Word: sissela
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Sissela Bok is writing her first book, a study of medical ethics. She spends eight hours a day writing in her room--starting early in the morning, after jogging, and ending when her children return from school in the afternoon. She does on her three children, and when they return, she will often take them out back for a game of soccer on the palatial grounds of the house Harvard has given her husband. But during the day, with the house to herself, she writes...
...gazing, even when afflicted with writers block. She will simply walk toward a little doorway in the far corner, pass through a tiny bathroom, and emerge in her second writing room. In that room, another desk is cluttered with another set of papers. This is the room where Sissela Bok is writing a book about lying and deception. When she tires of medical ethics, she will write about dishonesty; when she tires of dishonesty, it is back through the bathroom and into the world of euthanasia, abortion and other medical issues...
...Sissela does not want any material treasures to remind her of her childhood in Sweden, so the garret contains nothing Swedish except her own language hidden in the bookshelf. Others bring in any Swedish souvenirs the house may harbor. Her parents often bring her son gifts from their travels; orange blue painted wooden horses from Sweden line the mantel in his room. "Like the ones I had when I was little," she says. In the library downstairs there is a white marble bust of Sissela, sculpted when she was 11. Her parents wanted to give work...
...Although Sissela doesn't want to bring any part of Sweden to America, she is not at home here. Sometimes she comes down from her garret and dresses up in pastel skirts with matching jackets and white patent leather shoes and confronts these Americans who made demands on her as the wife of the President, or as a serious academic...
...disadvantage because her husband knows everyone or has been briefed on the guests, while she must be a charming hostess to many people she's never met. One frequent reception guest feels "she handles these people very well. She's simply a marvelous hostess." To others however Sissela is not so convincingly relaxed. "She's sort of like a shy, scared little bird about to be crushed by a falling ceiling or a rock," says one Harvard administrator...