My Oxford - A Memoir

NEW WELSH WRITING AWARDS 2017 WINNER 'Anorexia is a fatal disease that has the highest death rate' Catherine Haines'I was working as a model but was tired of being thought of as vain or superficial or suffering from some sort of media-inspired dysfunction, when in fact I was on something of a pilgrimage.' Catherine HainesWritten for the sister of a man who died from anorexia, this is a young woman's experience of the disorder while studying at the University of Oxford. Catherine Haines' lively account of student life is enriched with literary, philosophical and existential questions. As the Cambridge Weight Plan spins out of control, a post-graduate's academic subject, 'the mind-body problem', goes through an existential phase to become 'extraordinary morality' rather than a mental health problem. The iron will which Catherine imposes on her ever more onerous conditions is awe-inspiring. The author is clearly fiercely intelligent, as we can see from the way she exposes the ugly truth behind historical depictions of women with eating disorders and indeed the way society frames abstinence from food as an ally of virtue. However, starving her body means that Catherine also begins to starve her brain. Incisive literary criticism of Hamlet descends into feverish noodlings about Einstein’s theory of relativity. Her descriptions enfold the reader in the hideous illogic of the anorexic. This is a rigorous, philosophical case for regarding an eating disorder as pilgrimage. My Oxford is a personal exorcism, the kind which writers perform on paper while fighting with demons, fears, fate and death, an exorcism which, while painful, is also saving. 'During the time I was ill, I became something of a floating head: I so successfully detached my mind from my body, that I lost touch with my senses, and became devoid of emotion.' Catherine Haines'Made me think deeply about the structure of society in relation to women's bodies. We still frame our conversations about food in terms or virtue. Searingly honest, sparing, taut, tightly controlled, provocative in the best way, considered and beautifully written. Catherine writes an account of how, through her regime of exercise and abnegation, she tries to reach some sort of transcendent truth in the footsteps of Simone Weil. My Oxford will stay with me.' Cathryn Summerhayes