Recollections of my non-existence: Part one

About a year ago in this column I wrote a review of what was then Rebecca Solnit’s most recent book, Whose Story Is This?: Old Conflicts, New Chapters. I regard Solnit as one of the most important writers today whose work focuses on social and ethical issues (others would be Susan Sontag and Edward Said). As the London Observer has said of her: “It is a rare writer who has both the intellectual heft and the authority of frontline experience to tackle the most urgent issues of our time.” Her range of work is astonishing: amongst the more than twenty books she has authored to date are titles such as Wanderlust: A History of Walking, A Field Guide to Getting Lost and A Paradise built in Hell: the Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. Solnit writes primarily, however, about social history and feminist movements. When it comes to the latter she is concerned with protest, ethics and logistics. The book I reviewed last year, Whose Story Is This? deals with a question I have always found difficult: is it viable, productive, ethically tenable for different oppressed or marginalised groups to struggle on each other’s behalf? Her latest book carries on its front cover a recommendation by renowned historian Mary Beard: “Wonderful . . . expertly crafted.” When I’d finished my last Solnit piece for thepost I decided I must get back to her work and write about one of the chapters in Whose Story Is This? as an absolute model of how to put an essay together. Maybe I’ll get around to that one of these days. But meanwhile I’m reviewing Solnit’s latest book, Recollections of My Non-Existence, which is published by Granta books in the UK. I’ll begin my review by quoting the description of the book printed on its back cover. A lazy move, maybe, but the publisher has done a very good job. So here goes: “In 1981, Rebecca Solnit rented a studio apartment in San Francisco, her home for the next twenty-five years. There she began the process of forging a voice in a society that preferred women to be silent. [There] she broke through oppression and over time transformed into a writer and activist who spoke for the marginalised—galvanised to use her own voice for a change.” Two comments on that. First, there is the reference to speaking “for the marginalised”, which brings us back to that central concern of the earlier book, Whose Story Is This? Is it possible for members of one marginalised group—in different contexts, women, African-Americans, members of faith, sexual or ethnic minorities—to speak, organise, protest, struggle, on behalf of other marginalised groups? Is it ethically acceptable, is it productive? I wish someone would help me get my head around this one, because I find it a dilemma I can’t resolve (akin to that clash of rights—defending freedom of expression / defending people from hate speech—I explored in an earlier column). Second, there is that reference to Solnit learning “to use her own voice for a change.” So important, this, to build the foundations for independent insight and perception, and independent forms of articulation and expression. One of Solnit’s earlier books I must get hold of is titled Men Explain Things To Me, a title that satirically protests the male presumption that the little lady can’t understand what’s going on around her. Apart from the author portrait on the cover there is just one photo in the book—of Solnit’s writing-desk at the time she rented that San Francisco studio apartment: an elegant French-looking “vanity” with five drawers, a large personal computer hogging most of the desk-top and piles of books on either side. There’s no chair—I guess it was removed for the purpose of the photo—but then Solnit is so amazing, maybe she writes standing up. As a footnote to the above, I’d like to record my excitement at seeing in museums the desks of writers I admire: Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and—best of all—in the old British Library in London (they have since moved to a wonderful new building) the desk where Karl Marx wrote Capital. As far as I know (though, readers, do check with Morija Museum) we do not have the desk of Thomas Mofolo, but then as he led such a peripatetic life, there’s probably no single one such thing. To return to Recollections, I realise that I have described this as Rebecca Solnit’s latest book, but it was published in 2020 and given how phenomenally productive she is, she may well have published at least one more book since then. I’ve noted that amongst many other topics such as the joy of hiking, she is primarily concerned with women’s rights, with the goals and strategies of feminism, and with the task of marginalised and oppressed groups to stand up for themselves. As well as that, Recollections is described on its back cover in a quotation from the Irish Times as “a deeply considered exploration of consciousness and the mutability of selfhood.” These are key terms in the realms of psychology and philosophy and for movements such as feminism. It is vital for the individual to achieve full consciousness of who they are, and of who they are in the world. And selfhood isn’t necessarily stable, but can change over time (your columnist grew into a new self when he relocated from the UK to Africa), and may comprise disparate, even apparently contradictory elements, which is why we can speak of multiple identity. To be continued