No Apologies: Jenny Diski’s Apology for the Woman Writing as Fictional Memoir

Abstract

Abstract This essay argues that Jenny Diski’s final novel, Apology for the Woman Writing, adds to the understanding of Diski’s view on literature and the arts, thus complementing her nonfiction writing. Drawing on notions of survival and the Freudian uncanny, the essay shows how the relationships between Michel de Montaigne and Marie de Gournay and between De Gournay and her servant Jamyn are built around notions of affective engagement, where the intellectual labor of writing conjoins physical experiences of excitement. Such a view of literature as affect is then directly connected to the force of a text to survive.