Post-graduation, post-dissertation summer life has slipped into a cascading series of various projects....cascading from increasing to decreasing "importance", that is. So right after I filed the dissertation, I thought, I'm going to turn a chapter or two of this baby into an article or two. But then I began thinking, I should make the final revisions on the whimsical young adult's novel I've been working on since the summer of 2005, or I never will. And then I thought, Gee, I sure like 30 Rock. I should watch all the back episodes since I can watch them instantly on netflix! And yesterday, I finally thought, I should, like, totally read The Waves since it's been on my reading list for, like, forever.
Uh...not that Woolf's Waves are less "important" than 30 Rock. It's just differently important. Like...Lucky Charms and African Springhares.
But I digress. The Waves!
I cracked it open at the El Cerrito Plaza BART station on Saturday afternoon, at the start of what was to be a 1 hour and 5 minute long journey to visit my best friend in South Bay for a family BBQ. And it reminded me why I *hearted* Virginia Woolf, and indeed, all those krazy modernists in the first place--the oddly comforting experience of opening a book and reading lines and having no idea what's going on, but being okay with it and knowing that, somehow, by osmosis, meaning and context will diffuse from the paper pages into your consciousness. You don't know anything...but somehow, you will. Don't worry. Be happy.
It's nice to let go for a little bit...and as the train hurtles all of us passengers towards Fremont, to immerse myself in the concentrated kernals of pure perception contained in the pages I hold before me.
An excerpt: "That is my face," said Rhoda, "in the looking-glass behind Susan's shoulder--that face is my face. But I will duck behind her to hide it, for I am not here. I have no face. Other people have faces; Susan and Jinny have faces; they are here. Their world is the real world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If the Irene Yoon writing here is the same one who did the wonderful letter to family and friends regarding the Berkeley protests on Facebook, please encourage her to publish that piece here or elsewhere so that it can be linked to. It's really important that both the factual information she gives and the powerful, hard-hitting writing receive a wider audience.
ReplyDelete