Diana - Woolf - General Impressions

Stunning prose!

I confess I’ve never read anything by Virginia Woolf because I saw the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966) as a child, and mistakenly believed the movie portrayed her life. The strangeness of the film (a black comedy) made a huge impression on me at such a young age, and convinced me I wouldn’t be interested in her writing. I freely admit I was wrong.

“Show, don’t tell” is hammered into the heads of fiction writers from the moment they read their first “how to write a novel” book. Woolf shows us what she’s thinking in lyrical fashion, as she describes people “busying themselves at the door of the chapel like bees at the mouth of a hive.” (p. 8) A beautiful fall evening she portrays thus: “All was dim, yet intense too, as if the scarf which the dusk had flung over the garden were torn asunder by star or sword.” (p. 17) Readers visualize the age of the buildings at Oxbridge with the aid of phrases like “busy for centuries,” “leathern purse,” “it was then the age of faith,” and “coffers of kings and queens.” (p. 9)

Woolf also repeats phrases, reminding readers that the novel/essay is, in fact, one piece, despite her stream of consciousness style of writing. “Where the grasses waved and the swine rootled” appears twice, on pages 9 and 10. She also reiterates similar images: “rumps of cattle in a muddy market,” “sprouts curled and yellowed at the edge,” “stringy as a miser’s heart,” (pp. 17, 18) “lean cows,” “muddy market,” “withered greens,” and “the stringy hearts of old men.” (p. 19)

I look forward to exploring her writing in greater detail.