Alas: one of the soldiers is best entertained by watching women’s expressions of “expectation. In calm, smoothly controlled language, “Vanishing” creates a sad parable, positing that a young princess grows up isolated in a tower (it never occurs to her to test the lock), her solitude interrupted only by two visiting soldiers who introduce two earthly pleasures: food and (with the gift of a mirror) evidence of her own existence. Taken together, these stories form a narrative of the plight of women in a certain age. But Diski’s writing is never less than arresting. This latter status may, rightly or wrongly, be what has helped keep Diski in the public gaze. Never least, there’s Diski’s “quasi-adoption” (Julavits' words) at age 15 by Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, and her long relationship thereafter with that notably prickly artist.
Today, Diski’s notoriety appears multifaceted: a tremendous oeuvre (18 books) a series of essays in the London Review of Books chronicling her fatal illness and messy, anguished growing up: abusive family, foster homes, suicide attempts, hospitalizations. (Readers will also learn a great deal about the late British author’s difficult life from Julavits' June 2016 New York Times review of Diski’s last essay collection, “In Gratitude.” Diski died of cancer in April of that year.) ahead of her time,” and these stories “feministly interrogative.” Given that the stories were first published in England in 1995, she is absolutely correct. Facebook Twitter Email "The Vanishing Princess" EccoĪmerican writer Heidi Julavits' generous, keen, penetrating introduction to Jenny Diski’s posthumous story collection, “The Vanishing Princess,” calls Diski “brave.
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