[Vwoolf] Frank Swinnerton on The Waves

Tue Oct 13 10:44:26 EDT 2020

It was a short-term memory problem.  I have a 1st edn of The Georgian Literary Scene (quote on pp. 392 –3) – so battered that I only paid A$0.50 on 27/4/76 – it was published in 1935.  However, in "Marionette shows", his review of “The Waves” in 1931, he refers to “six characters” (reprinted in MAJUMDAR, Robin, & Allen McLaurin).

Stuart
From: Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf 
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2020 3:19 PM
To: vwoolf 
Subject: [Vwoolf] Frank Swinnerton on The Waves

You remember right.  I tracked down the comment.

"She claimed to be presenting not Mrs Brown, but Mrs Brownness. That sounds splendid. But in order to discover the Mrs Brownness Virginia Woolf was forced to write solely of ruminative or introspective persons, and when she had carried her exploration to the four minds in The Waves she had reached as far as that particular method would take her. There were four poetic somethings; but they all thought alike." (Frank Swinnerton, The Georgian Literary Scene, Everyman edition, revised 1951, p. 281)

This reminds me of the old humorous seaside postcard that has a picture of a rather formidable wife looking at the card a weighing machine has given to her very meek looking husband. "It says you are handsome, muscular and decisive. It's got your weight wrong too." Had he even read the novel?

Jeremy H

On 05.10.2020 17:03, Harish Trivedi wrote:

  Did not Frank Swinnerton in The Georgian Literary Scene count the total number of characters in the novel as four -- if I remember right.  They were all too vague for him, obviously, and tended to merge into each other. 

  Harish Trivedi

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