#the common reader

[dk-thrive]

Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotch-potch of impulses, our perpetual miracle — for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death: let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.

— Virginia Woolf, from “Montaigne” in "The Common Reader" (Hogarth Press, 1925) (via Alive on All Channels)

[i-g-nova]

Virginia Woolf on Jane Austen

whenever i see some illiterate criticism of Jane Austen ('nothing happens! all they care about is marriage! it's just a bunch of people going to other people's houses!') i pick up Virginia Woolf's essay about her and renew my appreciation.

the history of women's fiction is full of 'littleness' because of the limitations placed on their lives. sometimes this littleness is stifling. but in tackling it sincerely as a worthwhile subject, the women in repressive times were quietly asserting the value of their existence.

you can't call these authors perfect progressives; they had their own prejudices and flaws, and many of them benefited from systems that were oppressive to others. neither would most of them call themselves feminists. but i can appreciate their fiction as a small part of the greater feminist project, as it honours the lives women actually led under repressive systems.

[agardenandlibrary]

next pull from the Books Jar: the Common Reader by Virginia Woolf

since it's a collection of essays/reviews, I'll probably put it on my bedside table and read a bit at a time.

I didn't put the acquisition date in it, but I think I got it from my friend around the time of her divorce so 5-6 years ago?

[beljar]

Communication is truth; communication is happiness. To share is our duty; to go down boldly and bring to light those hidden thoughts which are the most diseased; to conceal nothing; to pretend nothing; if we are ignorant to say so; if we love our friends to let them know it.

Virginia Woolf, from The Common Reader, 1925

[macrolit]

Literary history that happened on 31 October

[bad-poetess]

– Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader

[theoptia]

It is the soul that matters, its passion, its tumult, its astonishing melody of beauty and vileness.

Virginia Woolf, from “The Russian Point of View” featured in The Common Reader — First Series

[feuillesmortes]

Life dominates Tolstoi as the soul dominates Dostoevsky. There is always at the centre of all the brilliant and flashing petals of the flower this scorpion, "Why live?" There is always at the centre of the book some Olenin, or Pierre, or Levin who gathers into himself all experience, turns the world round between his fingers, and never ceases to ask, even as he enjoys it, what is the meaning of it, and what should be our aims. It is not the priest who shatters our desires most effectively; it is the man who has known them, and loved them himself.

Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader I: “The Russian Point of View”