the seasons turn, the river flows idly; distracted by duty and business we fail to remark a quickening of the current...Then we look up and see that the landscape has altered...the tide has swept us downstream."
But the way she rails at her poor singleton son at his lax approach to his orthodontistry, admitting her continuing sense of ownership over his body; her shame and titillation at the prospect of being taken seriously as a sexual partner; her solipsistic observations on how and why she remains single, are unbearably exposing, and through her courage we are ambushed into a reflection of these same questions in our own lives.
Shilling isn't likeable in this book. She expects uncomfortably much from her son; she moans on about the drudgery of housework - that's fair enough, none of us actually like it, but with Shilling, not liking housework becomes pathological. "Angry reproaches fell from my lips like the toads and serpents from the mouth of the wicked sister in the Grimms' fairy tale. And I blamed my son for this, as well. I wasn't a harridan by nature, I screamed. It was he who was turning me into one with his contempt for my standards, my wish to live with a degree of grace, to keep our small shared space clean and orderly." But it's impossible not to admire the degree to which she allows herself to be unlikeable.
It's difficult to have sympathy with her self-professed feminism too. She reports having delivered "a stinging feminist lecture on the exploitation of women" and then "picking up one [her son's] lads' mags and discovered that half these semi-naked girls were enthusiastic volunteers, rather than professional glamour models. So now I wasn't quite so sure of my position on naked breasts, especially not the ones belonging to Readers' Girlfriends". Let me get this right - glamour models posing in magazines in return for money - bad; readers bragging pictures of their girlfriends, for free, good. Really?
As I said, it's a book that is sometimes hard to read, but it takes off and justifies itself in the last couple of chapters. Shilling's columnist contract has ended, she hasn't made financial provision, she is a fifty year old woman with the best part of her working life behind her, she doesn't know where to go, what to do next, and her son is still her dependent. Now the crisis of middle age is given meaning; as her place in the grand scheme makes her invisible, so she must get out there,; when her biology suggests it's time to quieten down, worldly necessity thrusts her back into the maelstrom. She puts a sweetly brave face on it, chin-up she tells herself, as she contemplates her melancholy calculation. "Time passes no more swiftly than it did when I was young, but I am haunted by the sense of how little of it is left." That's it, that's the point.
It wasn't an easy read. I don't mean that in the sense that James Joyce isn't an easy read, or even in the sense that Lolita isn't. It's not the subject matter (I am probably not alone in finding material that so nearly reflects my own situation fascinating) nor the style or structure that's challenging, it's more how much, and how little, she describes of herself.
A review in Mslexia Magazine commented that the book was too objective and impersonal. I disagree. The style is rather distancing, certainly, prone to metaphor and at times an affected. Describing the years 20 to 50, she writes: "Time passes, the seasons turn, the river flows idly; distracted by duty and business we fail to remark a quickening of the current...Then we look up and see that the landscape has altered...the tide has swept us downstream."
But the way she rails at her poor singleton son at his lax approach to his orthodontistry, admitting her continuing sense of ownership over his body; her shame and titillation at the prospect of being taken seriously as a sexual partner; her solipsistic observations on how and why she remains single, are unbearably exposing, and through her courage we are ambushed into a reflection of these same questions in our own lives.
Shilling isn't likeable in this book. She expects uncomfortably much from her son; she moans on about the drudgery of housework - that's fair enough, none of us actually like it, but with Shilling, not liking housework becomes pathological. "Angry reproaches fell from my lips like the toads and serpents from the mouth of the wicked sister in the Grimms' fairy tale. And I blamed my son for this, as well. I wasn't a harridan by nature, I screamed. It was he who was turning me into one with his contempt for my standards, my wish to live with a degree of grace, to keep our small shared space clean and orderly." But it's impossible not to admire the degree to which she allows herself to be unlikeable.
It's difficult to have sympathy with her self-professed feminism too. She reports having delivered "a stinging feminist lecture on the exploitation of women" and then "picking up one [her son's] lads' mags and discovered that half these semi-naked girls were enthusiastic volunteers, rather than professional glamour models. So now I wasn't quite so sure of my position on naked breasts, especially not the ones belonging to Readers' Girlfriends". Let me get this right - glamour models posing in magazines in return for money - bad; readers bragging pictures of their girlfriends, for free, good. Really?
