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    In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection
    In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection
    In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection
    Audiobook4 hours

    In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection

    Written by Eve Ensler

    Narrated by Eve Ensler

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    From the bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues and one of Newsweek's 150 Women Who Changed the World, a visionary memoir of separation and connection—to the body, the self, and the world

    Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body—how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own body—a disconnection brought on by her father's sexual abuse and her mother's remoteness. "Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth," she writes, "I could not feel or know their pain."

    But Ensler is shocked out of her distance. While working in the Congo, she is shattered to encounter the horrific rape and violence inflicted on the women there. Soon after, she is diagnosed with uterine cancer, and through months of harrowing treatment, she is forced to become first and foremost a body—pricked, punctured, cut, scanned. It is then that all distance is erased. As she connects her own illness to the devastation of the earth, her life force to the resilience of humanity, she is finally, fully—and gratefully—joined to the body of the world.

    Unflinching and inspiring, Ensler's In the Body of the World calls on us all to embody our connection to and responsibility for the world.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateApr 30, 2013
    ISBN9781427231703
    Author

    Eve Ensler

    V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a Tony Award–winning playwright, author, performer, and activist. Her international phenomenon The Vagina Monologues has been published in 48 languages and performed in more than 140 countries. She is the author of The Apology, the NYT bestseller I Am an Emotional Creature, the highly praised In the Body of the World, and many more. She is the founder of V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, and One Billion Rising, the largest global mass action to end gender-based violence in over 200 countries. She is a co-founder of the City of Joy, a revolutionary center for women survivors of violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along with Christine Schuler Deschryver and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Denis Mukwege. She is one of Newsweek's “150 Women Who Changed the World” and the Guardian's “100 Most Influential Women.” She lives in New York.

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    Reviews for In the Body of the World

