Deborah Levy has published three books of Living Autobiography now; Real Estate in 2021, The Cost of Living in 2018, and this, her first, Things I Don’t Want to Know, in 2013. I seem to be reading them backwards, but that doesn’t really matter. They are all stunning, beautifully written tales of the struggles of the modern woman. Motherhood, work, finding a place to live, failed relationships, family story; it is all here in clear elegant prose.
The Things I Don’t Want to Know was written as an answer to George Orwell’s essay, Why I Write. Levy uses the same chapter headings, Political Purpose, Historical Impulse, Sheer Egoism and Aesthetic Enthusiasm but her take on these is vastly different from Orwell’s. It is hard to see him in sympathy with a political purpose that questions the assumption that the primary role for a woman is as Mother. She quotes from Adrienne Rich
No woman is really an insider in the institutions fathered by masculine consciousness.
She, a loving and conscientious mother, questions whether Mother is a role that encompasses all of a woman. Isn’t it possible that her children while move on into their own lives? Isn’t it desirable that they do so?
The suburb of femininity is not a good place to live. Nor is it wise to seek refuge inside our children because children are always keen to make their way in the world to meet someone else. Yes, there had been many times I called my daughters back to zip up their coats. All the same, I knew they would rather be cold and free.
George Orwell would not regard motherhood as a political issue. He was blithely oblivious of the day to day running of life. He had the Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s of this world to minister to him and accepted this as his right.
Levy’s writing has also been likened to that of Virginia Wolff, but again, politically they are miles apart. Levy reflects on the snobbishness of school mothers,
…an uneasy distance between themselves and the working class mothers they called chavs. The chavs in the playground had less money and less education and ate more chocolate and crisps and other nice things. They said words like, Oh my God, I didn’t know where to look. In the balance I thought these were the more exciting words.
Virginia Woolf admitted to being a snob because she ‘liked coronets’. She didn’t add that she was a product of the British class system that genuinely regarded the lower classes as inferior and only put on earth to serve their betters. Or perhaps she didn’t have the capacity for insight that Deborah Levy has.
This book opens with Deborah Levy in a bad way. She has just had her novel Swimming Home published (it was short listed for the Booker Prize in 2012) but her marriage has collapsed and she is given to bursting into tears on up escalators. She goes to Majorca for some time to be alone and to write.
The second section, Historical Impulse, where she reflects on her childhood in South Africa under Apartheid, I found both enlightening and deeply moving. From a child’s perspective she sees the inequities in the social system. (No Virginia Woolf here) Why does the black woman who cares for her have to be called a European name for her work? Why does she have to leave her own child in order to care for a white person’s child? And why do the beaches have signs that say
THIS BATHING AREA IS RESERVED FOR THE
SOLE USE
OF MEMBERS OF THE WHITE RACE
Her father, a lawyer and colleague of Nelson Mandela, is arrested and jailed and Levy is sent out of Durban to live the family of her Godmother. Eventually she returns to her family when her father is freed after several years, and they emigrate to England. This takes its toll on her parent’s marriage and they divorce.
Now she has to adapt being in England, to wearing those lime green platform shoes. But all this time she is learning to raise her voice and to identify as a writer.
A remarkable glimpse into the life and work of a talented and compassionate woman. The perfect antidote to the book by Kinsgley Amis I have just read (Why on earth did he get the Booker Prize for The Old Devils? But that’s another story.)
And I was delighted to discover Deborah Levy has book four of her memoirs, The Position of Spoons: And Other Intimacies , coming out in October of his year.
Gert Loveday's Fun with Books 
I like it, starting with the title. Sounds like an excellent book, and a good person to know.
Small and light and easy to read but very thoughtful. Your kind of thing.
I will look for it —
I agree with your comments about not necessarily needing to read these books in order as I too started elsewhere. The Cost of Living was my first, followed by Things I Don’t Want to Know and then Real Estate. Oddly enough, this first volume turned out to be my least favourite of the three, partly because I’m more interested in Levy’s thoughts on marriage, motherhood and other related topics than her childhood. That said, there’s no denying the precision of her prose. Thanks for a great reminder of this one!
I found the South African section the most moving and enlightening, as you can probably tell. Perhaps because I didn’t know a great deal about it.
It seems like struggle and failure is the “reason d’etre” for most books. A happy life and wonderful relationship is a bore, not much to write about. I’ve been in the working world and I have been a housewife and mother. I would add that being a wife and mother was by far the most challenging and rewarding for me. Being a woman in the working world is full of conundrums. At my advanced age I am exceedingly grateful for the companionship and attention of my children. I want them to have their own lives but for some reason they are still very much a part of mine.
Leslie
A good life Leslie, and it sounds as though you are loved and appreciated.
❤