The price of life

The Cost of Living

The second volume in Deborah Levy's coming-of-age trilogy: On Women and Family. Named one of the "100 Best Books of the 21st Century" by The Guardian and winner of the 2020 Prix Femina, Levy's novel "Life Collapses. We try to control ourselves, to stay calm. Then we discover we don't want to stay calm..." What price does a woman have to pay to break free from old boundaries and secure a small role in a world that is stacked against her? This is the story of every woman throughout history—the women who, through their love and labor, created a home that ultimately met the needs of everyone except themselves.
In this short, emotional, and provocative documentary, author Levy not only candidly reflects on the darkest moments of her life—the breakdown of her marriage and the death of her mother—but also considers what it means to live a meaningful, rewarding, and joyful life for women. Drawing on the works of artists and thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir, James Baldwin, Elena Ferrante, Margaret Duras, David Lynch, and Emily Dickinson, she outlines the ultimate freedom in women's lives. This book, praised by Li Yiyun and Jeanette Winterson, has become a must-have for Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman.
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※ Levi has a keen eye for ordinary and subtle things, sketching out unforgettable details with just a few strokes.
—Li Yiyun (American writer)
I fell in love with Deborah Levy’s The Price of Living, and was struck by how she wove gender, politics, travel, and grief into a poignant story.
—Natalie Portman (American actress)
This is the story of every woman throughout history who, with their love and labor, created a home that, as a result, met the needs of everyone except themselves. Less a memoir than an eloquent manifesto, Levy expresses her "new way of living" in a post-domestic world.
—The Guardian
Levy is a generous writer. The beauty of this short, emotional, and poignant memoir is that it's not just about painful milestones in her life—the end of her marriage, her mother's death—but also about what it means to be alive. Aside from Virginia Woolf, I can't think of a better writer who writes about marginality, family, non-events, and what it means to be a woman. This is a small book about a big theme, about finding a new way to live.
—The Observer
Smart, practical, and clean. A statement of adventure and radical living. The water may be too deep for you to swim, but you can still swim it.
—New Statesman
※ Every sentence is a little masterpiece of clarity and elegance.
—The Telegraph
Levy doesn't tell other women to live her way, or any way at all. As a full-fledged feminist, she wouldn't. Yet she wants us to understand her joy, to see her thrive in this new and uncharted life. The same is true of her writing. The book's final sentence is phrased like this: "The words you read right now are made of digital ink, at the cost of living."
-- NPR In her fifties, Levy is writing about her life not for her peers but for a new generation. Because we tend to portray feminism as waves separated by generational divides (most recently the so-called rift between millennials and baby boomers), we often focus on the divisions among women. What if we viewed the situation of all women as a struggle to see themselves as primary actors in a society that only gives them secondary roles?
——Harper's

2023-08-01

湖南文艺出版社

Pu Rui Culture

168

9787572611568