CONUNDRUM (Other Bodies Book 1)

The Negro Conundrum Volume 1 "is a riveting read and has plenty of laughter and a few tears. It is a very entertaining and well written book with perhaps an element of truth here and there Hopefully we will see "volume II" in the near future.

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Well done H P Stanly. A very entertaining read. The book envoked much laughter and sadness. I would highly recommend the book for anyone that lives near Baltimore. There were many vivid scenes that take you right into his life at the time they took place. Additionally, the author had a very spirtual way of experiencing life. Riding shotgun with him in his adventures through time was a pretty mind blowing experience.

Entertaining and thought provoking, kudos to H. I was torn between wanting to devour this book all in one sitting, or savor the adventure, chapter by chapter. I chose the latter, Definitely reccommended for those who like their view of the human condition challenged while laughing out loud!

Can't wait for volume II. These days, I rarely find a book that keeps me reading to the very last page. Enter "Memoirs of an Extraterrestial: A very nice balance of thought-provoking ideas, life questions, and those three things that so often keep us reading Thanks for your stories Mr. Nothing to shout about.

One of the best books I have ever read I passed it on to a friend of mine and waiting to pass it on to another friend. I could hardly put the book down. Can not wait until H.

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Amazon Rapids Fun stories for kids on the go. Jan has lived as both a man and a woman and here she describes how that feels, the differences within and without. A fascinating, valuable, impressive, honest book. Jan Morris is a very good writer and we're just lucky she decided to also write about her transition as a transgender woman. It's a deeply personal memoir of someone who ultimately fought for her right to be happy as herself, and carry on loving life on her own terms.

Especially interesting here were the pages describing how people's attitudes changed with her gender - how she was thought to be a good professional when passing as a male, and then in her 40s started being a slightly silly "good Jan Morris is a very good writer and we're just lucky she decided to also write about her transition as a transgender woman. Especially interesting here were the pages describing how people's attitudes changed with her gender - how she was thought to be a good professional when passing as a male, and then in her 40s started being a slightly silly "good girl".

Her own ideas about what she could or could not be were deeply influenced by that, of course, and let's not forget the book was written more than 40 years ago; for example she mentioned how she never pursued a career in politics because it seemed too "manly", or stated that women can't really feel the satisfaction of climbing Everest. It's a good book with a fair few pages on travelling and adventure, but mostly it's about people interested in gender and identity. Sep 18, Katie rated it it was amazing. I knew Jan Morris was trans; what I did not know, until a lovely friend of mine lent me this book, was that she'd written about that experience.

But this is indeed a memoir about her trans journey, and her life around that, and what it meant to her as a child of the s and 40s. And it's really lovely. Morris' prose always has this I want to say delicate quality, but it's more robust than that. She doesn't mince words and she's not over effusive or purple.

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She is, however, very evocative. Tha I knew Jan Morris was trans; what I did not know, until a lovely friend of mine lent me this book, was that she'd written about that experience. That stands her in good stead to talk about such a huge and shifting thing as gender and sex. It's not simple, and Morris doesn't let you think that it is. But she doesn't over-complicate either.

It's exactly as simple and confusing as taking a breath. It's a lovely book, and all Morris' brains and heart and life seemed to be shining out of it as I read it. I found this a tedious read, more about the author's travels than in-depth thoughts and feelings about the issue of her transgender issues and life.

I was expecting to be more educated and I wasn't even really entertained. Brave soul but not my favorite book by any means. Dull, too much travel writing for me. Very dated in its discussions of women roles in society, and intriguingly but disappointingly something which Jan seems accepting of. Valuable from historical perspective. Ex Bookworm group review: Such people do more, see more, say more, they make news, they are capable of influencing people in their thousands. This, I thought, is what makes celebrities though, as a society, I think we have lost the plot about who is and is not a celebrity so exciting that others want to know every detail of their lives.

