Reading Between the Lines: The Diaries of Women

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Some diaries yield their treasures at first reading. Others must be
worried, like a dog’s bone, before they give up their cryptic
messages. Betty Jane Wylie, who has clearly mastered the art of
deciphering the codes, writes: “A diary always tells of self; a
woman’s diary tells us not only of herself but of what it is to be
female in a man’s world. Often the diarist does not recognize or
cannot articulate what that means; sometimes she makes a discovery after
the fact through the very act of writing, or in retrospect in the
re-reading of what she has written. We learn with her as we read and we
make discoveries with her by reading between the lines.”

Wylie’s fascination with diaries dates from a year of research at
Radcliffe College (1989–90) during which she took a journal-writing
seminar led by Hope Davis. Over the course of the class discussions, she
began noting consistent patterns in women diarists’ expression, and
she began asking “the same questions they were asking themselves.”

The six chapters in this study examine the nature of a diary; its
triple significance to the writer as a “lifeline”; its daily
quality; its place in self-discovery; its cryptic nature, which calls
for reading between the lines; and its relation to the writer’s
culture. Delightful excerpts from diaries written in different eras
flesh out and illustrate Wylie’s reflections. This is a book to be
savored and revisited.