As I said, it's a book that is sometimes hard to read, but it takes off and justifies itself in the last couple of chapters. Shilling's columnist contract has ended, she hasn't made financial provision, she is a fifty year old woman with the best part of her working life behind her, she doesn't know where to go, what to do next, and her son is still her dependent. Now the crisis of middle age is given meaning; as her place in the grand scheme makes her invisible, so she must get out there,; when her biology suggests it's time to quieten down, worldly necessity thrusts her back into the maelstrom. She puts a sweetly brave face on it, chin-up she tells herself, as she contemplates her melancholy calculation. "Time passes no more swiftly than it did when I was young, but I am haunted by the sense of how little of it is left." That's it, that's the point.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I found this book gave an amazing insight into the mind of a woman of my age and helped me to come to terms with a number of issues. I particularly found Jane's changing relationship with her son useful as I have two sons of my own. As other readers have found Jane does 'jump' about but I found reading a chapter at a time rather than trying to read it in one marathon session made it easier to absorb.
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am absolutely loving this book. I've already been back to the beginning and started again, so densely packed is the writing that, if you are just reading to turn the page, you miss an awful lot.
Jane's writing is pure mental nourishment, (hence the title of my review). Unlike all the flakey articles about aging gracefully, applying face creams, and the inevitable Botox, Jane tells it as it is, but in the most incredible detail. She spends whole pages analysing her reactions to things, which, as I am about the same age, and have a similar educational background, are just meat and drink to me.
Jane has already saved my marriage. She writes that a "Happiness is a gift, but composure can be learned." Remembering this, I exercised the composure muscles, and defused a potentially marriage-wrecking row, by remaining calm.
This is such a refreshing change from most women's writing. For example, unlike the classic ghastly feminists, Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir to name but two, Jane has actually had a child, and brought him up alone, successfully.
She doesn't moan much (probably because she has never had to live with a husband).
She does go on about clothes a little bit too long (a whole chapter). Clothes have never interested me that much, but I do remember her lovely articles in The Times on the subject, so I realise it is one very dear to her.
A great read, albeit quite highbrow. (I had to get out my Oxford English Dictionary at one point!)
Jane's writing is pure mental nourishment, (hence the title of my review). Unlike all the flakey articles about aging gracefully, applying face creams, and the inevitable Botox, Jane tells it as it is, but in the most incredible detail. She spends whole pages analysing her reactions to things, which, as I am about the same age, and have a similar educational background, are just meat and drink to me.
Jane has already saved my marriage. She writes that a "Happiness is a gift, but composure can be learned." Remembering this, I exercised the composure muscles, and defused a potentially marriage-wrecking row, by remaining calm.
This is such a refreshing change from most women's writing. For example, unlike the classic ghastly feminists, Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir to name but two, Jane has actually had a child, and brought him up alone, successfully.
She doesn't moan much (probably because she has never had to live with a husband).
She does go on about clothes a little bit too long (a whole chapter). Clothes have never interested me that much, but I do remember her lovely articles in The Times on the subject, so I realise it is one very dear to her.
A great read, albeit quite highbrow. (I had to get out my Oxford English Dictionary at one point!)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Slightly disappointed
Disappointed but I did finish the book. Had read the review in the Daily Mail and somehow expected it to be a more general (and perhaps humorous) observation of "that time in our... Read more
Published 3 months ago by MaisieB
Middle age documented
This book is about a persons view of reaching middle age, whatever age that is!! (I should note that I am 44, an age which may be similar to most people reading this book). Read more
Published 3 months ago by Janie U
Reflections on life
A swift and incisive mind allows Jane Shilling to cut through all the cliches, stereotypes and shibboleths of middle-age, comparing our modern experience with that of our mothers... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Clive A. H. Still
rambling, pointless
the book meandered around on every subject under the sun, including her childhood, her parent's childhood, horses, work, and only a small part really was how middle age really... Read more
Published 6 months ago by minty
Disappointing
It's really an autobiography - very readable and engaging. but doesn't have much to offer about ageing except rather rambling and unilluminating discourse.
Published 6 months ago by Anne Wareham
A wonderful book
There are books you love and books you wish you'd written, and this is one of the latter. I am deeply jealous that Shilling (like me, a journalist, but more successful) wrote this... Read more
Published 6 months ago by SecondCherry
worth waiting for
Jane Shillings new book received a lot of pre- publishing publicity in the press and in womens magazines and I was somewhat apprehensive before I read it as this is an area which... Read more
Published 14 months ago by penfriend
Superb writer
The Times is the poorer without Jane Shilling's writing, so I was delighted to read the glowing reviews of this excellent, thoughtful book. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Echo
interesting
I haven't started to read this yet as reading the book 'my daughter' that I got at the same time. Looks as though it will be a good one!
Published 15 months ago by Mrs. A. Wilson
Well written
While the author is an incredible writer using words to depict menopause that were perfect descriptions of my own personal experience, I feel she failed to go beyond describing... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Michelle Matoff
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