The Chronology of Water: A Memoir

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Average customer rating 4.9 (53 comments)

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This memoir could easily fit under the rubric of "misery lit" or "misery memoir." What saves it from this label is the writing on sex and art as modes of survival, self-understanding, and connecting with others. The voice is unique and honest in these moments, showing the hesitations and passions that come out when exploring the body and voice.

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This book begins on a horrific note - a stillborn child - and from that point on, you are wrapped up in Lidia Yuknavitch, in all of her talent and beauty and selfishness and anger and brains. I finished this book and never wanted to return it to the library, and then I wanted to return it that second so that someone else could read it. I wasn't always comfortable; she is unflinchingly honest, and apparently not concerned with whether or not her readers like her. Sometimes I didn't. But I felt like I knew her. I appreciated that this wasn't trite or workshoppy - it so easily could have been, but there is a sincerity and a hardness in here that saved it. I don't really like books that tell me everything is going to be okay. Usually they feel very sterile, and more often than not, as if everything is only going to be okay if you follow very precise and preachy rules. But here is a woman who is damaged and angry and makes very bad choices, but is also smart and passionate and full of love, and she says that if you are damaged and angry and making bad choices yourself, it might help to "make up stories until you find one you can live with." And I believe her. I didn't always like this book, but I won't be surprised if, five years down the road, I find that it has become very important to me.

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I could read this book over and over again. Lydia Yuknavitch's writing style is so lyrical, so beautiful, and immensely powerful. She has taken the art of writing to another level. She could write about the price of beans in China and make it a wonderful read. This is not to say that the content of The Chronology of Water is not compelling, because it most certainly is. She was able to put into words feelings and emotions that were so deeply buried within my own soul that it was almost frightening. For me, Lydia's story finally gives a voice to those part of womanhood that we don't often talk about -- but should.

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Just fascinating and scary for me as I read the author's honest story. Scary because I identified with her and fascinating because she spins her personal intelligent hold on life.

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I was looking for a book to read over the holidays and found this book that blew me away. The author went to UO and studied under Ken Kesey and it shows with her creative style. I could not put the book down. As it rained outside, the Chronology of Water carried me into Lydia's story and around Oregon, California, Florida, and Texas.

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nearly a year out from the first time i read this book, it remains, somehow, in my body--it is integral and irrevocably integrated. instead of asking for permission, this book doles it out in spades--to the freaks and the feminists, the broken-bodied and the nearly-crushed souls. when i say this book is important, i don't mean in the scope of 2012. heck, i don't even mean in the scope of the 21st century. this book is important in the scope of everything written and everything yet to come.

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Beneath the navel of the male musk deer, a jowly thick-furred creature still living in the outer reaches of Asia, there is a gland lodged under the fat and fur. This gland is a prize. It is medicine. When properly decocted, it holds the power to rouse a person from a stupor, a coma, or any other terrible extreme sense of loss, like being lost from one’s self. It will bring one back to a state of consciousness. The old texts describe the way that the unconscious are prey to little ghosts living in the caves of their ears, noses, mouths, eyes. These ghosts numb the senses by “obstructing the orifices." The musk extracted from the navel of this deer is powerful enough medicine to chase them off. Its properties are that alarming, that rousing, that sensual. Drinking it makes you want to live. She Xiang ('shuh shee-ahng'), as it’s called, is contraband across Asia, and illegal in the United States. But don’t worry, you don’t need it. Lidia Yuknavitch’s _The Chronology of Water_ packs a similar punch. It is that rousing, that sensual, and that awakening. It restores consciousness. It chases the hiding ghosts free from the bodies of those who read it. This book can show you the way back to your self.

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Raw beauty. A memoir of gutting yourself, reading the entrails and finding your way home. Yuknavitch has written a slap in the face to modern memoirs. She looks hard at herself, then dares you to look away. I have re-read this multiple times since discovering it, and keep going back for more.

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The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch is one of the best books I've read in 2012. It's one of the most honest, open, intense, beautiful, inspiring, breathtaking, sincere, brilliant, funny, and poetic. I've bought a copy of this book for all my friends. The one's who don't read, love it and finish it in a few days. My friends who love literature, can't put it down. Everyone agrees they can't put this book down. This year, I will reread it again. Because it's incredible. No comment section can do this piece justice.

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The Chronology of Water was remarkable in its raw, honest feeling; Lidia draws you along on every screaming, shouting step of her path. As she says, it's not the stereotypical addiction/redemption story, and thank God for that!

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This is the best book ever, bar none. I don't even normally like memoirs and this is still my favorite book.

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Amazing, and beautiful!

