A Life of One's Own

A Life of One's Own by Field, Joanna. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780860688211.

How often do we ask ourselves, "What will make me happy? What do I really want from life?" Marion Milner, the author of this remarkable book first published in 1934 under the pseudonym Joanna Field, set herself to grapple with this problem. Written in the spirit of a detective story searching out clues, the reader quickly becomes involved in the chase. Using her own intimate diaries, kept over many years, the author discovers ways of attending, of looking, of moving, that bring surprising joy - ways which can be practised by anyone. She summarises her discoveries in terms of a psychic bisexuality in all of us, realising that she "had not understood at all that a feminine attitude to the universe was really just as legitimate, intellectually and biologically, as a masculine one" - and just as necessary for both women and men.