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<p>Love your extended witticism, Mark, and also identify deeply with
your existence. Inside every Woolf scholar and teacher there
remains a passionate Common Reader like yourself, or so I
think--everyone starts out as a CR, and her writings are so rich
and various that we can only remain so, whatever our later
awareness of nits and commitments to nitpicking. Whatever path we
take through life, she's a cherished companion on the way, ever
surprising, inexhaustibly funny, taking us down all sorts of
fascinating byways, always There. <br>
</p>
<p>For me and some other Woolf scholars with whom I spoke on its
release (we watched it together at a conference), The Hours film
creates a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, as it does for
you. At the same time, it's a new work in its own right, and
people who had only heard of VW via Albee liked the film and
talked to me about it. (Speaking of Albee, Regina Marler commented
on LW's granting his request to use VW's name: "Good for
business?" LW was a brilliant manager.) Who knows how many people
have come to VW and MD by way of The Hours? (Probably more than
via Albee, who gave her name marquee value while emptying it of
all content.) And Cunningham's translation of the losses, grief,
and mourning of the postWWI moment to the AIDS crisis seems to me
a masterstroke, even if his book can't compare with the
masterpiece MD is. <br>
</p>
<p>As you say, our American culture industry is a celebrity culture,
and we have few media that aspire to bridge deep thought and
popular sensation. The NYT long ago made a conscious decision not
to review academic books, and its editors sometimes make
spectacular lapses of judgment, so immersed are they in DC
Groupthink, etc. Being a CR is a fine antidote imho--the horse's
mouth.</p>
<p>Happy New Year,<br>
</p>
<p>Christine<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/29/2020 8:31 PM, Mark Scott via
Vwoolf wrote:<br>
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<div>And before someone else does, I feel that I must say that
my attempted witticism about Angels of the House and
Slater’s Pins clearly has no point.</div>
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<div>Mark Scott</div>
<div>Common Reader</div>
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<div style="font-color: black"><b>From:</b> <a title="vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">Mark
Scott via Vwoolf</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, December 29, 2020 4:03 PM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a title="Kristin_Czarnecki@georgetowncollege.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">Kristin Czarnecki</a> ; <a title="vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>
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<div><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vwoolf] New Yorker Article</div>
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<div>As a common reader, this piece from The New Yorker
resonated much more for me than the one authored by
Michael Cunningham. My interest in Virginia Woolf did
come from the movies, but not from the film of Mr.
Cunningham’s ‘The Hours’. I saw Sally Potter’s
interpretation of ‘Orlando’ shortly after it was
released and was intrigued, amused and fascinated by
the playful treatment of gender and time. So I bought
a used paperback and read the book. Sometime later a
film of ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ was released directed by
Marleen Gorris who had directed the delightful
‘Antonia’s Line’ and starred the great Vanessa
Redgrave, one of my favorite actresses. Again, I got
a copy of Woolf’s novel and, as Jenny Offill expressed
so well in her piece in The New Yorker, I was struck
by the beauty of the writing. I also reread books
that have a special resonance for me and find
something fresh and new in them with every reading.
After reading the novel, I also realized that the film
hardly did more than scratch the surface or penetrate
into the ‘beautiful caves’ that Woolf had dug out
behind her characters. Finally I saw ‘The Hours’, was
very impressed with the acting and, having lived
through the AIDS pandemic and lost a partner and
several close friends, was very moved by Ed Harris’s
portrayal of the character that parallels Septimus
Smith. But later I read Hermione Lee’s biography of
Woolf and began to wonder who it was exactly that
Nicole Kidman was portraying. Much was made of the
prosthetic nose (which did not make the actress look
anything like Woolf, in my opinion) and to give Kidman
credit where credit is due as an actress, she did seem
to disappear into the character. But from what I
gleaned from Hermione Lee’s biography, the character
Kidman inhabited was...not Virginia Woolf.<br>
<br>
Finally, at some point, I read Cunningham’s book ‘The
Hours’ and, quite frankly, found what I thought was
his attempt to give an impression of Woolf’s writing
to be quite annoying. I am also not a fan of
biofiction and although I read ‘The Wide Sargasso Sea’
with some interest, I don’t find any great desire to
read novels that are sequels or prequels of classic
works written by contemporary authors. I did read the
excerpt from Cunningham’s introduction to ‘Mrs.
Dalloway’ in The New York Times with a bit of an eye
roll that here was one more article from an author who
seems to have been appointed by the mainstream press
as the foremost authority on Virginia Woolf. Popular
culture in the twenty-first century is largely
centered on the culture of celebrity. In the very
particular niche of popular culture that is devoted to
‘serious’ art or literature, Michael Cunningham is the
celebrity name that is most associated with Virginia
Woolf. The new Vintage addition of ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ is
more than likely being published to appeal to as broad
a readership as possible and is not being marketed as
a text for scholarly study of the novel. Michael
Cunningham’s name on the book’s cover as author of the
introduction will do more to sell copies than the name
of one of the respected, legitimate scholars that
subscribe to this listserv. I read your emails and I
admit that I sometimes am amused by what seems to be
nitpicking. How many Angels of the House can dance on
the head of one of Slater’s Pins? All joking aside, I
do recognize the importance of what you all do, not, I
suspect, that that makes any difference to any of you
and why should it? That being said, I wish you luck
in your quest for the Harcourt editions of Woolf’s
novels. I have read all of the novels as well as the
diaries. I have for some time now been reading the
collected letters and have made it to the sixth
volume. Maybe I have a bit of apprehension about
coming to the end since I have not picked that worn
out paperback up for some time now. But finish it, I
will when the time comes that I feel inclined to do
so. The insights that your emails often bring to
light are greatly appreciated.</div>
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<div>Mark Scott</div>
<div>Common Reader </div>
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<div style="font-color: black"><b>From:</b> <a title="vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">Kristin Czarnecki via
Vwoolf</a> </div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, December 29, 2020 9:08
AM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a title="vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>
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<div><b>Subject:</b> [Vwoolf] New Yorker Article</div>
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<div style="FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none;
FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal;
COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline">Mrs.
Dalloway is certainly having a moment!
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<div><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-lifetime-of-lessons-in-mrs-dalloway__;!!KGKeukY!mAqfa4PNoJOQ4DOa0c4fgqVKODxKSAJF96K2G_YdJt3Q6y3YfjZ3RwNNYy4qhp6zRxw$" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-lifetime-of-lessons-in-mrs-dalloway</a><br>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPad</div>
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