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Niente Che Mi Riguardi (2000)

by Janice Galloway(Favorite Author)

4.03 of 5 Votes: 3

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English

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review 1: these books just keep pouring down on me. well, there's worse ways to go than a book tsunami, specially if Janice Galloway is the spume:i read this memoir and i recommend it to all lovers of novels and memoirs, especially scottish ones. Here is an excerpt from Galloway’s time in kindergarten (Infants 1b in Scottish ) because if you are a Janice Galloway fan YOU KNOW her techniques as a writer, and if you don’t then its really hard to explain, but its compelling and funny. Funny like when your friend is skipping down the sidewalk, but then trips, and hooo booy THAT IS funny, but then you see the huge gash in their knee welling blood all over their shinbone. That kind of funny. So Janice was one of those kids who screamed and cried the whole time during class, nap ... moretime, etc etc…….”They, by which I mean the headmistress, told her [Janice’s mother] I was clingy, anxious, and withdrawn. The words separation anxiety had been bandied. My mother rolled out the phrase now and then, hoping it was a diagnosed condition and therefore not her fault. Separation anxiety. It meant the plan of me shining like a star in Infants 1b had all gone to cock. They know what they’re talking about, teachers, she’d say, at the end of her tether, It’s like bloody Rosebuds back to haunt me. I’ll never get rid of you. It got worse. I wouldn’t hold hands readily, was reticent when spoken to and, during a chorus of Old MacDonald, had offered only the words I want to go home when called upon to suggest what the duck said here, there and everywhere. My mother knew that teachers were people to whom apologies, explanations or types of obeisance were due, but she didn’t know what apologies, explanations or types of obeisance were appropriate for this kind of thing. It had never happened before.My other daughter wasn’t like this, she said. Cora loved the school. She was desperate to get there. This one—she looked at me and sighed—this one’s different.They commiserated and she chewed her lip, trying not to look weak. Sympathy made her uncomfortable. Somehow, the whole thing passed. It must have, because they put me in charge of the class scissors by February. But it was a rocky start and she took it hard.Are you going to stop this mummy mummy mummy nonsense? You that’s supposed to be clever? Are you going to try and be a big girl like Alma?She posted a sweetie into my mouth and took one for herself. By the time we had walked back over the railway brae, sucking had made us calm.Kitty’s right enough, she said, as we struck out down Argyle Road. Weans will take you over if you don’t watch. You’ll just have to sink or swim.I didn’t argue. I’d drain her dry if she didn’t get me sorted out. Kitty said that too.Alma’s good with hair, she said, clacking the sweetie from one side of her mouth to the other. She’ll get on.It was true. Alma was blonde. She was good with hair, had the top bunk in a real bedroom and still thought Santa was right enough. Alma would get on just fine.I wish I knew what the hell you were good at, she said. Godknows where you’re headed.Only one thing was certain: sooner or later I’d get what I got. What happened to you in this life was random. It was sudden, often frightening and always judged. What was true for everybody was true for me: nobody got to pick and choose. That which was not terrifying deserved our gratitude and the rest was a puzzling jumble. Even the terrifying had its own excitements, like walking along the shore wall in the wrong shoes over seaweed. The miracle was that you stayed on at all. That you kept going. Yes indeed, that was the measure of the thing. It was all about hanging on.”
review 2: If you ever have to chance to go to a literary interview with Janice Galloway, do yourself a favour and go - she's brilliant, funny, inspiring. When I was flying to England for the first time I was in the middle of her book "the trick is to keep breathing". I've not read anything of hers since but having seen her last year and listened to her talk I went out and bought both of her memoirs, this being the first. Seems bleak at first but there's a lot of humour in it too. Especially like Sophie the neighbour! She's got to be every child's nightmare!Brilliant book, she reads it out loud in such a way that it seems funnier than when I read it but I think that's just because she has a greater capacity for humour than I do. less

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