Tracey Emin
Strangeland
It’s odd feeling distant but close to a book at the same time. I feel that this tends to be the case for memoirs. It reminds you how multifaceted and complex life can be. From an early age we’re often fed the idea of following a linear path, despite life being anything but.
Strangeland explores Emin’s past as she travels back to places in her memories. Re-entering pockets of time, there is a sober clarity to the writing. Harshness often underlies reality, which I think we all realise at some point, one way or another. However, there is a deep intimacy to that, which is felt throughout.
Distance and closeness is a theme that I always find myself returning to. Maybe two opposites that encompass everything.
Our personal relationships shape our lives, feeding our perspective and it's interesting to hear Emin talk about those relationships very earnestly. We all have amazing relationships in our lives at some point, but these can also be matched with really difficult ones. The way she talks about her twin brother, Paul, feels resonant to ways I’ve been feeling recently about people in my own past. The way you can feel close to someone, but knowing you’re going to grow apart. Acknowledging that can be a difficult realisation, but it’s just the natural flow of things.
‘I understood. I understood that Paul and I were different, and we would grow apart.’
Reflecting on our lives can often bring things to the surface that we wished we never had to think about again. We cannot rid ourselves of our mind, so maybe it’s best practice to confront it head on.
The way Emin writes feels more close to the way we think, well the way I think anyway. Quite erratic, but also slowly piecing sparse feelings together to create some kind of narrative. Connecting things that don’t necessarily connect, but trying to escape unpredictability, just for a moment.
I think it’s quite easy to relate to some of the musings, some that make you just sit and stare. Even if you haven’t experienced or felt what Emin talks about, you end up reflecting on your own life and the intimacies that keep you up at night.
Sometimes it feels like something you shouldn’t be reading. As if you’ve stumbled upon someone sat talking on their own. What feeds into you? What feeds into your identity? Every part of you is informed by another part of you. Constantly shedding layer after layer, only to form something that feels right.
‘Flying is tough. But it’s like someone said to me once: When you land, you have to wait for your soul to catch up.’
Soberness, fragility, grief, tragedy and hope. The book encapsulates the human spirit in ways I don’t think I’ve properly experienced before. I think hope is always something that persists within us. There is usually nothing more we need to carry on. In the darkest times it can be difficult to find, but it’s always there.
Confessions can be cathartic and I wonder whether this was cathartic for Emin. It takes a lot to be able to talk about so many of these things so publicly. Maybe putting something into the public eye can make us feel less lost, like this isn’t all just a singular experience.
Honesty is important, especially to ourselves. All we can do is manage the amount of pain we experience when the walls inevitably come crumbling down. Romance is everywhere, you just have to let it be seen.
I poured out my worries to a friend
Hoping that it would make me feel better
But what I told him became an open secret
Fireflies in the dark.
— Ahmad Ibu-al-Qaf - eleventh century
Strangeland explores Emin’s past as she travels back to places in her memories. Re-entering pockets of time, there is a sober clarity to the writing. Harshness often underlies reality, which I think we all realise at some point, one way or another. However, there is a deep intimacy to that, which is felt throughout.
Distance and closeness is a theme that I always find myself returning to. Maybe two opposites that encompass everything.
Our personal relationships shape our lives, feeding our perspective and it's interesting to hear Emin talk about those relationships very earnestly. We all have amazing relationships in our lives at some point, but these can also be matched with really difficult ones. The way she talks about her twin brother, Paul, feels resonant to ways I’ve been feeling recently about people in my own past. The way you can feel close to someone, but knowing you’re going to grow apart. Acknowledging that can be a difficult realisation, but it’s just the natural flow of things.
‘I understood. I understood that Paul and I were different, and we would grow apart.’
Reflecting on our lives can often bring things to the surface that we wished we never had to think about again. We cannot rid ourselves of our mind, so maybe it’s best practice to confront it head on.
The way Emin writes feels more close to the way we think, well the way I think anyway. Quite erratic, but also slowly piecing sparse feelings together to create some kind of narrative. Connecting things that don’t necessarily connect, but trying to escape unpredictability, just for a moment.
I think it’s quite easy to relate to some of the musings, some that make you just sit and stare. Even if you haven’t experienced or felt what Emin talks about, you end up reflecting on your own life and the intimacies that keep you up at night.
Sometimes it feels like something you shouldn’t be reading. As if you’ve stumbled upon someone sat talking on their own. What feeds into you? What feeds into your identity? Every part of you is informed by another part of you. Constantly shedding layer after layer, only to form something that feels right.
‘Flying is tough. But it’s like someone said to me once: When you land, you have to wait for your soul to catch up.’
Soberness, fragility, grief, tragedy and hope. The book encapsulates the human spirit in ways I don’t think I’ve properly experienced before. I think hope is always something that persists within us. There is usually nothing more we need to carry on. In the darkest times it can be difficult to find, but it’s always there.
Confessions can be cathartic and I wonder whether this was cathartic for Emin. It takes a lot to be able to talk about so many of these things so publicly. Maybe putting something into the public eye can make us feel less lost, like this isn’t all just a singular experience.
Honesty is important, especially to ourselves. All we can do is manage the amount of pain we experience when the walls inevitably come crumbling down. Romance is everywhere, you just have to let it be seen.