lördag 12 maj 2012


Läser Virginia Woolf igen. To the lighthouse var inte lika bra som Mrs Dalloway, men scenen där Lily överväger att helt enkelt vägra vara den part mot vilken Mr Tansley får agera ut sin manliga fantasi om intellektuell överhöghet var ju helt lysande.

 Gud vad ofta olika snubbar försöker tvinga in en sådan position: man förmodas sitta storögd och titta på medan de svingar sig fram över begreppshimlen och sätter världen i gungning under ens fötter. Gärna genom att vara provokativa och "våga" ställa frågor som de själva uppfattar som djärva och prövande men som man själv bara zzzzz:ar på, eller kanske redan avhandlat och kommit vidare ifrån. Så förmodas man bli upprörd medan man egentligen bara är uttråkad.

Och den kritiken är kanske primärt femnistisk, men riktar sig även mot slappa, dåliga tänkanden, som hävdar sin rätt genom härskartekniker för att dölja den grundläggande bristen på substans.

Jag fäste mig också vid annat i boken:

 1. "And again she felt alone in the presence of her old antagonist, life".

2.
I wonder if it seems to you,
Luriana Lurilee,
That all the lives we ever lived
And all the lives to be
Are full of trees and changing leaves,
Luriana Lurilee

1 kommentar:

Anonym sa...

Hej. Jag tycker iofs att to the lighthouse är fantastisk. Jag skrev en tena en gång kring de två första sidorna i romanen som berörde mig och fortfarande berör mig. Inte bara för deras uppenbarhet utan för hur vackert uppenbart det är konstruerat. Barthes skrev en gång att skriva fiktion är inte "to express the inexpressable, it is to unexpress the expressed" eller något i den stilen. Här är de första styckena:

"Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow," said Mrs. Ramsay. "But you'll
have to be up with the lark," she added.

To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were
settled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which
he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night's
darkness and a day's sail, within touch. Since he belonged, even at the
age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate
from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows,
cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest
childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallise
and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests, James
Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated
catalogue of the Army and Navy stores, endowed the picture of a
refrigerator, as his mother spoke, with heavenly bliss. It was fringed
with joy. The wheelbarrow, the lawnmower, the sound of poplar trees,
leaves whitening before rain, rooks cawing, brooms knocking, dresses
rustling--all these were so coloured and distinguished in his mind that he
had already his private code, his secret language, though he appeared the
image of stark and uncompromising severity, with his high forehead and his
fierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the
sight of human frailty, so that his mother, watching him guide his
scissors neatly round the refrigerator, imagined him all red and ermine on
the Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of
public affairs.

"But," said his father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window, "it
won't be fine."

Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed
a hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and then, James would
have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited
in his children's breasts by his mere presence; standing, as now, lean as
a knife, narrow as the blade of one, grinning sarcastically, not only with
the pleasure of disillusioning his son and casting ridicule upon his wife,
who was ten thousand times better in every way than he was
(James thought), but also with some secret conceit at his own accuracy of
judgement. What he said was true. It was always true. He was incapable
of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered a disagreeable word
to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being, least of all of
his own children, who, sprung from his loins, should be aware from
childhood that life is difficult; facts uncompromising; and the passage to
that fabled land where our brightest hopes are extinguished, our frail
barks founder in darkness (here Mr. Ramsay would straighten his back and
narrow his little blue eyes upon the horizon), one that needs, above all,
courage, truth, and the power to endure.