Their lives are interesting, whereas ours may be more humdrum and ordinary. Yet there are other people, not widely known as celebrities, who have lived extraordinary lives that we would never know about unless they themselves choose to tell us. Jan Morris is such a person, unless she is, in fact, very famous, and you have all heard of her.



By the time I remembered, I could not remember the name of the book, but I remembered enough to find it, and it sounded interesting enough for us to read here. It was a short book thank goodness but I found it packed with interest, and I hope you did too. Even as a mere man, Morris had a life that was full of excitement, travelling all over the world at a time when this was only common for soldiers, civil servants and the idle rich. Morris the man was a soldier and subsequently a journalist and travel writer, and was the Times Special Correspondent accompanying the team led by Sir Edmund Hillary in the successful conquest of Everest in Morris the man married and fathered 5 children.

Yet, despite all this apparent proof of his masculinity, Morris felt always that he should have been a woman and took all the necessary steps, including surgery, to become one. Conundrum is the history of this journey.

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Given details like this, how can one doubt that this was an imperative and not a whim? Morris is a very well educated and widely-read person and, as such, her writing can make you feel inferior at times, which is irritating. Yet, I mostly delighted in the fine writing. I loved the story about warthogs being beautiful to each other there is hope for us all. As well as being a journalist and travel writer, Morris is also a historian, and in many respects this book is a piece of history.

Although the book was not written until , she was already writing about a time that had passed into history and attitudes that would soon be consigned to the scrapheap.

Conundrum by Jan Morris

Social attitudes are not inherent, but learnt and Morris had to learn them at the age of It is a pity though that she accepted attitudes to women with such equanimity, even claiming them to be advantageous. Even though that irked me a bit surely she was too intelligent to accept not having her opinions listened to and being treated as an inferior? I had to smile at one of them: The book was an extraordinarily personal account of something many people might choose not to write or read? Did Elizabeth really not mind the father of her children becoming a woman?

Did those children really adapt so easily to their dad becoming a second mum? I seem to have written quite a lot about a very small book, but to me that is the sign of a good book. I enjoyed the writing with the exception of the Goethe-was-my-best-friend bits , I learnt a lot and I was left wanting to know more. Aug 29, Miguel rated it really liked it Shelves: A couple years ago I read one of the best travel books I know: Venice, by Jan Morris, who is considered one of the best British writers of today, with a body of work that emphasizes the travelogues, but that includes fiction, history , memories and non-fiction in general.

Venice is a majestic book, which made me feel naturally curious about its author. At the time it was published in Portugal an article in a portuguese newspaper aroused my curiosity: I found out that Morris was a transsexual havi A couple years ago I read one of the best travel books I know: I found out that Morris was a transsexual having a sex change in the early 70s, and that part of her work, including Venice, has been published with her previous male name, James.

It was still as James Morris that she participated participated, as correspondent for The Times, in the British expedition that first climbed the Everest. The interest in learning more about the author, and the precedent of the magnificent writing of Venice, brought me to Conundrum, a volume of memoirs dedicated to the half-life that Jan Morris lived with the conviction that her sex was wrong in relation to the gender she felt that she belonged to, and the process that led her to correct this error, culminating with a stay in a clinic in Casablanca.

The book was first published in , and this reissue just updated with a new preface by the author. The writing is excellent. Morris' english Venice I had read in translation is lush, with a rich vocabulary, the syntax sophisticated simplicity is almost musical. The book is organized into short chapters, in which the tone, although varying between memories more reflective and more factual account, it is always very stylish and fun, combining an english way of being affluent to a view of life from those who already knew its most secret and extravagant corners.

Jan Morris's vision is somewhat dated, especially in how confined by gender stereotypes, and how these stereotypes inform her journey through the gender streaming. But it is important to remember that this book is forty years old, and since the time it was written, the way how gender overcame the most simplistic dichotomy male-female, is probably the greatest revolution of our time.

