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The Lady in the looking glass
Virginia Woolf
I have, over the years read a lot of books by Virginia Woolf. My favorite is still 'Orlando' her love letter to Vita.
This small book is a very different work to that, as it is set mainly within the realms of her reality at the time.
The first story is of someone looking at a friend or is it their own reflection (as my mother suggested) through the window of a looking glass, the description of this view is so perfect, all appears so still like some sort of parallel universe really, the genius of Virginia Woolf is seeing the depth within the minutia of life. within this short story we get to glimpse a whole lifetime of the woman described.
I wasn't too sure what the story 'A Society' was deriving at but it seemed to be questioning the notion; more so at the time but still prevalent today, that man is the superior intellect. This took an almost sarcastic stance at pointing out the error of this notion.
The story I enjoyed most was 'The Mark on the wall' this is a perfect example of how a little whimsy took Ms Woolf to the fundamentals of life... the way she let her mind flow, from merely gazing at a blob on the wall...
The last story 'Lappin and Lapinova' looks at marriage and the illusions we use to keep them intact.
Here are a couple of the memorable lines from the book:
‘People should not leave looking glasses hanging in their rooms any more than they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime.’
‘If she concealed so much and knew so much one must prize her open with the first tool that came to hand - the imagination.’
 This could be my longest review yet, there is so much to discuss here! This tiny book deals with huge issues, in fact it's pages discuss life in all its many facets!
The Duino Elegies are a set of ten elegies written in German by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke from 1912 to 1922. Rilke had been visiting Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis in the Duino castle near Trieste in January 1912. During his visit she recounted that he had taken a stroll near the castle, along the steep cliffs that dropped down to the beach.
Rilke told later of hearing a voice calling to him as he walked near the cliffs, he used it's words as the opening of the first elegy: " Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?. Within a few days he produced the first two elegies and some fragments which would find their way into the others including the opening section of the tenth. After this, inspiration for the cycle stopped abruptly and could not be recaptured although he continued with other poetic drafts.
The completion of the elegies was delayed by Rilke's battle with depression and also by the First World War which shook his beliefs and his way of life; The cycle was completed in February 1922.
Rilke was staying at the Muzot castle in the Rhone Valley, Switzerland. Rilke described the return of inspiration as "a savage creative storm". I was recommended this book by my great friend Stephen Kalinich who sites it as one of his favourites I acn see why, though I had no expectations.. but isn’t it funny sometimes you find the right book at exactly the right moment!
To me this is a book to be savoured and looked back upon often, a kind of poets version of the 'Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy', it seems Rilke turns on its head a lot of our preconceptions of life, the first elegy, his insistence that we think not of death that is always ahead of us, but in fact to focus on the life we are leading at the moment, take in the little things that we take for granted, in the ninth elegy he states “ so show him something simple, something shaped by generation, by lives like our own, near at hand, within our sight. Tell him things. He will stand in amazement as you stood beside the rope maker in Rome or the potter by the Nile. Show how happy a thing can be, how innocent and how much ours".
The elegy’s deal with all things, life, death, love, sexuality At the time of writing little was spoken of sexuality, Rilke talks of how this caught him unawares, and how it is such a need in men, more so than women. He deals with his notion in the fourth elegy that ‘human life is a not attuned to existence in the same way as animal and plant life, in the very fact that we know our destiny ‘we feel ourselves/ both wither and flower. The fifth elegy talks of a group of acrobats Rilke knew whilst living in Paris, the group was also immortalised in a painting by Picasso ‘la famille des saltimbanques’ see left.. Rilke asks what is it that drives the artist to create and to what end? give this book a go but don't rush it.. take it in and ponder its conclusions....
I remember reading this book after I had lived in Paris for a while… It is a wonderful account of Anais first sexual awakening, if a somewhat confusing one, as she falls in love with both Henry Miller and his partner June who herself is also married. It is set within the years 1931 – 32 Anais describes Paris and her life with such great detail, you get to know the characters so well… Anais Nin was famous for her erotica, which was very daring for its time, Anais most famous works are her diaries, which are now alleged to be highly fictitious at times….
