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In a memoir that pierces and delights us, Jill Ker Conway tells the story of her astonishing journey into adulthood--a journey that would ultimately span immense distances and encompass worlds, ideas, and ways of life that seem a century apart. She was seven before she ever saw another girl child. At eight, still too small to mount her horse unaided, she was galloping miles, alone, across Coorain, her parents' thirty thousand windswept, drought-haunted acres in the Australian outback, doing a "man's job" of helping herd the sheep because World War II had taken away the able-bodied men. She loved (and makes us see and feel) the vast unpeopled landscape, beautiful and hostile, whose uncertain weathers tormented the sheep ranchers with conflicting promises of riches and inescapable disaster. She adored (and makes us know) her large-visioned father and her strong, radiant mother, who had gone willingly with him into a pioneering life of loneliness and bone-breaking toil, who seemed miraculously to succeed in creating a warmly sheltering home in the harsh outback, and who, upon her husband's sudden death when Jill was ten, began to slide--bereft of the partnership of work and love that had so utterly fulfilled her--into depression and dependency. We see Jill, staggered by the loss of her father, catapulted to what seemed another planet--the suburban Sydney of the 1950s and its crowded, noisy, cliquish school life. Then the heady excitement of the University, but with it a yet more demanding course of lessons--Jill embracing new ideas, new possibilities, while at the same time trying to be mother to her mother and resenting it, escaping into drink, pulling herself back, striking a balance. We see her slowly gaining strength, coming into her own emotionally and intellectually and beginning the joyous love affair that gave wings to her newfound self. Worlds away from Coorain, in America, Jill Conway became a historian and the first woman president of Smith College. Her story of Coorain and the road from Coorain startles by its passion and evocative power, by its understanding of the ways in which a total, deep-rooted commitment to place--or to a dream--can at once liberate and imprison. It is a story of childhood as both Eden and anguish, and of growing up as a journey toward the difficult life of the free.… (more)
User reviews
This autobiography of Wellesley College's President
An accomplished, brilliant woman, Ms Conway earns the respect of all who have the good fortune to know her, and who are guided by her. She understands women and champions their struggles.
This little book in particular has been nominated for and has won various prestigious awards. It's the first of a series of books she has written.
I liked this small, thoughtful little volume. There's alot to be discovered in its pages.
Your Bookish Dame
The first part of the book is about her down-to-earth life in the bush. Later,
She wonders where she belongs. She loves the outback, but not its isolation. She considers England, for its historical and cultural riches, but finds it snobbish and condescending. She likes Australia, but doesn't fit in there, and isn't likely to. She has intractable family problems, so she escapes to the other side of the planet, far enough away to "be totally safe from family visits." She makes a clean break, with no intention ever to return. "I wasn't going to fight anymore. I was going to admit defeat; turn tail; run for cover."
A good read if you are interested in Australia, in the outback, in sheep ranching, in the empowerment of women, in dysfunctional family dynamics. A straightforward account of one person's struggle for self discovery in a constricting world.
This was so impressive in its beauty, emotional honesty, and intellectual rigor. It was a great introduction to Australia for those of us for whom the name only conjures kangaroos, exotic poisonous animals, and Ned Kelly, and it's also a great introduction to the transformative power of history as an academic enterprise. I will definitely look for more from Conway in the future.
Conway leaves very little out, but at the same time, crafts her life story with great skill and command. The main thing that comes through is that she was shaped by Australia, with all its contradictions – its very strong code of behavior coupled with the emulation of all things Britain. She describes her emotional, physical and educational development as she becomes conscious of these contradictions and works through them.
At the end, she says “I’ll never refer to Asia as the Far East again."
Australia is a hard place and this book is riveting in the recollections of a sheep ranch and 8 years of drought. Much family hardship and much much to overcome. For another book, I assume - she becomes first female president of Smith College.
Read in 2010.
Review: The first few chapters seemed an overly sentimental remembrance of childhood. However, as her story progressed, a much more realistic version of the life of a female in the 1950s took shape. Coming to grips with prejudice, both overt and covert, is difficult and this struggle is masterly recounted. I find it irritating and a bit depressing that attitudes toward smart, strong women haven't changed much over the years.
I found Conway’s story quite interesting, especially her fight against societal pressure to conform to the expected female role. Ultimately she had to leave her home country to pursue her dreams, which made me curious about the later phases in her life and whether she ever felt “at home” in Australia again. But those are subjects of later memoirs …
Conway details her life in the outback, her transition to a private school in Sydney, and her undergraduate days at the University of Sydney. As such, this memoir is a real-life coming-of-age tale. She describes how she fell in love with the field of history and decided to dedicate her life to being a scholar of women’s history.
Her writing style is impressive and entertaining. Not only does she describe things accurately and with a healthy distance, but she also picks interesting details that bring her world alive to the reader. Obviously well-read, she shows the character that brought her from an oppressive environment towards eventually becoming a leader in women’s education.
I find personal inspiration from feminists like Conway. Often, men are not encouraged to find their own place in the world like many women (especially ambitious women) are forced to. As such, the narrative of male lives often does not involve the quest for being and existence. However, I find that I, too, have those questions. Conway’s tale gives me some more rungs to hang my experience on, and for that, I am grateful.
My own dwindling interest post-Coorain, is mirrored in the reception of her three memoirs: the further her ambitions pulled her from Coorain, the less interest there was in her books - each appealing to a progressively narrower audience. Regardless though, of how appreciative one might be of Conway's achievements as a pioneering woman in modern day postsecondary education, the trajectory of her life is breathtaking by any standard. As a child she alone could comfort her young father through his horrifying nightmares of Ypres, Passchendaele, and France. Nowadays her interviews and speeches are featured on Youtube. Her cohort, those who came of age in the 1930s and 1940s, and who are now hitting their 80s, have lived through more profound social, cultural, technological, and political change than any other. In Conway's case this passage is amplified by how far she also came geographically and by how much she was able to achieve along the way.