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the complete review - autobiographical
Reminiscences of a Student's Life
by
Jane Ellen Harrison
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Reminiscences of a Student's Life |
| Author: | Jane Ellen Harrison |
| Genre: | Memoir |
| Written: | 1925 |
| Length: | 94 pages |
| Availability: | Reminiscences of a Student's Life - US |
| Reminiscences of a Student's Life - UK | |
| Reminiscences of a Student's Life - Canada | |
| Recuerdos de la vida de una estudiante - España | |
| from: Bookshop.org (US) | |
| directly from: McNally Editions |
- With a Foreword by Daniel Mendelsohn
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Our Assessment:
XY : appealing reminiscences- (and opinions-) collection
See our review for fuller assessment.
| Source | Rating | Date | Reviewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirkus Reviews | . | 1/12/2023 | . |
| London Rev. of Books | . | 17/9/2024 | Mary Beard |
From the Reviews:
- "This charming memoir by classicist and educator Harrison (...) offers a graceful portrait of a spirited woman. At times curmudgeonly, at times irreverent, always shrewdly perceptive (.....) Captivating recollections." - Kirkus Reviews
- "It is a tremendous read and a masterclass in carefully crafted self-deprecation as one of the most effective ways of boasting. Harrison comes across as an outsider who always offered a refreshing challenge to the insiders (the ‘Gladstone treatment’ is rolled out more than once); as someone who didn’t take herself entirely seriously (quite how silly was it to faint when George Eliot admired her specially chosen wallpaper ?); and someone who was always on the side of the young." - Mary Beard, London Review of Books
Quotes:
- "This extremely arch and witty collection of anecdotes is more pamphlet than book and is not restricted to her early life as the title indicates. Although virtually everything in it has been mined by later biographers, it is of limited and problematic value because Harrison chose not to mention any persons still living, thus excluding information about her relationships with Murray, Cornford, and Mirrlees, among others." - James Holoka, Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2003.06.14)
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
The title Reminiscences of a Student's Life might suggest a university-years memoir, but Jane Ellen Harrison's reminiscences range far more widely -- as already suggested in the opening sentence:
In view of my present cult for Russia and things Russian, I like to think that my first childish memory is of the word "Moscow".In her mid-seventies when she writes this slim memoir, she looks back across her entire life, from earliest childhood to the then present-day (and her 'cult' for things Russian); being a 'student' was not merely a stage in her life, as she remained eager to learn her entire life.
Harrison became a classical scholar, but had few illusions about the education systems of her times -- "Victorian education was ingeniously useless" (especially for girls and women), she notes, and complains that: "Nowadays it seems you learn only what is reasonable and relevant".
She argues for a rather different course than the traditional school-system:
Let children early speak at least three foreign languages, let them browse freely in a good library, see all they can of the first-rate in nature, art, and literature -- above all, give them a chance of knowing what science and scientific method means, and then leave them to sink or swim. Above all things, do not cultivate in them a taste for literature.She would go on to be a popular lecturer -- but writes:
I regret those lecturing years. I was voluble and had instant success, but it was mentally demoralising and very exhausting. Though I was almost fatally fluent, I could never face a big audience without a sinking in the pit of what is now called the solar plexus.Reminiscences of a Student's Life is loosely autobiographical -- a mix of recollections and reflection, and anecdotes and opinions rather than punctilious life-chronicle. Harrison writes from the vantage point of advanced age -- she looks towards death, too (and died only three years after this volume was published) --, and reflects from that position, of a long life, fully lived. Among her observations
By what miracle I escaped marriage I do not know, for all my life long I fell in love. But, on the whole, I am glad. I do not doubt that I lost much, but I am quite sure I gained more. Marriage, for a woman at least, hampers the two things that made life to me glorious -- friendship and learning. In man it was always the friend, not the husband, that I wanted. Family life has never attracted me. At its best it seems to me rather narrow and selfish; at its worst, a private hell.Admirably, too, and reflecting an openness to change and learning that is too rarely heard, she acknowledges:
We old people must, however, steadily face the fact that the young are more likely to be right than the old, and this in literature as in morals and manners. If we old ones have behind us a larger personal experience, they, the young, have behind them the collective experience of a whole additional generation. Youth starts life from the vantage point of the shoulders of age, and his vista is likely to be wider and clearer.Tantalizing bits, of experience and opinion, are tossed in throughout the text, often making one wish she had written a full, traditional memoir, going into much greater detail -- not least about the well-known figures she met. Already bitten by the Russia-bug at Cambridge, she hoped to hear some Russian words from Turgenev when she shows him around -- but: "Alas ! he spoke fluent English; it was a grievous disapointment. Then Ruskin came". Such quick transitions -- 'Then Ruskin came' (Harrison continuing: "I showed him our small library") are typical for the packed work. Others she mentions include George Eliot, Tennyson, and Henry James -- all most equally casually ("At his house I often met Henry James"), though particularly enthusiastically in the case of George Eliot ("last, but oh, so utterly first"). Her summary-mentions -- "Browning was only to me a cheerful, amusing gossip" -- are good fun, but how much more she surely could have said !
Reminiscences of a Student's Life is a slim but charming volume, offering a glimpse of a woman who clearly led a remarkable life. Though it has a casual, dashed-off feel, there's actually quite a good deal here -- it is substantial; she just gets to her many points quickly and succinctly -- and it's all stylishly presented; one can easily see why she was so successful on the lecture-circuit.
A very nice little re-discovery.
- M.A.Orthofer, 22 May 2024
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Reminiscences of a Student's Life:
- McNally Editions publicity page
- Trama Editorial publicity page
- Jane Ellen Harrison at the Database of Classical Scholars
- See Index of Biographical works under review
- See Index of Books Written Between 1900 and 1945
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Classicist Jane Ellen Harrison lived 1850 to 1928.
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© 2024 the complete review
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