Yesterday's day of quiet was just what I needed. And it actually wasn't that quiet! Jim & Karla dropped by to pick up their bags, which you may remember they left with us for safekeeping a month ago. We had tea and talked about their travels through Europe via bus and train, which sounded like one heck of an adventure. Then I talked to my mom via Skype for an hour or so, and was happy to learn that her doctor proclaimed her the healthiest 74-year-old he'd seen that day! And I went grocery shopping, cleaned house and sat for a while.
I'm working my way through Anne Frank's diary. Apparently there have been a few different editions of the diary -- Anne Frank herself re-edited her original diary while still in hiding, adding to and deleting some earlier entires. Her father further edited it after the war, prior to its original publication. A new "critical edition" published in 1980 after his death restored much of the material he'd edited out, and then a few more stray pages were discovered, so those were added. All this explains why this "definitive edition" of the diary, which I bought when Dave and I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, is longer than I remember from childhood.
She's an engaging writer, and having visited her secret annex, I can envision the rooms as she describes them. At heart, though, she's still a young teenager, obsessed with all the personal dramas and conflicts of that age. You should hear her carry on about her mother -- good grief. Some things never change!
(Photo: Pedestrians on the South Bank, Monday.)
I cringe when I read the few random journal entries I wrote as a teenager - boy was I self-absorbed & whiny! Of course, she had MUCH more reason to be self-absorbed than I did, but she was writing from the same unformed place that I did. She was a lot better at it than me though :)
ReplyDeleteOh, absolutely. I too think of my own teenage diaries and how I carried on about things. That's what's so effective about Anne Frank -- she is us, and we are her.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read Anne Frank in a million years -- I think I still have my childhood copy, though -- don't know what edition that might have been.
ReplyDeleteReading your review of AFD made me laugh. I am now glad I read it as an adolescent.
ReplyDeleteMs. M