Here then was I … sitting on the banks of a river a week or two ago in fine October weather, lost in thought. … There one might have sat the clock round lost in thought. Thought—to call it by a prouder name than it deserved—had let its line down into the stream. It swayed, minute after minute, hither and thither among the reflections and the weeds, letting the water lift it and sink it, until—you know the little tug—the sudden conglomeration of an idea at the end of one’s line: and then the cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying of it out? Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked; the sort of fish that a good fisherman puts back into the water so that it may grow fatter and be one day worth cooking and eating.
—Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)
That's really vivid writing. Very nice. What made you pick up Wolfe, Matt?
ReplyDeleteWell it's not the first book of hers I've read, but it's the first nonfiction. I was rummaging through my bookshelf trying to find a short book that I could read midweek and that might elicit smiles from beautiful feminist sympathizers on my morning commute. I finished it on Friday morning. It's full of lovely intelligent writing, surprising turns of thought and dry humor.
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend it, even if only to get a taste of her great style. I had to resist posting a half-dozen passages from this. Don't want that "Woolf" cloud to get out of control.