I have always thought of myself as a noisy person - I love loud music, the radio is on morning, noon and night, and I seem to talk incessantly. However over the past few years I have been drawn to the notion of living silently, or least as quietly as it is possible to be in the 21st century. It helps, of course, that I live in one of the least populated areas of the country, with no immediate neighbours and thus no banging car doors, little in the way of house/car alarms going off at all hours. I got rid of the TV last year and was pleased with the calming effect this had within the house, just how much I used it as 'background', whereas I do actually listen to programmes on the radio.
Someone who has made a serious search for a quiet life is the author Sara Maitland, she explores the reasons and charts her journey in her new book 'A Book of Silence', published in 2008 by Granta.
Sara Maitland confessed that this book took a long time to write and, in all the best possible ways, it shows. She manages to embrace a subject that has preoccupied humans across the world and throughout history and writes about it in an intellectually stimulating way that is at once thought provoking and joyous. She writes of her journey which started as a child in a large family, who, like her siblings,was brought up to be articulate and outgoing, through her eduction at Oxford, marriage to a clergyman and motherhood, divorce and the ultimate search for fulfilment and contentment - not necessarily good bedfellows. Those who are fortunate to read this book will never again think of 'the quiet life' as something rather dull and undesirable.
Reading like a long, loving letter from a good friend, I, for one, am deeply grateful that Sara Maitland shared her experiences with us. I loved it.
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