Marina Jarre's memoir was published in 1987 when she was 62 and in the middle of her writing career, according to the introduction. Now it's available in an English translation by Ann Goldstein, and I'm glad. Jarre tells her story from the perspective of herself at 62, but often in the voice of whatever age she was at the time she is telling us about. As a little girl she worries "that I will grow up suddenly, in a single night," and will need to go buy clothes that fit her adult size while other grownups laugh at her in child's clothing.
That's in the first of three chapters, "The Circle of Light." The second, "Pity and Anger," is about growing up through World War I in fascist Italy to adulthood. The final Chapter, "As a Woman," takes her to the time of writing her book, though she lived for another 29 years. There is much about her parents, a strong willed mother, an absent father, a grandmother who raised her, and the people around her.
Jarre slips from one time period to another, sometimes in the middle of a paragraph, until I'm no longer surprised to realize that, for example, she is no longer talking about aiding the resistance fighters in a mountain village in 1940, but is now telling about her time teaching French and raising her children in post-war Turin.
So the memoir comes to be about growing and becoming and memory, and trying to understand who she is and how she became the person she is. The book is worth planning a second read for me, to enjoy again and to notice some of what I've missed the first time through. ( )

A very self involved memoir, which churned over the author's relationship with her mother while stepping away from all the other traumas of her life. Given the singular repetitive obsession, the book wore thin with time and it was difficult to develop an empathy with the author. ( )

Some individuals hide, or surpress their emotions,feelings. From the way the story was written, I feel the author did just that. It is a form of survival, for so many people who are faced with trauma, and events that are appalling and difficult to handle.

Thank you for the ARC.

Marina Jarre lived through difficult times, and situations. I do not judge her way of being, as we each handle ourselves in the way we feel we can survive. ( )

this was a very strange memoir written by a woman very involved with herself. She presents the same perceptions numerous times as related to different events. the book was fairly interesting, but I was pleased that it was as short as it was. Jarre is obviously very intelligent, but she may not have really understood the motivations and actions both of herself and of others. She did learn well how to protect herself from most emotions, and therefore she seemed to tolerate war and the torture of others. ( )