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Archive for February 1st, 2009

002I live in Northeast Ohio. At this time of year, it’s cold and snowy here. At the moment we have at least eight inches piled up around us.

I’m not complaining, though. I actually like winter. I like staying snug and warm inside, sipping mugs of hot tea and nibbling something chocolate while curled up under my favorite wool blanket with a good book — Pat Barker’s Double Vision at the moment.

All of this is preamble to the fact that my hibernation led me to spend too much time online this weekend. One of the things I did was update the Woolf Sightings page on Blogging Woolf.

In the process I found a Cocktail Party Cheat Sheet about Woolf, which is designed to provide chit chat that will impress people. The problem is that it contains inaccuracies and oversimplifications such as these:

  • “Woolf grew up in an intellectual family, but didn’t begin writing books until she was in her 30s, after she’d married Leonard Woolf and founded the Hogarth Press.”
  • “While there’s no question that the work of James Joyce influenced Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf held a generally low opinion of Joyce and thought him a misogynist.”

It does get some things right:

  • ” Woolf’s literary importance can hardly be overstated.”
  • “Woolf was also a vitally important force in 20th-century feminism.”

Luckily, if one is passing round these remarks with the drinks, fellow party guests are not likely to notice errors of fact or opinion.

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