Mise-en-abyme may sound a cumbersome phrase, but when you try to describe what it actually means – the placement of a thing within a larger copy of itself, ad infinitum – its three words sound downright economical. (One of the most famous mise-en abymes is Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Wedding, in which the married couple is reflected in miniature in a mirror, in which a miniscule version of itself is endlessly replicated.) Sally Bayley has created a form of mise-en-abyme with her new book The Private Life of the Diary. It’s a history of the diary as an art form, but with its intricate, intercut structure, its intimate tone and its lightness of touch, it acts as a sparkling and highly imaginative journal about journals. She includes entries from the diaries of Pepys, Virginia Woolf, Alan Clark, Sylvia Plath, Henry David Thoreau and the fictional Cassandra Mortmain, marrying each extract with a sharp, insightful analysis of intent. Plath’s adolescent reflection that ‘I am in the mood for Thundery poetry now. I wish I had the experience to write about it’, is, as Sally Bayley points out, ‘a necessary part of her ego development, her egotistical coming-of-age story. At the heart of this story are the thoughts of a girl who longs for omniscience.’
Amongst the most extraordinary diary entries come from Sally Bayley’s own journals. Brought up in a ‘small, stacked-up house’ crammed with sixteen or seventeen people – her mother, aunt, grandmother and scores of siblings and cousins – she longed for privacy. Household shopping lists had entries such as ’20 pints of milk, 10 packets of butter, 8 pounds of minced meat’ and the Extra Sharp Canadian Cheddar had to be bought in blocks ten or twelve pounds at a time, which ‘shamefully required a lady’s shopping trolley to pull back.’ When she was only seven years old, her mother sent her to Switzerland alone, with a small bag, a camera and a diary. Her instructions were to ‘bring all the big events, the sights and the sounds, back home and share them’. As she wryly points out, ‘My adventure, like my diary, was not my own. … From the first, my diary was never private: it belonged to my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, my brothers and cousins. My diary was already public, already owned.’
On a second visit abroad, but still only a child and with the same instructions to gather important information to bring back, she described her daily routine: ‘Every morning, after choc-au-lait, in the kitchen with the high windows and long wooden table, I pulled out my notebook and added more names to the list of pastas Madame Grosjean had taught me.’ There’s a brave but slightly mournful quality to the prose of this explorer-child, gathering up testimony to take back to the tiny house in Sussex filled with expectant relatives waiting to devour her diary. It made me want to make home-made choc-au-lait for just a few rather than for expectant hordes.
CHOC-AU-LAIT WITH CHILLIES AND CINNAMON – NOT FOR SHARING UNLESS YOU WANT TO (THESE QUANTITIES MAKE ENOUGH FOR FOUR, IN FACT)
- 750ml full cream milk
- 80g 70% cocoa solids chocolate
- 50g good milk chocolate
- 100ml single cream
- 1 red chilli, deseeded
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- pinch of salt
- Half teaspoon cinnamon powder
Heat the milk until it’s nearly boiling. Grate the chocolate and stir it into the milk, along with the chilli, sugar, salt, cinnamon and cream. Allow to steep for five minutes and then whisk it. Drink it on your own with your diary.
The Private Life of the Diary ends with instructions on how to keep a diary like Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, James Boswell (‘buy yourself a small but sturdy writing bureau’) and, my favourite, like Cassandra Mortmain. ‘Choose an outlandish position. Perhaps a bath or a sink…. have some Shakespeare close by for reference. I recommend the comedies because things work out best there.’
Sally Bayley has created an erudite, beautifully structured and beguiling book. It’s a life story of the diary that does full credit to its long and complicated existence. It’s often funny, sometimes bleak, always intelligent.
Sally Bayley, The Private Life of the Diary: From Pepys to Tweets (London: Unbound, 2016)
I always find that, not being a coffee or a tea drinker, hot drinks don’t tend to fall into my daily routine all that often. Your choc-au-lait looks wonderful though Charlie; adds some of the fun back into it. Great post again!!
Thanks, Boinsey. You may enjoy the addition of the chilli, or you may hate it of course. But I feel sure you’ll like the book.
Lovely to read you again Charlie
Thanks very much, Karin – so kind of you.
What a lovely looking hot chocolate recipe! I’ll be sure to try this, perhaps even while reading Sally Bayley’s book, which sounds both intriguing and just my cup of tea (hot chocolate).
That would be an excellent combination, Sally.
I’ve only bought cook books (and wine books) from Unbound to date. Time to include some other non-fiction based on this review. Sitting down at a sturdy writing bureau with a cup of steaming chilli chocolate right now – in my imagination.
I’m sure you’ll enjoy the book as much as I did, Sally. I hope you enjoy a real, as opposed to an imagined, hot chilli chocolate before too long. Having said that, what temperature is it at home for you at the moment? A hot chilli beverage may be just what you don’t need.
I love hot chocolate, Charlie and I have been known to consume several a day. Now that I live on a boat it is a staple. My grandmother made us hot choc as a treat. There were too many of us in my family for all of us to be able to drink hot choc but it was a secret ritual between my grandmother and me and a fortunate hanger-on or two.
I had the feeling, reading your book, that hot chocolate had a special place in your memory – hence the recipe. As a child, you would probably have thought that a chilli version was dreadful, but I think you’d like it now.
What another brilliant post. Cracking photos and beautiful writing apart from the appetising subject. Worth waiting for. You ought to have hundreds of appreciative responses.
You’re very kind, Jakey – thank you. It’s a fascinating book, which I think you would enjoy.