Sylvia Plath is known as apoet who married Ted Hughes.. but her story is a much darker one than that, and this book is simi autographically account of her life… we start out with a bubbly normal person and sadly end with a very disturbed being. Sadly Sylvia committed suicide in 1963. The book describes with such detail how mentally ill people were treated in the 50/60’s and it is a nightmarish tale. The book is very well written and also surprisingly for the subject hugely readable.
Where do I begin…there is no book in all creation to compare to this book! It covers everything under the sun with such glee. The thing about a Tom Robbins novel is that you think you are reading a witty fictional novel, which of course you are, but added to that if you delve a little deeper within those pages you will see that the man has a great deal of knowledge of life and politics and what goes on that he wants to share with us, but he tends to dispense it to us subliminally.
The story here is of Sissy Hankshaw, a young girl who was born with very large thumbs… she overhears an Uncle saying all she is good for is hitchhiking and with that she is off, up and down the highways of America. Leading a life inspired by the great Jack Kerouac, spending time in New York as a model for a homosexual called the Countess, a tycoon of female hygiene products, then off chasing Cowgirls, in particular one Bonanza Jellybean. What a great sex scene he writes for those two, played out in front of the whooping Cranes. The mere memory of this makes me reach out to the bookcase to devour this classic again. I remember lending it to a friend years ago and she told me she had written so many of the quotes out and put them up in her room as she found them so inspirational. Here are a few for your entertainment pleasure:
"So you think that you're a failure, do you? Well, you probably are. What's wrong with that? In the first place, if you've any sense at all you must have learned by now that we pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free."
“If you take any activity, any art, any discipline, any skill, take it and push it as far as it will go, push it beyond where it has ever been before, push it to the wildest edge of edges, then you force it into the realm of magic.”
“Kissing is the supreme achievement of the Western world.”
“One has not only an ability to perceive the world, but an ability to alter one's perception of it; more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them.”
How can I even begin to follow that……
The Rainbow was part of a trilogy of books – ‘The Rainbow’, ‘Women in Love’ and ‘Sons & Lovers’.
‘The Rainbow’ and ‘Women in Love’ were originally one book but were separated at the request of the publisher who declined to release ‘Women in Love’ after the reaction to ‘The Rainbow’.
I read this whilst living in Guernsey. I wonder if where you are when you read a book has some bearing on it residing within your memory. I remember this one all the more because on the day I closed the book for the last time, I went for a walk alo
ng a rain swept beach only to be greeted by a gorgeous rainbow across the sea... This amazed me, some kind of a sign...
But back to the book. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family in 1840. As with all Lawrence’s work, the main focus is with their sexuality, how life takes its toll and leads to change within people especially after marriage.
Ursula is the main focus of this work, a great chapter exploring her love of her female teacher and much to my joy her teacher acquiesced. The thing that I love about a Lawrence book and what always draws me in are his frank (for such times) discussion of sexuality. It was because of this that the book was banned for 11 years following its release in England - though it was still to be found in America. Once again, I guess I was drawn to this book due to his exploration of female sexuality but the bonus was what a great read. Very thought provoking and it made you realise that the problems we deal with in life haven’t really changed all that much since the 1840’s and I imagine won’t change much by 2140!
Many years ago I took a boat trip with my Dad; we went from Stoke Bruerne to Cropredy. I remember it was a lovely autumn day; blustery outside, so I curled up in the back cabin with a cup of tea and my new book. I had bought it in Leeds the week before. I had never read anything by Virginia Woolf before, but I had read somewhere that she had written this book as a love letter to her girlfriend, or more like illicit lover ‘Vita Sackville West’. So as I was in the process of figuring out my own sexuality and found anything with even a hint of lesbianism highly erotic I thought I would give it a go. Well Dad didn’t get to see me again for hours; I just could not put this book down.
The story starts with our protagonist as a young man, set in the time of Elizabeth I. During the many twists within the book, Orlando has a romance with the aged Queen but after she dies, falls for a Russian princess. He goes off to be an ambassador but when he returns he falls asleep for a long time. After trying to be awoken to no avail, he then finally awakens from his slumbers and finds himself to be a woman. His soul is still as it was but his gender has changed, this leads one to wonder what Freud would make of such a book.
I think it fairly obvious what Virginia was trying to say but for risk of libel I will leave it unsaid here… but what a book. What an adventure, what a break to all conformity! Go and buy it today, lock yourself away on a cold autumn day and devour this wonderful book!
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