A Thread in a Tapestry
The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with writer Eleanor Anstruther
Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please subscribe to Beyond.
What are you reading now?
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright. It’s blowing my mind.
What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong was most definitely hidden, not necessarily from my parent’s as they weren’t the sort to look, but from other eyes in general. It was the first sexually explicit book I’d come across. In the same opening my eyes effect that Praiseworthy is having on me now in terms of what’s possible in a literary sense, I had the same aged Very Young in terms of adult sex. I couldn’t believe what I was reading was allowed to be written. As for beloved books, the Narnia series remain close to my heart, as do Follyfoot and Black Beauty along with Pippy Long Stocking, The Didicoy and Stig of the Dump. Similarly all the Peanuts books. A little older, and I got into Jilly Cooper, Dick Francis, and the original Flowers in the Attic. Then my mother introduced me to Jane Eyre, and I was off.
What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time?
I’ve reread The Fifth Child a number of times – it’s the concision I can’t get enough of; as Donna Tartt calls it, the speed and density. Likewise The Unbearable Lightness of Being which I reread recently and appreciated so much more the second time around. There are many novels which I love dearly and keep for the comfort of knowing they’re there; anything by George Eliot, Henry James, Graham Green, Cormac McCarthy, Joan Didion, Doris Lessing, Milan Kundera, Kurt Vonnegut, John Fowles, Edna O’Brian, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brontë; the list is endless. I’ve a card propped on the bookshelf, sent to me by a friend following the death of my father. It quotes from Baron de Montesquieu: “There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate.” All reading helps me through dark times, pretty much anything will do as long as it’s written well.
What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?
I’ve a belt made by some Japanese friends of mine for parties; it’s snakeskin, with pockets and pouches and secret compartments; wearing it has a touch of the Lara Croft about it. Anything that makes me feel ready for anything, also makes me feel most like me. I’ve been riding in far off places recently, Patagonia, Mongolia, and the kit required for that, thigh belt, jodhpurs, half chaps and boots, bandana and gloves all these things, practical and hardy, engender a solid and centered sense. Tough and prepared, clothes that meet form and function, is me dressed as me.
What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?
Be agile (thanks Chloe).
Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?
So many! My cat, Tabitha Twitchet, best friend and protector of my childhood. She was my north star. My pony, Bella who let me muck about tying branches to her tail so that we could erase our tracks and escape for hours on the South Downs. During decades of travel and life in far off places, a stray dog would always find its way to me, I had a ridgeback in Zimbabwe who slept outside my door in the months I tried and failed to be a teacher. There was an eagle in Goa who whacked the back of my head so hard I nearly fell off a cliff, and anyone who’s lived on those beaches in the 90’s will know what a special role in our everyday the gangs of pigs played…. When my father died, a dragonfly came to me and told me it was him, they are ever signs to me now that he is present, and the summer of the fire in France was marked by a huge praying mantis which clung to the fronds of a pineapple we didn’t eat; the fruit which sat in a bowl on the kitchen table grew old beneath her green and shivering skeleton as each day we greeted her and wondered what her presence meant. We learnt later that they are portents and guardians. I thank her every day. Lastly, I continue to have a special relationship with ants, not that they know or probably care, but I talk to them and welcome them in the house in summer, their clean up powers over night are second to none. I realize this makes me sound nuts, but you know what they say, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Not the ants, obviously. Ghandi.
What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
My writing career. Who knew that having three novels in succession turned down would lead to a whole new reality that’s so much better than the one I had before? I was on my knees when I came to Substack. I believed the end was nigh and created my publication with a nothing-to-lose momentum. A memoir, and two novels later and it’s looking distinctly like I’ve carved out a whole new career, one with a mission. I feel excited again, enlivened, in love with this writing life and I want to bring everyone with me. This industry is filled with positive, brilliant people become snared in the poke of a broken machinery. It needs taking apart and rebuilding. It’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on a publishing scale. You may think, what do I know or it’s too big but we each can get our cloths and pliers out, we each can reimagine, dismantle, do our bit to reassemble it better.
Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?
Dancing in the kitchen, though what I really miss is the dancefloor of parties out in the wilds, beaches and deserts where we’ve been up all night, and the base bins boom, and the dust obliterates the view until the sun pierces through it. There’s nothing like two hundred people moving to the same rhythm hour upon hour together, the tribal familiarity it brings, the odd sensation of seeing faces when light dawns; this, those years of parties, were my body’s favorite way of expressing itself. Now I run, and ride my horse, and cold swim and do anything to bring that sweating heartbeat to front of house, to get me in my body again and stay there.
What are your hopes for yourself?
I hope I die happy with my children holding my hands, being present for me and each other, helping me step peacefully through the door and into the next imagining.
What’s a kindness that changed your life?
I grew up very guarded, very suited and booted in my own special armor. It kept me safe, to a degree, but as is always the way of early life defenses grown tight on an adult frame, it kept me from loving deeply another human, too. The man I got together with eight years ago has an inbuilt kindness that’s convinced me to unbuckle and loosen, put down the shield down. He’s taught me trust won’t always be betrayed. He’s made me kinder.
What’s a guiding force in your life?
That I’m a thread in a tapestry. That I am held. That one day I’ll step out of this guise and into another. These truths guide me.
If you enjoyed Eleanor’s questionnaire, you may also enjoy this one with
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So many great inspirations here! I loved to read how à moment on one’s knees can bring the greatest creative opportunity! Very encouraging. And also, that it is never too late to open one’s heart to love and kindness. Thank you for a great first morning read!
I loved every word of this and the questions too! Learning these kinds of details about people makes life worth living!. I read Erica Jong too as a kid and it definitely sparked my curiosity and I just reread The Unbearable lightness of Being as well. And the pictures are great!