Back in December 2008, I asked Blogging Woolf readers if they would send me references to Woolf that they come across in fiction. I didn’t realize at the time just how many of these literary allusions I would find or how fascinating and absorbing my research would be.
This exploration was initially for my paper at the 2009 Virginia Woolf Conference, and from that evolved a recently-published monograph, Beyond the Icon: Virginia Woolf in Contemporary Fiction, part of the Bloomsbury Heritage Series from Cecil Woolf Publishers.
In this work, I discuss more than thirty such references, exploring context and intertextuality, and coming to the conclusion that Woolf is alive and well in the minds of contemporary authors. Their use of her life and work as points of reference is more than just name-dropping and more, as my title indicates, than part of the Woolf as icon phenomenon.
While it’s time to move on to other projects, my interest in Woolf “sightings” in fiction doesn’t show any signs of abating, and the references continue to accumulate. I’m not sure what I will do with them, but that’s not going to stop me from following up on leads and hunting them down.
Since my monograph was finalized, I’ve already found another dozen or so references, a couple of which I’ve posted here, including one on Jane Gardam and another on Olivia Manning. The newest finds represent an amazing array of work, ranging from the elegant prose of Penelope Lively, to a quirky story in The New Yorker (June 7, 2010) by Jeffrey Eugenides, to a romp of a “beach read,” Literacy and Longing in L.A. by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack.
I just came across a new novel with three epigraphs, one from Woolf’s diary, another from Mrs. Dalloway, and the third from the character portrayed by James Coburn in the movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: “Comes an age in a man’s life when he don’t want to
spend time figuring what comes next.”
My curiosity is piqued—I’ll have to read Next by James Hynes to see what he’s trying to evoke with these quotations. And perhaps I’ll start collecting Woolf epigraphs too (there’s already one in Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood).
Alice Lowe
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[…] list of Woolf sightings in fiction is now at 71, and I’m sure I’ll have more opportunities to add to it in 2013. Happy […]
Hmm it appears like your site ate my first comment (it was extremely long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I had written and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I too am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to the whole thing. Do you have any points for newbie blog writers? I’d definitely appreciate it.
[…] Still on the hunt for Woolf in contemporary fiction, July 18, 2010 […]
Here’s another one for you – in Allegra Goodman’s new novel The Cookbook Collector, one of the characters named George is the owner of a used bookshop and a collector of rare books. He’s hosting a dinner party for some friends and looking out of his Berkeley house: “The sun was low, the sunset draining away, and George thought, This is the moment in Virginia Woolf where somebody lights the lamps.” (pg 244).
Saw this on the Huff Post blog:
The Making of a Novel: Finding the Rhythm
Huffington Post (blog) – 6 days ago
In Ursula K. LeGuin’s book, A Wave in the Mind, she quotes Virginia Woolf’s belief about writing and rhythm: Style is a very simple matter: it is all rhythm …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennie-nash/the-making-of-a-novel-fin_b_649672.html
Alice – here’s one to add to your “sighting Woolf in contemporary British crime fiction”. Val McDemid’s first book – Report for Murder – has two mentions. p34 of the 2000 hardcover edition refers to a book fair being held in a girls’ boarding school to raise money. One of the books is “a second edition of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando with a dedication by the author”. p124 describes the bedroom of one of the girls at the school as having a large photograph of Virginia Woolf.
Interesting!
Best wishes
Moya
Hi Alice,
How can I get my hands on a copy of Beyond the Icon: Virginia Woolf in Contemporary Fiction? It would be very useful for my dissertation. I tried googling to no avail.
All best,
WiuB