[Vwoolf] "Mrs. Amyot's last brilliant lecture on the influence of something upon somebody"

Jean Mallinson annaj at telus.net
Sun Jul 15 14:45:57 EDT 2012


Lovely!
Jean
On 7/15/2012 10:01 AM, Mary Ellen Foley wrote:
> Which brings to mind Dylan Thomas' remarks before a reading at 
> Brandeis in the Spring of 1950, which ended with this explanation of 
> why he hoped no one would ask questions:
>
> "I'd like to be able to answer anybody's question fluently, but always 
> as soon as I try to start, as soon as gauchely and inarticulately I 
> bog, bury, and bitch myself in a sentence which can never, I know, 
> come to an end, such as the sentence I am now bogged in, I find myself 
> thinking of certain other subjects, all almost as interesting as the 
> subject supposedly under discussion. You know the sort of subject that 
> comes into one's head when one's asked these odd questions, subjects 
> such as: 'Rilke and the Gold Standard,' or 'Charles Morgan, My 
> Favourite Character in Fiction,' or even the very awful thing that 
> occurs to one occasionally, 'If a Hermaphrodite Were a Schizophrene, 
> Which Half Would You Take?" or even such esoteric subjects as *'The 
> Influence of W. C. Fields on Virginia Woolf.' *Perhaps I'd better read 
> a poem.  I can go on talking like this all the time: that's what I do..."
>
> and apparently, with that, he began to read.
>
> Mary Ellen  (postscript: for my blog post on a recent visit to the 
> Boathouse at Laugharne, at which Dylan Thomas lived, please see 
> http://mefoley.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/dylan-thomas-boathouse/)
>
> M.E.Foley
> MEFoleyUK at gmail.com <mailto:MEFoleyUK at gmail.com>
> http://mefoley.wordpress.com
>


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