This Is All

The best way to escape from daily life is, in spite of all the inventions of all kinds of state-of-the-art products, reading a book. A  thick compelling tale preferably, one that you wish never ended.

This Is All  by Aidan Chambers is such a book. I chose a picture with the Dutch translation, simply because it is such a beautiful cover. This Is All is said to be the most complete character study in all of young-adult literature. (said by Michael Cart from Booklist).

This Is All is the diary of Cordelia Kenn, a teenage girl who falls in love and struggles with friendships and her parents. She actually is the perfect example of a typical teenage girl.
She writes her diary in the form of a ‘pillow book’, this is inspired by the pillow book of
Sei Sonagon (she is from Japan, and she has died a long, long time ago). That pillow book was a record of Sei Sonagons life, by means of personal thoughts, lists and poetry.

Cordelia’s pillowbook is just like that. By means of lists, thought processes that are jotted down and poetry she explains what has happened in her life, and how she has processed this.
It is indescribable how beautiful this book is. Within the 800 pages you really get to know Cordelia, and it starts to feel as if she's your best friend. I was devastated when the book ended, it felt like I had lost a friend. The poetry is just astonishing. Within the book are a lot of poems from the Japanese ‘Izumi Shikibu’ (she is from the same time period as Sei Sonagon J ).
Just to show you how wonderful this book is I took a fragment out that I thought was awe-inspiring.

“The demons of the Devil don't use your weak weaknesses against you, they use your strong ones. If you're rational and logical, they argue their case rationally and logically. If you're loyal and faithful, they turn those against you. If you're passionate and emotional, they make you passionate and emotional about your worse fears. Your weak weaknesses are no use to them.... They find the strongest weaknesses you didn't know were yours and use those against you.”

Furthermore Izumi Shikibu is definitely a poet you should check out. You will take notice of this yourself as you are reading This Is All (which you just HAVE got to do), yet I decided to post one of her poems as well:

"Although the wind"

 

"Although the wind
blows terribly here
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house."

 I hope you will agree with me upon the fact that this book is outstanding.
Go ahead and read it! READ IT!

 

Josje