Virginia Woolf Diary: 13 September, 1922

"Having written this, L. put into my hands a very intelligent review of Ulysses, in the American Nation; which, for the first time, analyses the meaning; & certainly makes it very much more impressive than I judged. Still I think there is virtue & some lasting truth in first impressions; so I don't cancell (sic) mine. I must read some of the chapters again. Probably the final beauty of writing is never felt by contemporaries; but they ought, I think, to be bowled over; & this I was not".

I agree with Woolf here about first impressions, but have always found it useful with any work of art to analyse why I like or dislike a certain work.

Virginia Woolf Diary September 8, 1922

"Nature obligingly supplies me with the illusion that I am about to write something good: something rich, & deep, & fluent, & hard as nails, while bright as diamonds".

"I finished Ulysses, & think it is a mis-fire. Genius it has I think; nut of the inferior water. The book is diffuse. It is brackish. It is pretentious. It is underbred, not only in the obvious sense, but in the literary sense. A first rate writer, I mean, respects writing too much to be tricky; stratling; doing stunts...

I feel that myriads of tiny bullets pepper one & spatter one; but one does not get one deadly wound straight in the face - as from Tolstoy, for instance; but it is entirely absurd to compare him with Tolstoy".