    4.5/5

    68 ratings24 reviews

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    • 5/5
      One of the earlier attempts to make modern physics comprehensible to the lay person. A very good read.
    • 4/5
      Physics and philosophy; cultural crossover. Well worth reading.
    • 1/5
       An amazing work of misrepresentation of Oriental philosophies and misunderstandings of modern physics. Thoroughly readable for everyone and completely painful for even the slightly science-aware.
    • 5/5
      I Connect so deeply with this story.It has been 9 years since my bout with a similar cancer at a similar age. Y's story moved me....i'm wondering why it took me this long to find this gem?
    • 5/5
      This book was designed to help curious people with no scientific background to understand the new discoveries in physics that were affecting how we view our universe. From the review: “The Wu Li Master does not teach; he ‘dances’ with his student as he knows the universe dances with itself.... Still more amazingly, we find that we are able to dance too—that we have always been part of the dance….” I wonder if Martha Grimes read this book before she wrote The Old Wine Shades. The debate between Jury and Harry about Schrödinger’s Cat could come from Zukav. I love Zukav’s comment “quantum physics is stranger than science fiction.” I also loved this book when I read it in the early '80s.
    • 5/5
      Intense and eye-opening. Grateful for the close-up on Congo situation. As usual Ensler tells it raw and rhythmic. She starts each chapter with “Scan” — apt metaphorical use of that medical act. Interesting how she used to fetishize medicine and now writes what could serve as an in-depth review of cancer treatment, which could be extended to examine the medical establishment.
    • 4/5
      A classic that helped me understand some basic principles of quantum mechanics.
    • 4/5
      moving, grotesque, and dark, but a call to action i didn’t know i needed
    • 4/5
      The negative reviews of this book make me wonder if the reviewers actually read it. I read the whole book in a week and loved it! It is a first rate introduction to the "new physics". The science is accurate if a little out of date (particularly the section on the" particle zoo"). The author has an enviable grasp of the difficult concepts of quantum mechanics which is surprising for someone not trained as a physicist. I agree that the references to eastern mysticism are misrepresented but they are few in number and easily skipped over.
    • 4/5
      I've finally finished The Dancing Wu Li Masters after years of it sitting on my shelf and weeks of reflecting on what it is saying. It's an old book when considering present developments in the observation of quantum mechanics, but quantum theory itself is twice as old and since its inception has hardly changed. This book however is the first I've read that was capable of viscerally explaining the non-locality and non-linearity of space-time. Limited by "symbols" it acknowledges this limit and it dances with you within these confines so as to allow you, the reader, to experience the reality that the ambiguity of language prohibits. I've read books that describe the world in terms of eastern philosophy, relativity, string theory, quantum electrodynamics, probability functions, and from the historical perspective of the human perception of time itself, and yet none of them were able to convey what was on the tip of their brains, and the tip of mine as well. They all touch upon the fact that at the plank level no further observations are possible, or that energy and matter, waves and particles, are merely two different manifestations of the underlying fabric of space-time. That the linear passage of time is only a construct resulting from the methods with which the relativistic mind collects the information, while space-time itself is only motion, with no preference towards forward or backward. They all extol the words of Bohm, Bell and Schrödinger, but none of them ever try to conceptualize these precepts beyond the application of their useless symbolism, or then take so many angles in driving home the truth of the matter.Here's a mantra saved like a jewel in one of the very last pages.Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.As far as information is concerned, this book pales in comparison to the likes of In Search of Schrödinger's Kittens or The Elegant Universe, but it's what this book leaves open to interpretation that brought me the most pleasure.
    • 4/5
      I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads. Amazing. Heart-breaking and exciting. A tale of cancer survival by the author of The Vagina Monologues.
    • 4/5
      hard to read at times, but a real insight to one's emotions when you have cancer
    • 5/5
      I haven't read any Ensler's work before. I've watched The Vagina Monologues a couple times. I knew that this was not in the same vein as her other books. But I found it just as powerful. Living through death, coming back from getting to the depths of life itself is no small task. The power Ensler finds in herself and the way she explains it, is utterly amazing. I cannot recommend this book enough. To survivors everywhere, not just cancer, but survivors of life.
    • 4/5
      In the past I have read Ensler’s books The Vagina Monologues & The Good Body. This book was a rather touching and raw memoir chronicling her experience with uterine cancer. Having lost two grandparents and an aunt to cancer (and my mother having a scare with cancer a year before I was born) the content matter immediately appealed to me. And while a couple of times I had to stop and really focus to realize whether the writing was in the past or present it was a good book that was written in an interesting and beautiful way. Parts of it are painful to read merely because cancer is such a scary subject for most people but that didn’t make the book any less enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Deeply personal memoir of surviving a cancer diagnosis, twinned at times with Esner's work to assist victims of rape in Africa. Esner's writing is lyrical and painfully pointed. I found her writing style mesmerizing, but at times it seemed almost too much – the lyricism worked for me as long as it was grounded and purposeful, and felt overblown when it wasn't. Esner is, at the heart of this, writing for herself and not necessarily for her readers. Considering the subject matter, it's hard to fault her for this. Four stars.
    • 3/5
      I’ve been sitting on this review for quite a bit of time, struggling to contextualize my feelings that should not be so disparate, but are in fact incredibly contradictory. The truth is that I have struggled with Eve Ensler’s, In The Body Of The World because it is a difficult read for someone who has experienced invasive medical procedures. Her descriptive and painfully emotional passages are detailed so intimately that it feels like reading her private diary. I too have experiences with the illness and invasive surgeries which made reading the book an overwhelming struggle. Even though reading the book was incredibly quick, I took more than a few weeks following my finishing the last page to allow my personal connection to Ensler’s experiences settle. My goal was to parse her story and narrative away from the trauma of the women in Congo that she was trying to work out and write in the midst of her health crisis. Her descriptive and painfully emotional passages are detailed so intimately that it feels like reading her private diary.My own experience with similar illnesses and invasive surgeries made reading the book an overwhelming emotional experience for me too. I took a few weeks following