Thus, it is not very reasonable to accuse Morris of a pre-revolutionary vision when, somehow, we have to thank her for having been, like many others, at the genesis of this revolution. The leitmotif of this admirable, deep, funny and intense book is not so much the search for an answer to the riddle, but rather the process of learning how to live with it. Nov 27, Rachel rated it liked it Shelves: The book as a whole is primarily of interest for historical reasons, and the second half is largely a desperate attempt to reassure a patriarchal society that her transition was no threat to it.

That's an understandable response to the pressures Ms. Morris must have been under in her time and place, but her description of her life post-transition is by turns tedious and excruciating to read now, and it was poorly timed in its day — cisgender feminists spent the rest of the seventies quoting Ms. Morris's autobiography any time they needed to bludgeon trans women for existing, and the image of trans women as inherently reactionary and anti-feminist lives on long after the people who chose Ms. Morris as representative of every trans woman have died or faded from relevance.

Having said that, this book is a fascinating landmark in trans literature, the first modern entry in the now overstuffed and cliche genre of trans autobiography. And it's easy to see why Ms. Morris has had such a successful career as a travel writer: I came for the historical interest, but this book made me want to read more of her prose on its own merits — though I might prefer a book whose gender politics are less painfully dated.

Jan Morris is an author and was a foreign correspondent, who was part of the famed boy's choir at Oxford and where he returned for his education. He served in the second world war, married, had children who he adored, and in he wrote about his life, as a man and transsexual who eventually crossed that boundary with surgery that allowed her to claim her gender. This was written in when most people had little understanding of transsexuals. I am sure this book had far more impact in the se Jan Morris is an author and was a foreign correspondent, who was part of the famed boy's choir at Oxford and where he returned for his education.

I am sure this book had far more impact in the seventies. It is hard to judge it from the perspective of the world we find ourself in. Also Jan was born to a class system that most American audiences would not easily identify with, a class of English who was more accepting of the eccentricities of members of its own class: It is an interesting memoir more than for the conundrum, but as a window to a time and place in British history, the sense of male prerogative and how easily females were dismissed with the exception of strong women who interfaced with educated men of their class.

It is a fast read for anyone familiar with the upper class British experience and all of their classical and literary references. I can imagine that others would totally get lost in the weightiness of the dialog Jul 16, Telmo Fernandes rated it liked it. And, as in some fairy tales, what she is to be transformed into is only what she has been all along: She writes about her sense of the wrongness of her male body, but also an appreciation of its energies and what it can do, e.

She writes about taking estrogen for years before her sex-change operation, and about how it was to travel in the resulting in-between body, reading as a man to some and as a woman to others. Morris is primarily known as a travel writer, and some of the loveliest bits of this book are the ones about landscapes or cities, like this description of the place where she grew up: The sky may not always have been as blue as I recall it, but it was certainly clear as crystal, the only smoke the smudge from a collier laboring up-Channel, or the blurred miasma of grime that always hung over the Swansea valleys.

Hawks and skylarks abounded, rabbits were everywhere, weasels haunted the bracken, and sometimes there came trundling over the hill, heavily buzzing, the daily de Havilland biplane on its way to Cardiff 4. Or this, about Oxford: Even the light that came through the consultancy window was more than reasonably London, much creamier than the Italian light, and charged with the dustflakes of W1. The edition of Conundrum I read is the reprint, which has a new introduction, which Morris wrote in I suspect elite female athletes might disagree.

I want to say that the writer is a product of her time and personal history as are we all , that her generation was more steeped in the gender binary and traditional roles And all this would be true. So, in that sense and Very difficult. So, in that sense and given the fact that it is very much a personal account, it was worthwhile reading.

My disappointment was in unearthing views that were discomfiting and which the author does not appear to have challenged in herself. Jun 13, Maggie Holmes rated it really liked it Shelves: She is a very expressive writer and really makes you understand how she felt growing up, why she felt she was in the wrong body, and why she made the choices she did. Her comments about how life as a woman was different from life as a man were intriguing.

