[Vwoolf] NYT By the Book

Diane Reynolds direynolds1502 at gmail.com
Thu Oct 31 14:59:58 EDT 2019


Having gobbled back my first reaction, which is this man is an idiot—I think, in fact, in his defense, he is trying to be witty, amusing, erudite, and ironic (and all that)—I settled on “his tastes in literature are not mine.” I just happened to be looking at Mrs. Dalloway the other day, with all its heart twisting reminders of war trauma— everywhere, ubiquitous—and I decided this man simply didn’t “get” it. He says he loves books with voice and irony … well, to me that would be … hhmmm—Virginia Woolf…?  His not liking—and more to the point, not getting-- Anna Karenina is another clue to “his tastes re not mine."—Mary Gaitskill has an amazing essay on the two Annas in AK—but it’s a simplistic novel, let me stand corrected—and then, let me just say, the Alexandria Quartet would not be the *first* (or probably last) set of books that would pop to my mind as needing a sequel .. .

The chief irony, for me, is that he seems to be exactly like the men Woolf had to deal with. Plus ca change and all that. Not sorry I read this interview, but ….  \ I am not a Proust scholar, as this erudite man apparently is, but I read a well researched, gripping book called Proust’s Duchess a few years ago by Caroline Weber that deserves a plug. 

> On Oct 31, 2019, at 12:13 PM, Kristin Czarnecki via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Ah, so much to say about this, including how certain media and literati still revel in taking pot-shots at Woolf. They could have put any snippet in the headline but of course chose this:
>  
> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/books/review/andre-aciman-by-the-book-interview.html <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/books/review/andre-aciman-by-the-book-interview.html>
>  
> Kristin Czarnecki 
> President, International Virginia Woolf Society
> Professor of English
> Georgetown College
> 400 E. College St.
> Georgetown, KY 40324
>  
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