[Vwoolf] Fw: A Semi-Transparent Envelope

[stringsOf Light]

I think this quote should not be viewed separately from the text which surrounds it, as it forms a more holistic picture of what Woolf is trying to convey. Therefore I will paste it here (from the link below), including a few other interesting comments/suggestions.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/08/reviews/woolf-common.html__;!!KGKeukY!0UTKRZgFoWtDQepu8VymZlSKtrncdeN4hEZSj3Vo3smOLdqwC0LlVKCf--tGwarkTuNXh6VJ_h8HAekSNYR9PdaDxqaD3w23$ 
Look within and live, it seems (writes Mrs. Woolf), is very far from being: "like this." Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions--trivial, fantastic, evanescent or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from the old; the moment of importance came not here but there; so that if a writer were a free man and not a slave, if he could write what he chose, not what he must, if he could base his work upon his own feeling and not upon convention, there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps not a single button sewn on, as the Bond Street tailors would have it. Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged, but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible? We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; we are suggesting that the proper stuff of fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://markgaul.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/mrs-dalloway-1925-virginia-woolf/__;!!KGKeukY!0UTKRZgFoWtDQepu8VymZlSKtrncdeN4hEZSj3Vo3smOLdqwC0LlVKCf--tGwarkTuNXh6VJ_h8HAekSNYR9PdaDxvOTs6dV$ 


https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://narrative110y2013.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/virginia-woolf-what-is-she-up-to-in-to-the-lighthouse/comment-page-1/__;!!KGKeukY!0UTKRZgFoWtDQepu8VymZlSKtrncdeN4hEZSj3Vo3smOLdqwC0LlVKCf--tGwarkTuNXh6VJ_h8HAekSNYR9PdaDxupH11jc$ 

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.catherinestover.com/life-is-not-a-series-of-gig-lamps-symmetrically-arranged-life-is-a-luminous-halo/__;!!KGKeukY!0UTKRZgFoWtDQepu8VymZlSKtrncdeN4hEZSj3Vo3smOLdqwC0LlVKCf--tGwarkTuNXh6VJ_h8HAekSNYR9PdaDxrqiAik8$ 



________________________________
From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> on behalf of Claire Battershill via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Sent: 27 August 2024 15:38
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Subject: [Vwoolf] A Semi-Transparent Envelope

Dearest Woolfians,

I hope this finds you well and enjoying the last days of August.

I'm writing to ask if anyone could point me to some discussions and debates about the meaning of Woolf's frequently quoted passage about "life" from "Modern Fiction" (“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged’ but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end”)? I know the 'gig lamps' have been variously defined (as spectacles by Julia Briggs, for instance); and this little bit is frequently quoted in relation to broader writings on consciousness, but I'd love to be pointed in the direction of further discussion and interpretation of this fascinating passage. I love for instance Jane Goldman's connection of the landscape of Skye to the image and the re-appearance of the phrase "semi-transparent" in her piece on the two postcards in the Miscellany.

The halo, the gig lamps, the envelope...a lot going on!

Thanks so much for your thoughts and any references you might share,
Claire

Dr. Claire Battershill (she/her)
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Information & Department of English
Wendy M. Cecil Professor at Victoria College
University of Toronto


The University of Toronto operates on the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and I am grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Book time with Claire Battershill<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/da0e7588e2f04045916dd0f5dc142641@utoronto.ca?anonymous&ep=pcard__;!!KGKeukY!327U0RX5Q3tFGBWAsJpaCqoBnyx7H8feyYl3J1yb9kTioc2tJGEpsF1ZhKH_y0N1WmQtEkxvVeDKxun-c476cjVwjjZ7nPdsXg$>
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