For the record, those two things have nothing to do with one another, and the more people allude to the book, the increasingly I become put off by said book. (BTW Martina, the "Drink, Repent, Hate" joke totally clicked for me just now. It's funny, but it's a little worrisome for me that it took a month for the reference to register. B'ah!)
Like, I'm too tired to get into this right now (Chorus: COP OUT!) but really, my likes and dislikes for E. Gilbert's memoirs are beside the point of this entry. What I really want to share is the following passage:
"Virginia Woolf wrote, 'Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword.' One one side of the sword, there lies convention and tradition and order, where 'all is correct'. But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, 'all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course.' Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of the sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet that it will also be more perilous."
There. I had to preface the quote because if you Google it, all the search returns refer to E, P, L so I might as well be honest about where I found it, right? I'm a little frustrated that I can't find the full quotation in context, which may mean my interweb research skills are poor, or I was just an inattentive English major for not knowing off-hand which of Woolf's works it comes from.
I dunno. Maybe it was part of the material covered in 45C, but that was the semester I was falling asleep in the back of the lecture halls. (Wassup, squeaky chairs in LeConte!)
Anyway, if you're still reading - I think V. Woolf said some pretty legit stuff, so...make of it what you will.
Seacrest out!
i feel like that quote probably came from "Moments of Being."
ReplyDelete"Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword. On one side all is correct, definite, orderly; the paths are straight, the trees regular, the sun shaded; escorted by gentlemen, protected by policemen, wedded and buried by clergymen, she has only to walk demurely from cradle to grave and no one will touch a hair of her head. But on the other side all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course. The paths wind between bogs and precipices; the trees roar and rock and fall in ruin."
ReplyDeleteVirginia Woolf, 'Harriette Wilson', Collected Essays.
FYI
I too have fallen prey to the same references, having read, equally enjoyed and despised EPL, I find the bandwagon a little infuriating and the more hype it receives due to Hollywood's latest bastardization the less I respect the few moments in the book worth noting. Like the Woolf quote. Furthermore, the reason you cannot locate the parent work easily is because it's an excerpt of a review Woolf wrote for Harriette Wilson's memoirs, a British courtesan from 19th century. The internet indicates it is located in one of Woolf's Common Readers... that may very well be the case as I've not completed them. Incidentally, the full review was printed in The Nation, June 13, 1925 but good luck finding an internet archived version.
ReplyDeleteHappy reading and thanks for posting!