Virginia Woolf: The Diary Volume 4, Monday 29 February 1932

"And this morning I opened a letter: & it was from 'yours very sincerely J.J.Thompson" - the Master of Trinity;& it was to say that the council had decided to ask me to deliver the Clark lectures next year. Six of them. This, I suppose, is the first time a woman has been asked; & so it is a great honour - think of me, the uneducated child reading books in my room at 22 H.P.G - now advanced to this glory. But I shall refuse: because how could I write 6 lectures, to be delivered in full term, without giving a year to criticism; without becoming a functionary; without sealing my lips when it comes to tilting at Universities; without putting off my Knock at the Door; without perhaps shelving another novel...Yes; all that reading, I say, has borne this odd fruit".

As an aside Virginia's father Leslie Stephen gave the first Clark lectures in 1883, taking 18th century literature as his subject.

I wonder whether a modern university education would have spoiled or bettered Virginias writing?

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Virginia Woolf on Civilisation

The Diary Volume 4, Saturday 30 January, 1932

"Civilisation is the thickness of a postage stamp on the top of Cleopatra's needle; & time to come is the thickness of postage stamps as high as Mount Blanc".

Or civilisation is a very thin veneer to say the least.

A great metaphorical expression.

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Woolf - the Industrious Insect

The Diary, Volume 4, Wednesday 13 January 1932

Well we have hit 1932 now.

"I shall be 50 on 25th, Monday week that is; & sometimes feel that I have lived 250 years already,& sometimes that I am still the youngest person in the omnibus. (Nessa said that she still always thinks this, as she sits down.) And I want to write another 4 novels: Waves, I mean: & the Tap on the Door; & to go through English literature, like a string through cheese, or rather like some industrious insect, eating its way from book to book, from Chaucer to Lawrence".

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A Long Toil to Reach this Beginning

The Diary Volume 4, Monday 16 November, 1931

I have now got through to 1934 in the Diary so I have heaps to share with you all. So here goes...

"Oh yes, between 50 & 60 I think I shall write ouit some very singular books, if I live. I mean i think I am about to embody, at last, the exact shape my brain holds. What a long toil to reach this beginning - if The Waves is my first book in my own style!".

Of course I would argue that she always wrote in her own style, from The Voyage Out onwards. Literary critics are foul creatures who suck the life out of writers and cause so much self doubt. The sad things is that they can't write themselves. Here endeth the rave!!

I am really enjoying going back over these underlined portions myself as I was reading this part of the Diary in January.

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Times Review of The Waves 1931

The Diary Volume 4, Thursday 8 October, 1931

"Really, this unintelligible book is being better 'received' than any of them. A note in The Times proper - the first time this has been allowed me. And it sells - how unexpected, how odd that people can read that difficult grinding stuff!".

This is, of course, referring to the publication of The Waves. An excerpt from The Times, 9 October 1931 says: 'Like some old Venetian craftsman in glass, Mrs Woolf spins the coloured threads, and with exquisite, intuitive sensibility fashions ethereal frailties of enduring quality'.

The Waves stands as my favourite Woolf book alongside Mrs Dalloway.

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Moments of Being - a Comparison between Virginia Woolf and Graeme Swift

I thought I would share this excellent paper by Irina-Ana Drobot who is a PhD candidate and lecturer at the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania. Drobot states that the aim of the paper is to:

find “moments of being” in Graham Swift and compare them with those found in Virginia Woolf. The definition Woolf gives to moments of being will be examined, with the way Swift’s similar ones fit in this definition. The views of other theorists on aspects of moments of being, theories of perception, and the literary context each author belongs to will also be taken into account. The paper will point out common features and also what causes moments of being in Swift and Woolf, among which connections between character and natural world hid reality.

This paper is an excellent gateway into the works of Graham Swift for those who are acquanied with Virginia Woolf's works (and vice versa).

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Woolf at Ease

The Diary Volume 4, Sat 19 September 1931

"But O - again - how happy I am: how calm, for the moment how sweet life is with L. here, in its regularity & order, & the garden & the room at night & music & my walks & writing easily & interestedly at Donne of a morning, & poems all about me. I've come to read poetry with intensity - bought Skelton at Tunbridge Wells".

It is nice when Virginia is happy. I noticed for the first time here her use (erratic) of the Oxford comma. She uses it twice in the excerpt above.

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