1 post tagged “virginia woolf”
I can be a funny cat when it comes to writing essays. I like to take my time. I like to let ideas simmer. I let my gaze explore an idea as if I were a fixating stoner, and I don't mind if my mind goes off on tangents -- I note them down as I'm able and get back to where I was, if I feel the need. Sometimes these tangents are enough to embody whole essays, and I know I'm kind of wasting time or energy by allowing myself to enjoy the writing of an essay so much, but I think this sort of pleasure must come first, I mean why write the essay unless the process (if not the end product) allows you the possibility of hearing yourself sing along with the vibrations and melodies of your own heart?
Sometimes I come across a passage or a line in the text I'm writing an essay on, and I think to myself, I simply must fit this in the essay. I must make it appear to be stroke of beauty in the essay even if it doesn't really have a clear connection to the essay. I don't know if I end up misconstruing the text or discovering a precious insight. I've been known to scrap an entire essay and start again just to be able use the passage I'm enamored with. Take this essay I'm writing on Jacob's Room, by Virginia Woolf, for example.
Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us. To gallop intemperately; fall on the sand tired out; to feel the earth spin; to have -- positively -- a rush of friendship for stones and grasses, as if humanity were over, and as for men and women, let them go hang -- there is no getting over the fact that this desires seizes us pretty often.
And yet, and yet . . . when we go to dinner, when pressing finger-tips we hope to meet somewhere soon, a doubt insinuates itself; is this the way to spend our days? the rare, the limited, so soon dealt out to us -- drinking tea? dining out? And the notes accumulate. And the telephones ring. And everywhere we go wires and tubes surround us to carry the voices that try o penetrate before the last card is dealt and the days are over. "Try to penetrate," for as we lift the cup, shake the hand, express the hope, something whispers, Is this all? Can I never know, share, be certain? Am I doomed all my days to write letters, send voices, which fall upon the tea-table, fade upon the passage, making appointments, while life dwindles, to come and dine? Yet letters are venerable; and the telephone valiant, for the journey is a lonely one, and if bound together by notes and telephones we went in company, perhaps -- who knows? -- we might talk by the way.
