![]() ![]() I read nearly all of May Sarton’s journals. (With thanks once again to Open Road Media for making e-books of many of Sarton’s works available through NetGalley.) They are such cozy reading for me I’ll have to ration myself so I don’t run out of them too soon. It is a low form of creation.” Yet I think the journals are fantastic. ![]() Indeed, she questions the autobiographical pursuit, even as she engages with it: “I find the journal suspect because it is almost too easy. Poetry was always foremost for her, followed by fiction, followed at some distance by memoir. ![]() “Every artist lives in a constant state of self-criticism, self-doubt, and in near despair a good deal of the time,” Sarton writes. As always, though, there are wise words about the sanctity of everyday life (“the immense joys of having time to think, to be quiet, to live along in a sedate routine, that routine that for me releases the imagination”) and the absolute importance of time alone for a creator. Journal of a Solitude is still my favorite, and I slightly prefer At Eighty-Two to this one. I’ve been reading Sarton’s journals at random, rather than in chronological order. Sarton was recovering physically from surgery for breast cancer and emotionally from the end of a 30-year relationship with Judy Matlack, a former lover who was in a nursing home, declining gradually from Alzheimer’s. (3.5) This journal covers January to November 1979. ![]()
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