Pleasures of a Tangled Life

The writer offers an anecdotal memoir of her colorful life, relating her adventures, friendship, controversial sex-change operation, and journey to self-discovery

Travel writer and essayist Morris states here that she wrote this celebration of personal pleasures as an obverse to Conundrum , her 1974 account of her sex-change operation and search for self-definition. In this idiosyncratic potpourri she extols wines, Abysinnian cats, driving a car while listening to music, the smell of books, her imaginary affair with a long-dead admiral. She considers herself an animal liberationist, a gastronome, a pantheist, an anarchist. The book contains unexpected peculiarities: in the opening chapter, Morris finds the notion of brother-sister incest "particularly graceful," and writes elsewhere that she once thought American Indians "very tedious" but now respects their culture. Agile essays celebrate styles of architecture, watching ships sail by her old Welsh house, friendship. Travel sketches of Australia, the Nile, Trieste, India, France, etc., make up a third of this miscellany. First serial to Mirabella, HG and Conde Nast Traveler; author tour.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reading this is like listening to an old neighbor, sitting on a porch rocker, recounting joys and lessons gleaned from life. In both, the gaze is fixed on a distant horizon; the tone is sometimes cynical, sometimes condescending, and sometimes akin to childlike wonder. The memories here are in random order, but the style and vivid imagery that have won Morris acclaim as a travel writer and journalist are evident. For those who have drawn joy from Morris's travelogues, Pleasures will probably be a pleasure to read; however, it has little to offer the unitiated. It is a book to add to a Jan Morris collection, not a book to start one with. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/89.
- Martin J. Hudacs, Towanda H.S., Pa.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.