‘Slowly I realised that the facts were not separate things which were there for anyone to pick up, but an ever-changing pattern against a boundless background of the unknown, an immense kaleidoscope changing constantly according to the different ways you looked at it.’
Marion Milner’s writing concerns itself with the joys and difficulties of thinking independently and living creatively. A Life of One’s Own begins with Milner observing that her life ‘was not as I would like it and that it might be in my power to make it different’. What followed was a ‘seven years’ study of living’.
Written before Milner trained as a psychoanalyst, this book is difficult to classify: part diary, part detective story. The aim of this reading group is not to master Milner’s writing, but to try out for ourselves Milner’s experiments in writing, thinking, and observation. After a discussion of the text, participants are invited to take a walk in a neighbouring park, and to write a journal entry, if they so wish.
Email akshi.singh@qmul.ac.uk for readings or further information.
We will be getting together for dinner after the reading group and walk — please email Akshi if you have any special dietary requirements.