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Friday, July 18, 2003
Back when I was a sophomore in high school, the 4th Indigo Girls album "Rites of Passage" was released. There is a song on that album entitled "Virgina Woolf" which is (you guessed it) about the famous author and the connection that Emily felt towards her after reading her diaries. As a 16-year-old kid, obviously, I could not have cared less about Virgina Woolf, the author. (I had not yet blossomed into my English-teachery self at that point.) I listened to the song, enjoyed it, but never thought much about it. It wasn't one of my favorites from the album. It was not until several years later when the girls released their 2-cd live album "1200 Curfews" that I became intrigued by Virgina Woolf. On the live track from the set, Emily prefaces the performance with an explanation of how she came to write the song (her mom is a librarian, she loaned her a copy of Woolf's diaries, she was drawn in by the words of the author). It piqued my curiosity for sure. Yet, I never found the time to learn much more about Virginia Woolf. I was in college, I had sooooo much reading to do for my English courses (surprisingly, none of which included any Woolf), I was playing Div. I hoops...I just never got around to it. (Trust me, there's a point coming here, soon.) Cut to 2003. The major motion picture The Hours is released, based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. (Wait...what's this? Nicole Kidman is wearing a fake nose? Oh...she is supposed to be Virgina Woolf.) Suffice it to say, The Hours was the best damn movie of the year. The last movie that made as much of an impact on me after watching it was In the Bedroom (another film based on a piece of literature--Andre Dubus' short story "Killings"). I am ashamed to admit it, but I violated my cardinal rule about movies for this film--I saw the movie before I read the book. I NEVER do that, but, the film was being shown in limited locations around here and I had to grab the opportunity when it presented itself, or I would have had to wait for video. In hindsight, I am so glad that I did it. But, I am also left with this situation in the wake: The movie re-awakened my interest in Virgina Woolf--as a writer, and as a person. (And here comes the now somewhat convoluted point of this whole thing...) I decided that to fully understand The Hours, I would first have to read Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf. Little did I know what a daunting task this would be. When people talk of Virginia Woolf and her stream of consciousness writing, it is usually classified as "difficult reading." Um...understatement. I am a voracious reader. My friends, still to this day, are amazed at how quickly I can read a book. Average time, 2 days, for a 350 page novel--depending on the book and/or author and how much time I am willing to devote to reading. One of Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novels would be done in 6-8 hours, max. I consumed all of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on a bus going to and coming back from North Carolina--9 hours each way, 790 pages, give or take a few. The latest, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (870 pages), took me 4 days of intermittent reading. Mrs. Dalloway is about 200 pages long. I have been trying to read this thing for about 2 weeks now. It is killing me because she does write with an incredible style and has some truly amazingly complex sentences and vividly detailed descriptions. Yet, I am finding it soooo hard to read. I want so badly to read this book because already I can see the connections that Cunningham has made to it in The Hours...but it is tough. I will continue to force myself, though. ¶ Ξ PDawg Composed at 12:58:00 AM |
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