[Vwoolf] Woolf and Proust ("My great adventure is really Proust")

[Lindsay Martin]

Dear All

 

For anybody wanting to visit Monk’s House in September please see the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain visit on 21 September; please see Society website for further information.

 

Best wishes 

 

Lindsay C Martin

 

From: vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Kimberly Coates
Sent: 07 August 2013 21:04
To: Sunjoo Lee; Erica Delsandro; vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Woolf and Proust ("My great adventure is really Proust")

 

Hi, Erica et al:

 

Woolf uses the expression "the nerves of language" in reference to Proust in a letter to Roger Fry [Saturday, 6 May 1922]: "Last night I started on Vol 2 [Jeunes Filles en Fleurs] of him (the novel) and propose to sink myself in it all day. [. . . ] But Proust so titillates my own desire for expression that I can hardly set out the sentence. Oh if I could write like that! I cry. And at the moment such is the astonishing vibration and saturation and intensification that he procures—theres something sexual in it—that I feel I can write like that, and seize my pen and then I can't write like that. Scarcely anyone so stimulates the nerves of language in me: it becomes an obsession. But I must return to Swann" (Letters II 525).

 

Good luck with the Proust Celebration! And cheers to you all! I'm fresh back from a trip to London/Sussex/Paris; I saw Charleston and Monk's House for the first time (long overdue!), walked the downs, and filled my eyes and ears with the sights and sounds I've read about for so many years. Those of you attending MSA in Sussex, if you haven't had the experience of walking that landscape, pack your trekking shoes and do so! The play of the light and wind on the grasses yields a kaleidoscope of color that must be experienced. It was an exhilarating trip! I wish I were returning at the end of August but just couldn't make both the trip and the conference happen in the same summer. But I do look very, very forward to going back sometime soon!

 

Best wishes to all as you ready for the fast approaching new academic year!

 

Cheers,

Kim

 

 

Kimberly Coates, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of English

Affiliate Faculty Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies/American Culture Studies

Bowling Green State University

Bowling Green, OH 43403

Office Phone: 419-372-9189

 

 

From: Sunjoo Lee <abgrund at naver.com>
Reply-To: Sunjoo Lee <abgrund at naver.com>
Date: Saturday, August 3, 2013 11:48 PM
To: Erica Delsandro <ericadelsandro at gmail.com>, "vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu" <vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Woolf and Proust ("My great adventure is really Proust")

 

This one must be the best known and most cited "Woolf on Proust" (and the only one that came my mind): 

 

My great adventure is really Proust. Well--what remains to be written after that? I'm only in the first volume, and there are, I suppose, faults to be found, but I am in a state of amazement; as if a miracle were being done before my eyes. How, at last, has someone solidified what has always escaped--and made it too into this beautiful and perfectly enduring substance?  One has to put the book down and gasp. The pleasure becomes physical--like sun and wine and grapes and perfect serenity and intense vitality combined. Far otherwise is it with Ulysses. 

 

(from a letter to Roger Fry, Oct. 3, 1922) 

 

The notes I made on this letter say that Pericles Lewis makes a quote from it in his "Proust, Woolf, and Modern Fiction." 

I used to listen a lot to de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life as read by Sam West, and remember how West made that sentence, "One has to put the book down and gasp," immensely intriguing with his reading. It was as if he let me know the meaning of the word "gasp" by saying it. 

 

I wrote this down just so we can have a passage from Woolf. 

I wish I could have more. 

 

Sunjoo  

 

-----Original Message-----
From: "Erica Delsandro"<ericadelsandro at gmail.com> 
To: <vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>; 
Cc: 
Sent: 2013-08-04 (일) 07:57:56
Subject: [Vwoolf] Woolf and Proust
 

Hello Woolfians!
 

My university is hosting a Proust Celebration this fall and I was asked to give a short talk on Woolf and Proust. Admittedly, I know much more about the former than the latter, and thus explained to the organization committee that my talk would be heavy on Woolf and light on Proust!
 

I turn to the Woolf community for any suggestions regarding texts that might help me put together a light, interesting, and engaging presentation on Woolf and Proust. Please respond off list to ericadelsandro at gmail.com.

Thank you so much! All very best -- Erica Delsandro 


  <http://mail.naver.com/readReceipt/notify/?img=fle5%2BBiNM4JopzJ0hARvF6FvFrU%2FFxElKqUmpzuZFAKlKo%2BSK4p4pxJCtH3Xp6UwaVl5WLl51zlqDBFdp6d5MreRhoRr%2BreTWzpgWz0q%2BHK5brkZ%2B40opLlT1z0T7BFdMB3074kv%2Bt%3D%3D.gif> 

 

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