Wonderful conversation Tash and Nancy. I have to say, I bawled my eyes out through this entire section. The square brackets worked their magic on me, interrupting the narrative of the dilapidating house with 'essential information', which is commonly the case. What's said between them just hit me in the guts, hard and square like the brackets themselves. And while Woolf doesn't directly expand on those stories, as you said Tash, she does, by focusing on the impact of these occurrences. Mrs Ramsay is dead, the house falls silent, and everything is falling apart. I find it so emotional because it's our knowledge of why the house is dilapidating and our memories of the life that was once inside of it that makes its ruin so powerful. Life has been sucked out by the inevitability of death (Mrs Ramsay, Andrew, Prue, the war), and its years of silence tell us something about those who haven't returned.
Alia, I so love what you're saying here about the knowledge of how and why the house has deteriorated. Such a beautiful metaphor for what is left behind when we have only memories of those who have died and left us floundering. It's as though all the silence represents that absence of the presence (or is it the presence of the absence?) of those who have lived before us. Wonderful insights here.
Listening to Tash and Nancy speak, I was struck by their use of terms such as “zoom in”, “zoom out”, and “cinematic” while they were discussing the “Time Passes” section of the novel. In my own theatre of the mind, I imagined the slow disintegration of the house being depicted using time-lapse photography, or some other motion picture technique. It’s entirely possible that Virginia Woolf had a similar sort of cinema-type visualisation process going on in her mind while writing the scenes in “Time Passes”.
In 1926, while she was writing “To the Lighthouse”, VW wrote an essay on “The Cinema”, in which she commented upon various aspects of this new, popular form of mass entertainment. She noted that readers might find themselves in for a shock when they went to see a movie adaptation of “Anna Karenina”, only to find that the actor playing Anna doesn’t match the image of the character they’ve long since formed in their mind, and that the novel’s story is depicted in such simplified visual terms—“A kiss is love … A grin is happiness”—as to be the equivalent of “words of one syllable”.
Yet VW also foresaw the immense potential of cinema, in its ability to create moving images of tremendous emotional effect. Scenes and events which a writer might take pages to explain and long minutes for a reader to absorb could appear on the screen in a matter of moments: “The most fantastic contrasts could be flashed before us with a speed which the writer can only toil after in vain”. VW wouldn’t be surprised by modern CGI effects in movies. She could see the potential for movies to show anything imaginable. “No fantasy could be too far-fetched or insubstantial,” she wrote.
Woolf was even willing to allow that cinema could be a more effective storyteller than the writer. Referring to “Anna Karenina” again, she says that the parts of the novel where Tolstoy shifts the scene from Anna and Vronsky to Levin’s efforts at land reform on his country estate—the point where I think some modern readers lose interest—could be handled much more smoothly on film in a way that would maintain the viewers’ interest.
But getting back to “Time Passes”, I imagined this section of the novel taking shape in my mind’s eye as Virginia Woolf the film director might have created it using the cinema techniques of her time. We’d see a slow panning shot of the home’s interior, fading in and out or using dissolves as we went from room to room and floor to floor. When we came to an item of interest, such as Mrs. Ramsay’s shawl draped over the boar’s skull, the camera would pause and the middle of the frame would dissolve into a circular opening through which we would see, in picture-within-a-picture style, a brief shot of Mrs. Ramsay lying on her deathbed surrounded by her family, while a distraught Mr. Ramsay would turn towards the camera and stagger towards us with his arms outstretched before the flashback scene would fade out and we’d return to the camera’s point-of-view slowly taking inventory of the home, until we came to objects associated with Prue and Andrew, whereupon we would see their separate deaths depicted in the same sepia-toned, soft focus, picture-within-a-picture technique used to show Mrs. Ramsay’s passing. The parts of the text within square brackets would provide the basis for these flashback sequences in director Virginia Woolf’s film adaptation of her novel, “To the Lighthouse”.
What a fantastic comment - thank you Tom. I didn't know about VW's essay on The Cinema. How interesting. Like you, I find this sequence extremely cinematic - particularly the darkness swallowing up objects in ch 2 and (like I said in my chat with Nancy) the scarf unwinding from the pig skull with a roaring sound. It was interesting to read your impression of how those moments in square brackets might be given filmic treatment. You see them fading in and out during an extended view of the house and its interior. I think I imagine them appearing as 'micro flashes' that flash up briefly and loudly amidst that quiet view of the house so that the viewer almost wonders if they really saw anything at all. In any case, the cinematic atmosphere (and writerly sensibility) is strong throughout 'Time Passes.'
