Thursday, January 10, 2008

We All Fear Virgina Woolf

My best laugh this morning came from Derek Nikitas's blog, This World Like a Knife. He's an erudite and funny guy, and his thoughts on Virgina Woolf this morning were spot on!

I'll do another, final, post on sequel tomorrow, then on to other topics...

5 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

He makes some really good points. I particularly agree with the idea that great writers "juggle lots of balls at once." That's a very nice way of putting it.

SzélsőFa said...

I've also read that entry. Funnily enough, it actually made me want to read some Virginia Woolf.

(The only time I encountered her and her works was the movie called 'The Hours'.)

Lisa said...

I read the post and I wasn't really sure how to feel about it, or what the real point of the criticism was. When you put TTL into historical perspective, it was written and self-published in the 1920's and it was absolutely an experimental work where plot was intentionally not the point. I don't think anyone would get away with writing a similar book today, but it really was revolutionary in its time. I kind of feel like picking apart the plotlessness of TTL in 2008 would be sort of like criticizing visual artists who pioneered cubism or pointellism or impressionism. I guess the relevance of the criticism to modern day writing escapes me.

cs harris said...

Not a Woolf fan myself. With very few exceptions, I need both story AND graceful writing. If a writer goes too much in one direction, they usually lose me.

Steve Malley said...

Charles, I liked that bit too.

SzélsőFa, by all means give Woolf a try. Just be prepared: the story *really* isn't 'going anywhere'.

The Hours is a great movie, and a fine book too, for that matter. One thing I noticed about it, though: for a self-confessed tribute to Ms Woolf's writing, the book has three distinct and interwoven plots, all of them with death as the stakes.

Lisa, it's true that the 20's were a time of trying to look at things differently, and there was a lot of experimentation in all the arts. It invigorated modern dance and literature, opened the door to the death of painting and nearly killed classical composition. IMHO.

Ms Woolf's work does indeed deserve to be seen and understood as an experiment that didn't quite work out. After all, that's how evolution works.

And CS, I bet when Virginia was a little kid, she set her dolls around a tea party and rhapsodized about the beautiful foods they might be eating. When I played, there was always a story, whether it was Teddy's hunt for the lost lollies, or GI Joe's frustrated love for Barbie...