review: poser

i know this isn't a literary blog. it certainly isn't a yoga blog. but just because i like to keep you on your toes, today i want to talk about a yoga memoir i have been reading lately.

in waterstones, poser by claire dederer was shelved in the spirituality section. maybe it had been put in the wrong spot, but i don't think this is a book about yoga. this is a book about the trials of a modern mother and wife against the background of her discovery of a hobby which is sweeping the western world.

dederer writes about her life in a way that balances the intriguing and the mundane, which kept me both interested and identifying with her experiences. now balancing a career in writing with the usual family tribulations, her hippy-ish upbringing is the most fascinating element to the book, (to me anyway - a child of the 80's) but her tone is often disapproving of the lifestyle imposed on her, and the feminist choices made by women during the 1970s. she adds an interesting social commentary to the book's flavour, but it is in no way unbiased.

my only criticism is that the attempt to tie each chapter to a specific pose feels tenuous in places and a cynic would see it as a guise to set poser aside from other titles of it's genre by milking the yoga connection. however, with a good balance of engaging and informative it's possible to slip into poser more like a novel than a biographical work. the "characters" are large as life and dederer's yogic and family experiences are written equally lovingly. if you're looking for an easy breezy real life read, i don't think you'll be disappointed.

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