Tom, I had no idea about that essay, either, and find this fascinating. And brilliant! It makes me think of VW's use of what I've called perceptual manipulation, or what she does with distances...how the protagonist -- Lily Briscoe in this example -- feels different feelings for Mr. Ramsay depending on whether he is moving toward her, or away from her. Very cinematic, and this had not occurred to me before. And it does make much sense, as we've discussed her artistic descriptions, how they resemble impressionistic paintings, but this can also be seen as cinematic, too. It also makes me think of the film, The Hours, starring Nicole Kidman as VW. If you haven't seen that one, make it a point. The book is even better (by Michael Cunningham, and it won the Pulitzer for fiction).
WHOA!!!! Talk about coincidence!!! I just picked up a DVD of "The Hours" from my local library this very afternoon! And I just finished reading Michael Cunningham's novel yesterday. I was referred to both of them by Alyssa aka the Nerdy Nurse who posted a video about Cunningham's novel earlier this week on her YouTube channel. As for VW's essay on "The Cinema", it was included in a collection of her essays I picked up some years ago. I'll have more to say later ...
Wow! I mean, I used to not believe in coincidences, but this is -- I have to admit -- a really good one. Do tell! Let us know how you found the film and novel. I absolutely went nuts over Nicole Kidman's performance. No one has ever done Woolf before. She had a prosthetic nose job for the role, and the likeness, the voice, all of it so reminded me of VW. Kidman nailed her, and honestly, I thought this was the best role she'd ever had, though I really didn't hear so much praise for it. And the novel was sublime. I felt as though I'd been transported to another realm.
And oh, Tom, you have to read another book, which is just exquisite, about Woolf, but it's also a memoir. Just trust me on this. It's by a woman by the name of Katharine Smyth. The title is "All the Lives We Ever Lived." It's hard to explain, but my best friend sent it to me with a note that read, "Whatever you're doing, put it down and read this." So I did. Then I turned around as I read the last page and read it again. And again. It's part memoir, part love letter to not only VW, but TTL specifically. She has brilliantly found a way to weave the novel into her own grief journey after losing her father. Just order it, then put down whatever you're doing, and read it! (smile)
As you know, Nancy, "The Hours" is a sort of retelling or theme and variations on "Mrs. Dalloway", but I picked up a few references to "To the Lighthouse" in Cunningham's novel as well. For example, when VW is on her way to the river to drown herself at the beginning of the story, she picks up a rock to put in her coat pocket. She selects one that is "roughly the size and shape of a pig's skull", which can only be a reference to the boar's skull in the Ramsay children's bedroom.
Later on, there is another mention of a pig when VW is shown being reluctant to look in a mirror for fear of the dark shape "with porcine eyes" that sometimes appears in the mirror behind her.
And finally--although there may well be more "Lighthouse" references that I missed--there is Laura Brown setting the table for her husband's birthday. She has a feeling of success when the table is finally set, "the way a painter might brush a final line of color onto a painting and save it from incoherence", which reminds us of Lily Briscoe in the final scene of "Lighthouse" where she is looking at her painting, and "with a sudden intensity ... she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished."
All in all, I enjoyed both the novel and film versions of "The Hours" very much. I agree that Nicole Kidman thoroughly deserved her Oscar for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf. I'll look into the Katharine Smyth book as well. Thanks for the recommendation.
That rock that VW puts in her pocket is symbolic for her. It was a small rock, certainly not enough to weigh her down as she slowly waded into the river...I've always wondered what it meant to her, Tom. Maybe the weight she'd carried all her life, the grief of all the losses she ever lived through, or part of nature that she wanted to hold fast to, to give her the strength to go through with it. She'd just left the most gorgeous, the saddest, letter to Leonard, there on the mantle. What must he have thought as he raced down to try to save her before it was too late.
But I do love your focus on the pig and the boar's head. And the image that she often saw in the mirror in back of her. What a powerful symbol. As I continue to reread her work, I'm going to keep a special eye out for any "pig" references. Thank you!
