I did that on purpose because I wanted to see how the book would impact me, if I didn’t know anything about the author. I didn’t read about May Sarton, till I was halfway through the book.
Sarton is a poet and it shows in her prose.
Normally this would be hard to read because we don’t know what awaits us, but Sarton’s gentle tone makes it interesting and beautiful. She is also honest about her own imperfections and flaws and turns her gaze inward and bares her soul. Sarton is frank in her observations and doesn’t mince words when she disagrees with established wisdom or with popular opinion, but she does it gently, softly. It is a beautiful, tranquil book and Sarton’s prose is contemplative and meditative and gentle and flows like a serene river. The journal describes Sarton’s everyday life, her quiet routines, how her creative energy bursts out gently and manifests itself as poems and books, the challenges and inner demons and depression she has to wrestle against when her creative energies don’t flow, her relationship with her cats and her parrot and a wild cat which sometimes visits her, her friendship with her neighbours who are kind and who help her, her relationship with her friends who visit her occasionally, the excitement and challenges of a new romantic relationship, the pleasures of gardening and the beauty of flowers, the changing of the seasons and the quiet and colourful changes they bring, the pleasures, joy and tranquility of solitude and the occasional challenges it brings – Sarton touches on this and other topics.
In the journal, Sarton describes one year of her life spent in a town called Nelson in New Hampshire. ‘ Journal of a Solitude‘ is a journal written during the early ’70s by May Sarton. Human memory is unpredictable and fickle, as they say.) A few days back I decided to start reading it and I finished reading it today. And, of course, as I nearly predicted after I discovered that, I have posted a long comment there. When I was searching on May Sarton on the internet, I discovered that Caroline from ‘Beauty is a Sleeping Cat’ has reviewed Sarton’s novel ‘Mrs.Stevens Heard the Mermaids Singing’. Whatever be the nature of the truth, the title appealed to me, and I kept it aside for a quiet day. Or maybe someone mentioned it and it was there in the back of my mind, when I stumbled upon it. Maybe I stumbled upon it, during one of my browsing sessions on Kindle books.
Which is odd, because I always remember how I discover a book. I can’t remember how I discovered May Sarton’s ‘ Journal of a Solitude‘.
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