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I would recommend any one who has an interest in art or literature. Yuknavitch’s website is also worth checking out if for no other reason than how cool the artwork throughout the website is. I also like the music. Really like. I won’t say anything more, partly because I feel I cannot do the book justice and partly because I want you to stop reading my post and go read this book. Now!

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This is not your typical biography/memoir, nor is it an angry hate filled response to a far from perfect childhood and adolescence. This is a gritty, get under your skin book in which Yuknavitch relates the struggles within her life. Tolstoy's well known quote from Anna Karenina comes to mind: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This is the story of Yuknavitch's unhappiness and reflects the struggle, the push and pull between anger and love, fear and joy, sorrow and elation. It is a survivor's tale and indeed shows how difficult surviving can be, because you are making your life up as you go without benefit of the stability that can be called "normal." And better yet in my opinion, Yuknavitch shows the reader how to thrive.

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My first inspiration for a synoptic headline for Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water was “a self-congratulatory expose of a personal hell-on-earth”; which is a little harsh because there is redemption, both personal and artistic, throughout the work. But you might need a strong stomach as well as a voyeuristic/sado-masochistic curiosity to see it through. If the domestication of a young girl by a raging father and a hapless mother is the source of this voracious self-loathing, then we should all be humbled and terrified. Yet any compassion for the girl-child becomes an afterthought as the self-abuse materializes in adolescence and multiplies exponentially in the young woman. The author’s quirky, intentionally off-hand exposition of her personal hell simply does not allow for something as conventional as pathos, and one might well conclude complicity rather than helplessness. That there is a good deal of both is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this uniquely unliterary work

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Breathtaking. Earthshattering. Blow-your-mind good.

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Love is a Life-Death. How much truth is contained in this sentence for you?

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Brilliantly written and searingly honest. Loved every page and couldn't put it down.

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I read this when I was only a few weeks postpartum and it is about, in part, the grief of losing a child -- which I thankfully did not do. At the time I picked the book up, I thought, "I'd better wait on this. This is going to be too heavy." But there it was by the side of the bed each night, the stark and oddly inviting cover winking up at me. Saying, "You are strong enough to read this, girl." And though I think it would have been an incredibly powerful read no matter when I picked it up, I am glad now for the timing. My head was in some kind of flushed, netherworldly state and some of this book's powerhouse images are now burned in deep. If you are ever in need of a cathartic, rending read, pick up this book. And even if you're not in need of that, pick up this book.

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This was a beautiful work. I read it in one day. It was captivating. I bought it after hearing her speak at the Chuck Palahniuk Powells event. She also knew Ken Kesey, fascinating.

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This book is amazing. It broke my heart. It made me feel less alone. It is comfort food, but not a simple comfort. Its one that will hurt a bit, but leave you better for it in the end. Its the best thing I've read this year, and maybe ever.

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Simply the best and most honest writing I've encountered in years.

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Beautiful & powerful. Highly recommended.

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I decided to check this memoir out after reading Chuck Palanuik's story about promoting it in Indie stores around the country in Shelf Awareness (http://tiny.cc/26t2q). By the end of the first page, I was utterly hooked. This book gets under your skin. I couldn't get it out of my head -- while reading it, and for weeks after. Compelling, poetic, beyond personal. Simply beautiful writing.

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This is the best book ever. If I were trapped on a desert island with only one book, this is the one I would choose.

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fresh,courageous and inspirational...thank you Lidia

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Amazing.

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The Chronology of Water is a memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch. A Portland author and teacher, she puts into words a story that is inspiring and gritty. The places and people we come from ultimately make us who we are. Lidia concretly shows how that evolved in her life. As she says, "All the events of my life swim in and out between each other." Life really is like that, not a series of events, but pivotal moments that make us who we are.

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Painfully, beautifully, magically, awesomely written, you will be hooked from page 1 and stay in a trance until the end, where you will look up, eyes glazed over, drooling from a slack jaw, wondering how your head managed to stay on in this roller coaster of emotional prose. Then you'll go buy copies for your friends, because it really is that good.

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Not like anything I've ever read. So beautiful, so terrifying. Afraid to read it again, yet cannot stop myself. Everyone should experience this literary word revolution.

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This is a beautifully written book. It's raw and difficult and lovely in all the right ways, and COW is impossible to forget.

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Don't expect The Chronology of Water to be a typical memoir. Brace yourself for something far better. A spectacular book that nudges you into thinking opposed to being a formulaic comfort food like memoir that that one popular daytime tv show host would have her book club read. This book pulverizes restrictive notions commonly held about who a woman is or should be. I would love to hear more voices of strong gender-stereotype shattering people like Lidia Yuknavitch. Give it a read... I bet you can't put it down.

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read it.