Just to clarify, Nancy, and at the risk of sounding like I’m mansplaining, the description of the rock being “roughly the size and shape of a pig’s skull” comes from Cunnigham’s novel, and is likely the product of his own imagination. So, too, is the scene of VW imagining some vague, threatening entity “with porcine eyes” appearing in a mirror behind her. I’m pretty sure these pig references are intended to refer to “To the Lighthouse” and are just Cunnigham’s way of letting us know that he’s read other VW novels besides “Mrs. Dalloway”. I wouldn’t want you to spend time examining VW’s writings looking for pig references that probably aren’t there.
The marginalisation of human affairs, the three deaths and even the war, as the section invites us into the point of view of the decaying house itself and the great sweep of time. And it's done in a quite wry and ironic way. The death of Andrew but also as a result of the war Augustus's poetry book has an unexpected success - both of these being (in this context) equally minor events. Also, Prue dies in childbirth just a few months after her marriage: in the context of 1914 a dreadful family scandal of a pregnant bride. But all barely touched on in the sweep of time passing.
Coming back to this novel thirty years after hating it as a schoolgirl, I'm finally ready to love and appreciate it. Time Passes is challenging, but the prose is so stirring and beautiful. There are passages in which VW's choices of image and language make me stop in awe, although often the meaning isn't immediately clear. I've thought about the paragraph in ch 3 - the curtain parting displaying the erect hare, wave falling, boat rocking etc. Not at all sure what this paragraph means but enjoyed it nevertheless.
I loved the description of the empty house - being slowly invaded by the natural world.
I'm less keen on the portrait of Mrs McNab. Bit patronising?
Thanks for the thoughts above. It's so helpful. And I look forward to listening to your audio piece.
Mrs McNab - yes! Many have noted the patronising and stereotyped portrait we have of her. ('She was witless, she knew it'). In her introduction to the Norton Critical Edition of TTL, Margaret Homans writes (sorry, I hope it's not too boring for me to reproduce here!):
'Readers have been divided over Woolf's representation of these working-class figures [Mrs McNab and Mrs Bast]: on the one hand, they are subhuman caricatures who disappear from the novel once their work is done, yet on the other, they are granted creative powers and their own points of view, their own humanity and subjectivity. Maurizia Boscagli, exploring the reversal of the usual subject-object hierarchy in "Time Passes," finds that Mrs McNab, as a servant, is a non-subject, part of the object world; Susan Standford Friedman, by contrast, finds "the interiority of Mrs McNab's consciousness sympathetically rendered in the same free indirect discourse used to represent English characters of a different class." [...] Either she and Mrs Bast are the heroic human exceptions to the disintegration that occurs in "Time Passes," or, as nonhuman beings, they underscore the absence of the human from the chaos and inertia of a world made only of things.' (p xxix of the Norton Critical Edition)
Regarding that bit you mention in ch 3 - the hare erect, the wave falling, the boat rocking - it's such an unusual and captivating sentence. I admit I had to read it a couple of times. I think I read it in the context of human violence, evil, failure, sin, ugliness. (War is on its way.) Goodness (personified) shows us his treasures (the hare, the wave, the boat) because he is moved by our remorse - we humans are sorry for our sins, our badness. But Goodness only lets us see for a moment - 'Our penitence deserves a glimpse only.'
So I think VW is showing that amidst this deluge of human malevolence and destruction, moments of beauty and goodness are evident (the hare, the wave) but only glimpses. In a world in turmoil, those fragments of beauty are thrown into disarray and are hard to piece back together into a whole.
That's my reading of it! But it's an interesting assemblage - hare, wave, boat.
This section was so beautiful, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it since in a book! VW is changing the way I think about writing ❤️ particularly perspective and structure
I hadn’t picked up on the connection between the philosophical work of ‘think of a table when you’re not in the room’ and the Time Passes section! I really enjoyed listening to your conversation, it brought up several elements for me that have added to my reading of the final section
Woolf was so innovative with the form wasn't she! It strikes me that she might be particularly interesting and inspiring for someone like you Ness - a writer and artist - because the writing is so painterly ('the writing is painterly,' says Tash for the fiftieth time! - sorry, I'm a cracked record).
Wonderful conversation Tash and Nancy. I have to say, I bawled my eyes out through this entire section. The square brackets worked their magic on me, interrupting the narrative of the dilapidating house with 'essential information', which is commonly the case. What's said between them just hit me in the guts, hard and square like the brackets themselves. And while Woolf doesn't directly expand on those stories, as you said Tash, she does, by focusing on the impact of these occurrences. Mrs Ramsay is dead, the house falls silent, and everything is falling apart. I find it so emotional because it's our knowledge of why the house is dilapidating and our memories of the life that was once inside of it that makes its ruin so powerful. Life has been sucked out by the inevitability of death (Mrs Ramsay, Andrew, Prue, the war), and its years of silence tell us something about those who haven't returned.
