Writers from Anne Tyler to Joan Didion and Tom McCarthy explore the possibilities and perils of remaking one’s life
he idea of a fresh start, of a new beginning, has a beguiling appeal that has made it an enduring trope in literature. As well as a temporary escape into reading, books suggest the possibility that life outside the story might also be lived differently. All these narratives embody a utopian ideal: somewhere out there, there’s something better worth beginning again for. But utopia literally means no place. There is a warning in this; set out in search of a new beginning and you may get nowhere.
The idea of a second go at living can also create a deferred experience of life. I know this all too well. When I was growing up as a Jehovah’s Witnesslooking forward to a new beginning was actively encouraged. I believed God would destroy the wicked, saving his true followers who would begin again in a paradise Earth.
. I left religion behind, but I still believe in the power of books. I believe literature offers the best answers and starkest warnings; here are some of them.One day, middle-aged wife and mother Delia Grinstead walks away from her family on a beach holiday, carrying almost nothing, and hitches a lift to a new town with only $500 in her pocket. Through her lack of belongings and history, Delia is able to strip back the layers of her life, discovering what matters to her.
A nearly impossible new start … Vanessa Redgrave in the National Theatre adaptation of The Year Of Magical Thinking.Following the death of her husband, John Dunne, Didion takes the reader deep inside her experience of grief and the madness it brings, showing the near impossibility of moving beyond such a huge loss. Instead, as the year progresses, she becomes convinced he’ll return. All the hallmarks of Didion’s writing are here: her tightly honed eloquence, her pared back prose.
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