Read this book to understand more about what a transsexual person is. There is more than just the flash of Caitlyn Jenner. I have wanted to read this book since it came out in Morris, a journalist and travel writer of the kind that Chatwin and Theroux are known for, tells us about life as a transgender. Not only that but the book tells us about the traveling that he did while figuring out how to cope with this strangely crossed life.

He, is now a she-- for many years now. Morris' family of children and former wife are still enfolded within the circle of her life and she writes on. Early on Morris claims to "adhere to the belief Alongside this Morris freely admits to bein selective in what included and what is not. The prose is precise and lyrical and seems to waft in from a bygone age.

The author's expressions of how she perceives she is treated differently also seem somewhat dated. Dec 27, Aubrey rated it liked it Shelves: It seemed a logical enough aspiration, if Woman was so elevated and admirable a being as history, religion, and good manners combined to assure us. In the United States, there was a ruling within the past year that allowed trans people to join the military.

This dubious success characterizes this book completely: This is not to say that Jan Morris does not succeed beautifully on an individual level when it comes to her journey through the life of her self, but that her story could have done well enough sticking to her own sensibilities rather than passing judgment on others. It explains why there are a number of quotes that are wonderfully conducive to the rights of trans people of every intersecting demographic, and yet within the context of the work's entirety are constrained to a very specific type with which Morris attempts to win the public over via self-neutralization.

As such, when she speaks of finding solidarity with others at a surgical clinic in Casablanca, it is unfortunate that I can probably make a very accurate guess as to the skin color and cultural norms of the majority of those empathized with. Let's get one thing straight: That's not the issue here. What is is how many people defend their right to engage with everything on the most uncritical, and thus the most calcified and bigotry-reinforcing, perspective possible, and how that interacts with those who represent the "good" parts of a regularly maligned community.

Let's say Caitlyn Jenner, a more modern example than Jan Morris, also wrote a memoir of her life, focusing on the trans aspect of her identity. Then, you get the wafflers who will go with whichever flow will give them the most economic security. Finally, you get those so obsessed with pat themeselves on the back for a higher morality that they'll praise the work to the skies without questioning the other aspects that go into a trans identity such as religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic stability.

I don't mention those in true solidarity because they take up such a small percentage of the population. For example, the fact that trans people are conditioned to feel the need to "pass" is nothing but a bunch of aesthetic hogwash resulting from cis people valuing their comfort zones of socialized constructs over respecting others.

When one considers the history of transphobia in the LGBTQIA movement up until the present day, there's little guarantee that the non-queer populace will be much better. Should you read this? The equating of a European city to the entirety of an African continent doesn't help trans people in Uganda, or Morocco, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. If you want to argue that the past excused this sort of writing, you should have read the book and offered your static opinions in when it was first published, not drag the desiccated corpse of faux normalization into There are plenty of living and breathing people who don't fit into the boxes prescribed by this book who have earned your solidarity many times over.

Let's work with them so that they may one day write their own books and complicate the accepted picture of trans accordingly, shall we? To me gender is not physical at all, but is altogether insubstantial. It is the essentialness of oneself, the psyche, the fragment of unity. This is the first piece of Jan Morris's writing that I have read, and based on prose style alone, I will seek out more of her work.

Her style reminds me of books of the 20s and 30s -- it is clear, but she is not afraid to use long sentences or paragraphs, or to take her time to express a thought. I would give this book five-stars for prose, but the content at times is troubling. In her introduction, Jan Morris describes this book as a "period piece", something very much of the s, and in This is the first piece of Jan Morris's writing that I have read, and based on prose style alone, I will seek out more of her work.

In her introduction, Jan Morris describes this book as a "period piece", something very much of the s, and in some ways, this is true. A transgender person born in would not experience the same journey as Jan, who was born in -- but the descriptions of being trans and the difficulties, conflicts, joy and hope that Jan experiences feel timeless. As an account capturing a particular experience in a particular moment of time, this book is excellent.