Lovely comment Alia. I don't think I have anything to add - you put it beautifully! I am nodding emphatically!
Alia, I so love what you're saying here about the knowledge of how and why the house has deteriorated. Such a beautiful metaphor for what is left behind when we have only memories of those who have died and left us floundering. It's as though all the silence represents that absence of the presence (or is it the presence of the absence?) of those who have lived before us. Wonderful insights here.
Listening to Tash and Nancy speak, I was struck by their use of terms such as “zoom in”, “zoom out”, and “cinematic” while they were discussing the “Time Passes” section of the novel. In my own theatre of the mind, I imagined the slow disintegration of the house being depicted using time-lapse photography, or some other motion picture technique. It’s entirely possible that Virginia Woolf had a similar sort of cinema-type visualisation process going on in her mind while writing the scenes in “Time Passes”.
In 1926, while she was writing “To the Lighthouse”, VW wrote an essay on “The Cinema”, in which she commented upon various aspects of this new, popular form of mass entertainment. She noted that readers might find themselves in for a shock when they went to see a movie adaptation of “Anna Karenina”, only to find that the actor playing Anna doesn’t match the image of the character they’ve long since formed in their mind, and that the novel’s story is depicted in such simplified visual terms—“A kiss is love … A grin is happiness”—as to be the equivalent of “words of one syllable”.
Yet VW also foresaw the immense potential of cinema, in its ability to create moving images of tremendous emotional effect. Scenes and events which a writer might take pages to explain and long minutes for a reader to absorb could appear on the screen in a matter of moments: “The most fantastic contrasts could be flashed before us with a speed which the writer can only toil after in vain”. VW wouldn’t be surprised by modern CGI effects in movies. She could see the potential for movies to show anything imaginable. “No fantasy could be too far-fetched or insubstantial,” she wrote.
Woolf was even willing to allow that cinema could be a more effective storyteller than the writer. Referring to “Anna Karenina” again, she says that the parts of the novel where Tolstoy shifts the scene from Anna and Vronsky to Levin’s efforts at land reform on his country estate—the point where I think some modern readers lose interest—could be handled much more smoothly on film in a way that would maintain the viewers’ interest.
But getting back to “Time Passes”, I imagined this section of the novel taking shape in my mind’s eye as Virginia Woolf the film director might have created it using the cinema techniques of her time. We’d see a slow panning shot of the home’s interior, fading in and out or using dissolves as we went from room to room and floor to floor. When we came to an item of interest, such as Mrs. Ramsay’s shawl draped over the boar’s skull, the camera would pause and the middle of the frame would dissolve into a circular opening through which we would see, in picture-within-a-picture style, a brief shot of Mrs. Ramsay lying on her deathbed surrounded by her family, while a distraught Mr. Ramsay would turn towards the camera and stagger towards us with his arms outstretched before the flashback scene would fade out and we’d return to the camera’s point-of-view slowly taking inventory of the home, until we came to objects associated with Prue and Andrew, whereupon we would see their separate deaths depicted in the same sepia-toned, soft focus, picture-within-a-picture technique used to show Mrs. Ramsay’s passing. The parts of the text within square brackets would provide the basis for these flashback sequences in director Virginia Woolf’s film adaptation of her novel, “To the Lighthouse”.
What a fantastic comment - thank you Tom. I didn't know about VW's essay on The Cinema. How interesting. Like you, I find this sequence extremely cinematic - particularly the darkness swallowing up objects in ch 2 and (like I said in my chat with Nancy) the scarf unwinding from the pig skull with a roaring sound. It was interesting to read your impression of how those moments in square brackets might be given filmic treatment. You see them fading in and out during an extended view of the house and its interior. I think I imagine them appearing as 'micro flashes' that flash up briefly and loudly amidst that quiet view of the house so that the viewer almost wonders if they really saw anything at all. In any case, the cinematic atmosphere (and writerly sensibility) is strong throughout 'Time Passes.'
