Orion Reads
a diary of books etc.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

a room of one's own

wow, difficult reading. this is like reading poetry- you really have to pay attention. for example you have to sit (or stand and lurch if you're reading on MUNI) and worry out the significance of the courses of a fictional meal. ordinarily i wouldn't spend a second over an author's description of cornish hens and a fabulous pudding, but Woolf goes on for paragraphs and paragraphs about them and even points out that she's doing it explicitely to the reader, so i think it must be some poetical signifigance of poultry. is the significance only that the men's college had fancy food and the women's plain? i can't believe she'd put so much words in if that were all. i don't think it's for me. (a room of one's own, virgina woolf, stolen from michelle)

3 Comments:

  • My advice is give in to those urges and Just Don't Like It. Openly, proudly. It's hard to do with such a firmly encanonized writer, but I know that when I gathered my courage and said, first to myself and then to others, "I don't want one single more page of Faulkler in front of me, ever, long as I live," the twinned pleasures of confession and renunciation were a nice buzz. Bugger trying to figure why she's on at such length about the goddamn crockery and such.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:16 AM  

  • Faulkner. I meant F-A-U-L-K-N-E-R. The dangers of late night Robitussen-ed typing.

    By Blogger indeterminate identity, at 1:17 AM  

  • know how you feel. currently working my way through To the Lighthouse a couple pages at a time. it seems worth it, though i haven't read "room". she's so carefully attentive to the details of art (or Art, as the case may be.) i'd rather read her than James Joyce on the subject.

    By Blogger jenn see, at 9:55 AM  

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