In Memoriam: Diana Athill

I wanted to meet him because I loved a book he had written. I had seen in it that when he was funny, as he often was, it was not because he was trying to entertain but because he himself was enchanted by the comedy in the incident he was describing. Getting this incident, these people, this quirk of human behavior down, and getting it down right--that was what he had been enjoying, rather than "expressing himself": and while books written in this way are not necessarily great books, this is the way the great books I love best are written. It is the real thing.

We had exchanged a good many letters about his writing, and I had heard something about him from other people. He was an Egyptian whose passport had been withdrawn because he was a communist, and he had been living for some years as an exile in Germany....



And so begins the story of Didi and Diana Athill. Ms. Athill has just died at 101. She is among my favorite writers. "After a Funeral"--quoted above--is my favorite of her books. (That said, you can't go wrong with "Somewhere Towards the End," Athill's famously cheerful account of aging and dying. That one won prizes, and it recruited Alice Munro among its admirers. "Stet"--where Athill gossips about "Vidia" Naipaul, among others--also counts as a winner. I haven't read "A Florence Diary," but Lena Dunham has suggested it's worth a look.)

"After a Funeral" is the warts-and-all story of Athill's crazy friendship with a crazy novelist. As Athill tells us right away, the novelist, Didi, will murder himself at the end. Will murder himself in Athill's own flat. Athill is not a normal person; a normal person might find a way to disentangle herself from Didi, who does little, ever, to hide the fact that he is nuts. But Athill keeps him around. One reason she does so is that she expects he will be good material for a book--and Didi accuses Athill of exploiting him, or *planning* to exploit his story. The accusation is valid; Athill, not one to make herself seem innocent, acknowledges that Didi has a good point. (A danse macabre: Didi, consumed with neuroses and big, interesting moments of self-loathing, does all he can to make Athill miserable. And Athill watches, and takes notes, and tolerates the intolerable. The pressure builds. We know what is coming; we know from the title.)

A distinction between "expressing oneself" and getting at the brass-tacks truth: This may (or may not) be important in understanding Didi's work, but it is most definitely important in understanding Athill's work. I can think of few other writers who are less invested in vanity. Athill wants to tell you what really happened. For this reason, her work has a sort-of-philosophical quality: I want to get at precisely what is real, in this life. Athill would write bluntly about her abortion, about the indignities of illness, about a straying boyfriend. She wouldn't whine. It's hard to imagine a person more fearless and more creative. When the man in her life started sleeping with a younger woman, Athill said to the man, "Well, move this younger woman into our house. I don't want to lose you yet." (Athill, as an aside: "Possessiveness is a bad idea, when you're talking about love.")

Do pick up "After a Funeral," if you're looking for something good this weekend. Athill inspired me--as she inspired many others--to be maybe just a bit less "conventional." And a bit less fearful. I miss her already.