Tom, I had no idea about that essay, either, and find this fascinating. And brilliant! It makes me think of VW's use of what I've called perceptual manipulation, or what she does with distances...how the protagonist -- Lily Briscoe in this example -- feels different feelings for Mr. Ramsay depending on whether he is moving toward her, or away from her. Very cinematic, and this had not occurred to me before. And it does make much sense, as we've discussed her artistic descriptions, how they resemble impressionistic paintings, but this can also be seen as cinematic, too. It also makes me think of the film, The Hours, starring Nicole Kidman as VW. If you haven't seen that one, make it a point. The book is even better (by Michael Cunningham, and it won the Pulitzer for fiction).
WHOA!!!! Talk about coincidence!!! I just picked up a DVD of "The Hours" from my local library this very afternoon! And I just finished reading Michael Cunningham's novel yesterday. I was referred to both of them by Alyssa aka the Nerdy Nurse who posted a video about Cunningham's novel earlier this week on her YouTube channel. As for VW's essay on "The Cinema", it was included in a collection of her essays I picked up some years ago. I'll have more to say later ...
Wow! I mean, I used to not believe in coincidences, but this is -- I have to admit -- a really good one. Do tell! Let us know how you found the film and novel. I absolutely went nuts over Nicole Kidman's performance. No one has ever done Woolf before. She had a prosthetic nose job for the role, and the likeness, the voice, all of it so reminded me of VW. Kidman nailed her, and honestly, I thought this was the best role she'd ever had, though I really didn't hear so much praise for it. And the novel was sublime. I felt as though I'd been transported to another realm.
And oh, Tom, you have to read another book, which is just exquisite, about Woolf, but it's also a memoir. Just trust me on this. It's by a woman by the name of Katharine Smyth. The title is "All the Lives We Ever Lived." It's hard to explain, but my best friend sent it to me with a note that read, "Whatever you're doing, put it down and read this." So I did. Then I turned around as I read the last page and read it again. And again. It's part memoir, part love letter to not only VW, but TTL specifically. She has brilliantly found a way to weave the novel into her own grief journey after losing her father. Just order it, then put down whatever you're doing, and read it! (smile)
As you know, Nancy, "The Hours" is a sort of retelling or theme and variations on "Mrs. Dalloway", but I picked up a few references to "To the Lighthouse" in Cunningham's novel as well. For example, when VW is on her way to the river to drown herself at the beginning of the story, she picks up a rock to put in her coat pocket. She selects one that is "roughly the size and shape of a pig's skull", which can only be a reference to the boar's skull in the Ramsay children's bedroom.
Later on, there is another mention of a pig when VW is shown being reluctant to look in a mirror for fear of the dark shape "with porcine eyes" that sometimes appears in the mirror behind her.
And finally--although there may well be more "Lighthouse" references that I missed--there is Laura Brown setting the table for her husband's birthday. She has a feeling of success when the table is finally set, "the way a painter might brush a final line of color onto a painting and save it from incoherence", which reminds us of Lily Briscoe in the final scene of "Lighthouse" where she is looking at her painting, and "with a sudden intensity ... she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished."
All in all, I enjoyed both the novel and film versions of "The Hours" very much. I agree that Nicole Kidman thoroughly deserved her Oscar for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf. I'll look into the Katharine Smyth book as well. Thanks for the recommendation.
That rock that VW puts in her pocket is symbolic for her. It was a small rock, certainly not enough to weigh her down as she slowly waded into the river...I've always wondered what it meant to her, Tom. Maybe the weight she'd carried all her life, the grief of all the losses she ever lived through, or part of nature that she wanted to hold fast to, to give her the strength to go through with it. She'd just left the most gorgeous, the saddest, letter to Leonard, there on the mantle. What must he have thought as he raced down to try to save her before it was too late.
But I do love your focus on the pig and the boar's head. And the image that she often saw in the mirror in back of her. What a powerful symbol. As I continue to reread her work, I'm going to keep a special eye out for any "pig" references. Thank you!
Just to clarify, Nancy, and at the risk of sounding like I’m mansplaining, the description of the rock being “roughly the size and shape of a pig’s skull” comes from Cunnigham’s novel, and is likely the product of his own imagination. So, too, is the scene of VW imagining some vague, threatening entity “with porcine eyes” appearing in a mirror behind her. I’m pretty sure these pig references are intended to refer to “To the Lighthouse” and are just Cunnigham’s way of letting us know that he’s read other VW novels besides “Mrs. Dalloway”. I wouldn’t want you to spend time examining VW’s writings looking for pig references that probably aren’t there.
