[Vwoolf] Conrad (was: Arnold Bennett again)

[Stuart N. Clarke]

“it was necessary to write the book [MD] first and to invent a theory afterwards” (1928; E4 550)

Cf.
“One does one's work first and theorizes about it afterwards.”
Conrad, “Notes on My Books”
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_on_My_Books

Stuart

From: Barbara Lounsberry 
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2018 1:51 PM
To: Sarah M. Hall 
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu ; Stuart N. Clarke 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Arnold Bennett again

Another influence, perhaps.  In April 1920, Woolf received a copy of W.N.P. Barbellion's famous Journal of a Disappointed Man.  There she found this 1917 entry: "I am simply marking time on the edge of a precipice awaiting the order, 'Forward.'"  She employs the figure herself in her May 5, 1920 diary entry: "this marks some step over a precipice" and then transforms it into the (slightly more hopeful) image of life as "a little strip of pavement over an abyss" in her October diary. 

One is always struck by the way she makes her vast reading her own.


Barbara Lounsberry

On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 6:11 AM Sarah M. Hall via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

  Demonstrates that just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean that they don't have an influence on you.




  On Thursday, 29 November 2018, 11:43:54 GMT, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote: 


  “Why is life so tragic; so like a little strip of pavement over an abyss?”
  (D2, 25 Oct 1920)

  Cf.
  “... reminding her [Sophia] somehow that humanity walks ever on a thin crust over terrific abysses.”
  (“The Old Wives’ Tale”, bk 3, 7.1)

  Stuart
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