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Lidia's "Chronology of Water" is one of those books that makes a person want to buy 50 copies so that one could give copies to to all of their family and friends. I wish that I could have read it as a teenager. I am glad that I am able to read it now. I know that I will read it again many times in the future.

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Don't start this book unless you have your schedule clear, and you won't be able to put it down. You will stay up all night reading it. Not just from the subject matter, but from the relentless rhythm and energy. The drug scenes are like that long shot thru the kitchen and into the nightclub in Goodfellas, without music and movement to help it. It made me dream about my recently-passed mom. I just hope she has more books for me to read.

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Often, memoirs of sexual abuse, drug addiction and bad living share one thing--they tell the same friggin' story. Truthfully? I usually avoid memoirs because of this. What I love about Chronilogy of Water is that those things aren't the point, and the narrative is far more interesting for it. For Yuknavitch, these things (abuse/addiction/etc) are ambient. They are the matrix from which the story arises, not the story itself. And thank friggin' god! I think this world needs more stories and fewer conclusions. I can, anyway. My vote for a Puddly!

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Conceptually a great book. Timing and pacing all set to the rythmn of water. The content is honest and revealing. I read this in a book club and it inspired some good conversations about female sexuality. But I will also stress this is not just a book for women, there are some men in the group that loved the book, it is about being human. Perseverance, redemption and love. A great memoir. A great book.

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This isn't a book you read...it's a book you inhabit, that you absorb into your DNA and carry in your bloodstream forever.

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If you love expressive, creative writing, and don't mind a little blunt language and sex, this is your book. This is a great, uniquely descriptive narrative by an incredible writer. This is one of the few books I would consider reading again. 2011's best book that I read by far. (And thanks to Powell's for bringing it to my attention in the first place.)

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Lidis's chronology of water runs deep like the silence and mystery of water in its element. She is raw, tough as well as soft, like the vagaries of water, it flows it affect you, you cannot ignore it for to ignore it you perish, her writing is spectacular and it will stand the tests of time. She is a great writer of a commanding inner vision. The metaphor of water's malleability, scientific composition, is expanded into vareigated meanings into this novel... we cannot pin the uniqueness and the creative element of the water in our lives.. she is the water that slakes and quenches the thirst of her readers, drink it up yet do not drown into it. Excellent book.

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Straight forward and brutally honest writing.

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This book is one of the most powerful demonstrations of the craft of writing that I have ever encountered. Ms. Yuknavitch opens her heart and pours it out on the page in a fashion unlike anything I've experienced. My only warning is that, if you are not comfortable with explicit sexuality you should avoid this book. Otherwise if you love reading you must get this book.

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This is an achingly beautiful read--not because the subject matter is always pleasant--but because of her candidness and gorgeous prose. Couldn't recommend more, plus she is a local author.

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Best read of 2011.

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Wonderful thought-invoking book. Best of the year.

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this was the best book of my 2011 reading year and I read at least 50 books. Lidia is the best.

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Thank you, Ms. Yuknavitch. A life lived... & written... by the woman who can tell it.

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This book is a game-changer from page one until the end. Immediate, beautiful, intense, erotic, tragic, gorgeous--everything I want in a book. Everyone I know who has read it feels the same.

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A riveting anti-memoir woven out of beautiful original language that makes you climb inside your own heart and take a look at the world through a new lens. I can't stop reading and referencing this book so full of honesty and heartbreak. Congratulations to Lidia Yuknavitch for singing her truth and breaking the rules and to Hawthorne Press for publishing such a brave piece of work.

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Read this book. Everyone on the planet who has ever been hurt or hurt someone else (so... everyone) should read this book. The ugliness in her life and in our world is brought vividly to life in her incredible writing. She pulls no punches, she tells no fairy tales, and knows that healing only comes through forgiveness and love. But she doesn't sound like Mary Poppins, she sounds like Roseanne Barr without the agenda. Foul-mouthed truth-telling that can redeem the world. Read it now.

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I was absolutely knocked out by the writing. This is the best book I've read in a long time. Even if it was really hard to read in places.

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Amazing. Moving. Shattering. Lidia's Chronology is the story of a broken young woman's Progress. It isn't linear, predictable, or easily categorized. It isn't a memoir about addiction or abuse or love, though all of those things occur. It will make your heart beat faster and your arms ache to hold the people you love, truly. When you have finished, don't be surprised if you turn right back to page one and start it over again.

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Don't expect The Chronology of Water to be a typical memoir. Brace yourself for something far better. A spectacular book that nudges you into thinking opposed to being a formulaic comfort food like memoir that that one popular daytime tv show host would have her book club read. This book pulverizes restrictive notions commonly held about who a woman is or should be. I would love to hear more voices of strong gender-stereotype shattering people like Lidia Yuknavitch. Give it a read... I bet you can't put it down.