The marginalisation of human affairs, the three deaths and even the war, as the section invites us into the point of view of the decaying house itself and the great sweep of time. And it's done in a quite wry and ironic way. The death of Andrew but also as a result of the war Augustus's poetry book has an unexpected success - both of these being (in this context) equally minor events. Also, Prue dies in childbirth just a few months after her marriage: in the context of 1914 a dreadful family scandal of a pregnant bride. But all barely touched on in the sweep of time passing.
Oh, I hadn't picked that up about Prue. Interesting!
Coming back to this novel thirty years after hating it as a schoolgirl, I'm finally ready to love and appreciate it. Time Passes is challenging, but the prose is so stirring and beautiful. There are passages in which VW's choices of image and language make me stop in awe, although often the meaning isn't immediately clear. I've thought about the paragraph in ch 3 - the curtain parting displaying the erect hare, wave falling, boat rocking etc. Not at all sure what this paragraph means but enjoyed it nevertheless.
I loved the description of the empty house - being slowly invaded by the natural world.
I'm less keen on the portrait of Mrs McNab. Bit patronising?
Thanks for the thoughts above. It's so helpful. And I look forward to listening to your audio piece.
Mrs McNab - yes! Many have noted the patronising and stereotyped portrait we have of her. ('She was witless, she knew it'). In her introduction to the Norton Critical Edition of TTL, Margaret Homans writes (sorry, I hope it's not too boring for me to reproduce here!):
'Readers have been divided over Woolf's representation of these working-class figures [Mrs McNab and Mrs Bast]: on the one hand, they are subhuman caricatures who disappear from the novel once their work is done, yet on the other, they are granted creative powers and their own points of view, their own humanity and subjectivity. Maurizia Boscagli, exploring the reversal of the usual subject-object hierarchy in "Time Passes," finds that Mrs McNab, as a servant, is a non-subject, part of the object world; Susan Standford Friedman, by contrast, finds "the interiority of Mrs McNab's consciousness sympathetically rendered in the same free indirect discourse used to represent English characters of a different class." [...] Either she and Mrs Bast are the heroic human exceptions to the disintegration that occurs in "Time Passes," or, as nonhuman beings, they underscore the absence of the human from the chaos and inertia of a world made only of things.' (p xxix of the Norton Critical Edition)
Regarding that bit you mention in ch 3 - the hare erect, the wave falling, the boat rocking - it's such an unusual and captivating sentence. I admit I had to read it a couple of times. I think I read it in the context of human violence, evil, failure, sin, ugliness. (War is on its way.) Goodness (personified) shows us his treasures (the hare, the wave, the boat) because he is moved by our remorse - we humans are sorry for our sins, our badness. But Goodness only lets us see for a moment - 'Our penitence deserves a glimpse only.'
So I think VW is showing that amidst this deluge of human malevolence and destruction, moments of beauty and goodness are evident (the hare, the wave) but only glimpses. In a world in turmoil, those fragments of beauty are thrown into disarray and are hard to piece back together into a whole.
That's my reading of it! But it's an interesting assemblage - hare, wave, boat.
Milk soup, just what it sounds like: http://www.polishclassiccooking.com/2011/01/great-great-grandmas-milk-soup.html
Blergh!
I envisaged something in the way of a chowder. But milk soup, why not!
Love love love this interview. Part two was stunningly executed!! Woolf is, frankly, a genius.
also agree!
I agree! She's a genius!
This section was so beautiful, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it since in a book! VW is changing the way I think about writing ❤️ particularly perspective and structure
I hadn’t picked up on the connection between the philosophical work of ‘think of a table when you’re not in the room’ and the Time Passes section! I really enjoyed listening to your conversation, it brought up several elements for me that have added to my reading of the final section
Woolf was so innovative with the form wasn't she! It strikes me that she might be particularly interesting and inspiring for someone like you Ness - a writer and artist - because the writing is so painterly ('the writing is painterly,' says Tash for the fiftieth time! - sorry, I'm a cracked record).
A cracked record OR repetitive in a cool meaningful way like VW’s prose? 😎
And yes you’re completely right and also I just finished the book today and I’m obsessed with it
<I'm obsessed with it> - This makes me happy. I think we can be friends! haha
Thank you!