[Vwoolf] involuntary memory in Woolf

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

In Woolf the body as well as the mind remembers things. Cf this from The Waves:

In the beginning, there was the nursery, with windows opening on to a garden, and beyond that the sea.  I saw something brighten – no doubt the brass handle of a cupboard. Then Mrs Constable raised the sponge above her head, squeezed it, and out shot, right, left, all down the spine, arrows of sensation. And so, as long as we draw breath, for the rest of time, if we knock against a chair, a table, or a woman, we are pierced with arrows of sensation – if we walk in a garden, if we drink this wine.  Sometimes indeed, when I pass a cottage with a light in the window where a child has been born, I could implore them not to squeeze the sponge over that new body.

Jeremy Hawthorn


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