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The Envoy from Mirror City: An Autobiography (Janet Frame Autobiography #3)
by
Janet Frame
THE ENVOY FROM MIRROR CITY is the third book of Janet Frame's three-volume autobiography. It describes her travels overseas and entry into the saving world of writers and the 'Mirror City' that sustains them.
Hardcover
,
176 pages
Published
September 1st 1985
by George Braziller
(first published 1985)
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Community Reviews
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Throughout
The Envoy from Mirror City
I was in awe of Janet Frame's courage and tenacity. After the intense trauma and resulting loss of confidence from her lengthy stays in psychiatric institutions, she went on to adventure abroad alone and establish herself as an extraordinary writer. Go Janet! There's a seat reserved for you at my imaginary dinner party.
There were parts of this book that were 5+ stars for me, I especially relished the ambience and poetic romance in Ibiza.
I was also moved by ...more
There were parts of this book that were 5+ stars for me, I especially relished the ambience and poetic romance in Ibiza.
I was also moved by ...more
Aug 31, 2014
Kathleen Dixon
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
n-z-author
,
biography-autobiography-memoirs
Janet Frame is one of New Zealand's best-known authors, and this book is the third part of her autobiography in which she leaves NZ on a journey to 'broaden her experience'. Frame writes beautifully and honestly - her words are a pleasure to read and her life (and 'analysis' of it) is fascinating. Frame's novels aren't easy reads - she records what her British publisher said: "The critics love you, but nobody buys your books." - though I have read most of them. However, I found each volume of he
...more
So much beauty and insight in this final chapter of JF's autobio. Once again I found myself constantly in awe of how boldy, bravely and eloquently she has mapped out out the internal and external narratives which informed her experience - this time abroad.
I feel strongly that the transformation of Frame's personal story into an artefact for public consumption is something vital and precious to NZ's literary and cultural identity / the canon / whatever.
I feel strongly that the transformation of Frame's personal story into an artefact for public consumption is something vital and precious to NZ's literary and cultural identity / the canon / whatever.
Jul 17, 2013
Maria Grazia
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
biografie
,
narrativa-oceania
Una certa casualità nella scelta delle letture a volte fa fare strani incontri, ed questo il caso di La città degli specchi, che ritenevo un'opera di fantasia e invece è un'autobiografia, e non solo, è il terzo volume dell'autobiografia di Janet Frame.
Fortunatamente la prosa è tale, nonostante la traduzione poco degna, da non rendere necessaria la conoscenza dei due volumi precendenti, e la storia di questa timida scrittrice neozelandese a lungo creduta pazza, come spesso avviene alle donne geni ...more
Fortunatamente la prosa è tale, nonostante la traduzione poco degna, da non rendere necessaria la conoscenza dei due volumi precendenti, e la storia di questa timida scrittrice neozelandese a lungo creduta pazza, come spesso avviene alle donne geni ...more
Delightful, gentle, unassuming book from someone happy to let her life speak plainly for itself, having faith that the events and reflections themselves are interesting enough.
Which they are, as in this volume the shy New Zealand novelist makes her way to Spain and Andorra, and the UK, in search of experience, in search of herself minus the trappings of life and expectation in NZ.
I enjoyed the parts in Spain where she lived so simply, where blankets and butter are luxuries, and the company of a ...more
Which they are, as in this volume the shy New Zealand novelist makes her way to Spain and Andorra, and the UK, in search of experience, in search of herself minus the trappings of life and expectation in NZ.
I enjoyed the parts in Spain where she lived so simply, where blankets and butter are luxuries, and the company of a ...more
I can't talk about this without sputtering. It's that important of a book to me.
I read this when it was first published - remember waiting impatiently for it, and I wasn't disappointed.
I have the 3 in the set and it's time to read them again!
I have the 3 in the set and it's time to read them again!
A wonderful, precarious, hard fought struggle to be herself and to write.
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The fate befalling the young woman who wanted "to be a poet" has been well documented. Desperately unhappy because of family tragedies and finding herself trapped in the wrong vocation (as a schoolteacher) her only escape appeared to be in submission to society's judgement of her as abnormal. She spent four and a half years out of eight years, incarcerated in mental hospitals. The story of her alm
...more
More about Janet Frame...
“A writer must stand on the rock of her self and her judgment or be swept away by the tide or sink in the quaking earth: there must be an inviolate place where the choices and decisions, however imperfect, are the writer’s own, where the decision must be as individual and solitary as birth or death.”
—
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