Virginia Woolf

Sep 07, 2007 23:22


The writer out of the three listed that has most played on my mind over the last few weeks has been Virginia Woolf. We talked in our tute about “Modern Fiction” p2087, with particular regard to the idea of casting all else aside and forcing to the forefront your own creative path. There is no time for the mundane, no time for the battles and the chores of the everyday. Put your own self and your art/work first and foremost.

Initially I didn’t value Woolf’s thoughts on this. Thoughts that are again mirrored in “The Mark on the Wall” p 2082 when she says “I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle.”  I was slightly annoyed at her for seemingly trying to get out of the work that is part of maintaining a clean, healthy and organised way of life. Also I felt that she was encouraging selfishness, suggesting perhaps that taking time to love and care for one another and be selfless at the benefit of others was wrong. I don’t agree with her ideas here. I also found myself realising that certain connections of knowledge and understanding often come to me when I am doing something else, like driving or washing up, sweeping the floor etc. Things that become to a certain extent automatic and allow for you to be calm and open to thinking more deeply BUT still get the work done. So I thought she was a bit pathetic, however, whilst I was driving this afternoon my mind took my thoughts to another level.

The band Block Party was playing on the radio, they have had a lot of airplay recently on Triple J, partly because they just toured, and I like their music very much, but I don’t have any myself. I actually started thinking about how if I was 17,18 or 19 now Block Party would have had a great effect on me, as in I feel I connect with the music, but if I was younger, it could have been a really defining influence and accompanying soundtrack to my life. Why though? Why not now and why have I not even bought their recent album. Realisation, I’m too busy with other things. I’m too distracted by so many other so called essential elements of my life to allow myself to take the time, as you do at a younger age, to build a much deeper and more ‘truthful’ understanding and ultimate connection with art and music in particular.

I have realised that I am going through life making these partial connections, developing these partial understandings.

Perhaps there is something to Woolf’s ‘selfishness’ after all.



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