finishing the last page to let my personal connection to Ensler’s narrative to settle. My goal was to parse her story and narrative away from the trauma of the women in Congo that she was trying to work out and write in the midst of her own health crisis. During my own past health crises, much of what Eve describes feels so intimately true – as though she were embodying my own traumas and able to shout out loud the veracity of the fear, the foolishness, the reality of what I had gone through in her storytelling. But the truth is that Eve cannot speak truth to my own experiences, as similar as they were, because I was prepared for much of the invasive-ness, the intrusions on my privacy and bodily integrity – I had already had children, and each by emergency cesarean. I can assure Ms. Ensler that the loss of privacy and personal autonomy is completely destroyed and driven out of the ob/gyn delivery room. So that the horror of sharing intimate functions with family and strangers alike is forever lost following speedy and harrowing baby deliveries and never to be recaptured again in subsequent hospital stays.So I began to wonder at the women in the Congo. Would they know about this book? Would Eve’s conflation of her health crisis to their brutalization be translated for them into a language that they could understand, read, hear? And that is the point at which the book started to fall apart for me. No matter the connection I initially believed I had with the text, the realization that Ensler’s healthcare experiences were vastly different and kind of insulting to see splayed out as they were grossly enlarged to match the trauma and terror that Congolese women have experienced following brutal rapes and forcible childbirth with little or no goodlooking to care for their every needs just made me feel kind of gross about the whole project. And just when I thought I was a lone angry shewolf ready to prey on Ensler, the Twitterverse responded to this work as well. It seems that many young feminists found the work to be lacking in global theory and offensively uppermiddleclasswhiteprivilege in it’s nature. I cannot disagree. Yet I am left wondering, where does Eve go with this all this worldy knowlege and lacking perspective? How CAN she reconcile what she sees and hears and knows about the world without a strong foundation of -isms work behind her? I suppose it is her answer to the world, that women and girls should rise up and dance in joy (One Billion Rising), rather than do the hard work of studying, understanding, doing what is needed to make real change in the world. Ms. Ensler has a rare gift, she can get all kinds of projects published. I do hope that her future endeavors are less about herself and more about the resilience and fortitude of the women she has the privilege to meet around the world. We were first introduced to her gift in the Vagina Monologues, and though they now seem troubled and similarly naive, they were once radical and engaging to read and share. Would that Enlser’s future projects have that same force; unfortunately this one did not.
    • 5/5
      A beautifully written honest emotional jewel of a book. I had my daughter, an oncologist, read the chapter about the doctor who walks around the bed to recognize her as a human being - it brought both of us to tears. Although I can see why she included them, I liked the African chapters less, not only because they were very hard to read, but because the writing was different - more of a recounting from the outside.
    • 4/5
      This was a hard book to read and to review. I have my own cancer issues and there were times Ensler's writing was too real, too powerful for me to read. That's a tribute to the book and to Ensler's talent.Besides describing cancer all too well, she also writes about the power differential between doctors and patients. One doctor ignore her cries for pain medication during a procedure and in doing so, she writes, "He might as well remind me I am not even really there" (82). Ensler has good, compassionate doctors, too, and those interactions are just as beautifully described.One thing that bothered me is the way Ensler relates her cancer to the gynecological horrors endured by the women she worked with in the Congo. It's a strange coincidence that her cancer hit in the same places these raped women suffered fistulas, but there are times Ensler seems to be appropriating their suffering. I know she means well but this is, perhaps, related to another feeling I had as I read the book: Ensler is a very self-involved person. That might help her talent, so more power to her.
    • 5/5
      wow! wow! wow!
    • 5/5
      I love this book. I love the writing, the language, the emotion and the honesty. I find her humanity and ability to be honest about the horrors she's seen incredible. I love that she can be honest about her reaction to her early years that could have lasted a lifetime, and I love her ability to overcome all she's seen in life and embrace the good. The language is perfect, and the emotion is relatable and beautiful--even when the story isn't beautiful. I highly recommend this. It's a quick read, but it's worth every second.I received this as an Advanced Reader Copy from a Goodreads giveaway. It in no way influences my review, as I'm rather excited to buy the book when it's released.
    • 4/5
      When this book arrived, I was surprised it was so small. Then I looked at the list of chapters and was even more surprised by how short they were - 2 pages, 6 pages. Then I began to read and was moved to tears by page 5. This little book packs a big punch. It feels much like a diary, sometimes a dream, with short but powerful images that leave you haunted. Ensler's disbelief, fear, pain, and gratitude are palpable. You are right there with her. Her honest feelings and thoughts about the mother that wasn't there for her moved me as I could relate. The connection between the Earth and women's bodies and how we are similarly destroyed, suffering together, is strong. It is not a happy book, yet there are small bright spots that offer hope and joy - faithful friends, selfless volunteers, caring doctors and nurses, survivors who reach out to others.
    • 5/5
      I use Vagina Monologues in the classroom and it's good to see more books by Ensler I can recommend to my students. This is a lovely poetic little book giving voice to a struggle that needs more attention. i applaud Ensler for her bravery that once again inspires us all
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written. Both hilarious and heart breaking. This memoir was an incredibly interesting look into an incredible woman's life.
    • 5/5
      Relationships, communicating with one’s body, facing life and death, defining love in its many forms, giving to the earth and its people more than one takes away. This is, in summary, what Eve Ensler expresses in her book, ‘In the Body of the World’. Ensler talks about her experience, her relationship, with cancer and chemo with wry wit, and candor.In exploring and courageously sharing her raw and life changing experience of surgeries, ports, chemo, and all their emotional and physical side effects, Ensler emboldens others to find their own way, but encourages us to be bold enough to feel, to love, to name, to cry, and to believe that others are there for us. Ensler carries us through with beautiful metaphors and honesty about the facing and fearing death. At one point, her mother, also ill, tells Eve that “I dreamed they are came to take our hearts. They didn’t want mine. They wanted yours the most”...The next morning they move my mother to the cardiac unit because her heart has now become the problem. It is where we do not live that the dying comes.”sh 4/201