'...Or shall we read them, but read them in a different way, with a different aim? Shall we read them in the first place to satisfy that curiosity which possesses us sometimes when in the evening we linger in front of a house where the lights are lit and the blinds not yet drawn, and each floor of the house shows us a different section of human life in being? Then we are consumed with curiosity about the lives of these people--the servants gossiping, the gentlemen dining, the girl dressing for a party, the old woman at the window with her knitting. Who are they, what are they, what are their names, their occupations, their thoughts, and adventures?'
--Virginia Woolf
--Virginia Woolf
2 comments:
From my blog:
[Pound's] ABC of Reading is frightfully passionate and forward thinking. Take this quote about criticism:
A great deal of critical rancour has been wasted through a failure to distinguish between two totally different kinds of writing.
A. Books a man reads to develop his capacities: in order to know more and perceive more, and more quickly that he did before he read them.
and
B. Books that are intended and that serve as REPOSE, dope, opiates, mental beds.
You don't sleep on a hammer or lawn-mower, you don't drive nails with a mattress. Why should people go on applying the SAME critical standards to writings as different in purpose and effect as a lawn-mower and a sofa cushion?
I find on the pot to be the most private and entertaining way to read a book.
Love,
Rebecca
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