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Archive for the ‘Woolf sightings’ Category

Woolf sightings from Ann Patchett & Brian Dillon

Posted in books, essays, Woolf sightings, tagged , , , , , , on Wednesday 9 August 2023| Leave a Comment »

I can’t take credit for these non-fiction Woolf sightings. That goes to Benjamin Hagen, president of the International Virginia Woolf Society, who posted them on Facebook.

From Ann Patchett

First comes Ann Patchett’s “Eudora Welty: An Introduction,” in which Patchett describes her encounters with Welty in writing and in person.

It begins with Woolf and with Welty’s foreword to To the Lighthouse (1927) and leads into a reflection on first encounters and later returns.

The piece is included in These Precious Days, a 2021 collection of Patchett’s essays.

From Brian Dillon

Second is critic and essayist Brian Dillon’s “Vagueness” in Affinities, just out in paperback (2023), which includes a chapter on the proto-modernist photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron, Woolf’s Victorian great-aunt.

Hagen wrote that he was “Surprised to find this lengthy essay on Julia Margaret Cameron, which begins with her stunning photograph of Julia Jackson (later Stephen), Virginia Woolf’s mother. Woolf gets some attention here too.”

Thanks for being on the lookout, Ben.

Ben Hagen’s Aug. 6, 2023, Woolf sightings Facebook post, complete with photos of pertinent pages from the two books he mentions.

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Virginia Woolf as meditation inspiration

Posted in quotes, Woolf sightings, tagged , , , , on Monday 12 December 2022| Leave a Comment »

I use the app Insight Timer on pretty much a daily basis. The app features a quote from a famous person each day. What a nice surprise when I saw that today’s quote was from Virginia Woolf.

The quote, certainly a source of inspiration, comes from The Waves (1931). The full text reads:

I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am arch, gay, languid, melancholy by turns. I am rooted, but I flow.

Here is a screenshot of the quote as it appeared on the app. 

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Two more to add to your stash of Virginia Woolf puzzles

Posted in commodification, pandemic, Woolf sightings, tagged , on Thursday 17 November 2022| 1 Comment »

Today I have two more Virginia Woolf puzzles for you — just in time for the holidays. This news may be welcomed by members of the VWoolf Listserv, as one recent discussion thread focused on Woolf puzzles.

But first some background on my search.

Woolf puzzling background

In the spring of 2020, when many of us found our outings and activities limited due to the Coronavirus pandemic, I wrote about two jigsaw puzzles that included Virginia Woolf or her novels and another that featured her.

By September, I had discovered a 1,000-piece eeBoo puzzle titled “Jane Austen’s Book Club” that included Woolf. She, along with Austen, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, and Zora Neale Huston, are pictured sipping tea, alongside some of their famous titles. I wrote about that, too.

Today I share my two new puzzle discoveries.

From HOPE to WOOLF

The first, a take-off on the iconic 2008 Barack Obama “Hope” poster, depicts Woolf in the same way Obama was shown, but with her last name, “Woolf,” replacing the word “Hope.” It comes in two sizes.

11/19/22 Note: The above two puzzles are no longer available.

Among Edward Gorey covers

The second features Edward Gorey book covers, including From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf by Robert Manson Myers. It is 1,000 pieces, measures 20″ x 27″ and is priced at $22.95.

 

This puzzle features Edward Gorey book cover illustrations. The one related to Woolf is at the far right in the third row from the top.

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“A plumber’s Mrs. Dalloway” and other sightings

Posted in The Hours, Virginia Woolf, Woolf in Contemporary Fiction, Woolf sightings, tagged , , on Thursday 4 November 2021| Leave a Comment »

Imagine my double-take when, scrolling through the LitHub Daily recently, I came across an ad for a new book, Insignificance by James Clammer.

The caption read “A plumber’s Mrs. Dalloway.”

The book is described as an interior-monologue lyric novel, a single day in the life of Joe Forbes, reluctant plumber and anguished father. The TLS calls it “A descent into the suburban uncanny and the English soul.” The Spectator links it to Woolf: “Like Mrs. Dalloway, it immerses us in the rush of a different life, the strangeness of another body.”

I may not read it, but the reviewers are taking it seriously, and it sounds compelling. Who am I to snicker?

Palace of the Drowned

A New York Times review drew me to Christine Mangan’s Palace of the Drowned, which “heaves with allusions to other books and other authors — a little Patricia Highsmith here, a little Virginia Woolf there, glimpses of Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” someplace else.”

A novel about a novelist, when Frankie’s latest work is panned and she causes a scene, she goes to Italy, where she’s stalked by an admirer:

“You’re not the first author to receive a bad review,” Gilly tells her. “Dostoyevsky. Hemingway. Did you know Virginia Woolf was terribly affected by criticism? She didn’t even like to read what others wrote about her fellow authors. She said that no creative writer can swallow another contemporary.”

As the Highsmith and Jackson references imply, there’s suspense and intrigue here too, and Venice—all that’s missing are the Bellinis (the drink, not the painter or the composer).

The Plot

 I can’t resist novels about writers writing; Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is another. A twisted tale of plagiarism and intrigue, the protagonist justifies his actions: “He would hardly be the first to take some tale from a play or a book—in this case, a book that had never been written!—and create something entirely new from it. Miss Saigon from Madam Butterfly. The Hours from Mrs. Dalloway. The Lion King from Hamlet, for goodness’ sake!”

 

 

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Alice Lowe on aging quotes Dorothy Parker, Virginia Woolf

Posted in Virginia Woolf, Woolf sightings, tagged , , , , on Sunday 23 May 2021| Leave a Comment »

An essay by Blogging Woolf contributor Alice Woolf published May 19 on (mac)ro(mic) discusses a dreaded topic — aging — and includes the views of Dorothy Parker and Virginia Woolf.

Alice Lowe

Woolf used to address her future self—old Virginia—in her diary; days before her death she reminded herself to “observe the oncome of age. — Lowe

Lowe has written about Woolf and aging before. In 2017 she connected Woolf with aging, writing, and her own decision to get a tattoo.

Besides writing for Blogging Woolf, Lowe blogs at aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com. Her flash prose has appeared this past year in Hobart, JMWW, Door Is a Jar, Sleet, Anti-Heroin Chic, and BurningWord. She’s had citations in Best American Essays and nominations for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net.

 

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