tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post6942757070873161494..comments2023-09-11T05:46:29.728-03:00Comments on Novel Readings: More of Woolf on the Victorians: "an abandonment, richness, surprise"Rohan Maitzenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-24951003060530101952010-02-22T17:54:04.457-04:002010-02-22T17:54:04.457-04:00Happily, I discover, Scott's Journals are avai...Happily, I discover, Scott's Journals are available through Project Gutenberg. On the other hand, I have all these other things I'm supposed to be reading, plus it's "reading week" and so I have the almost uncontrollable urge to watch TV...Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-60068214710530891542010-02-22T10:52:14.801-04:002010-02-22T10:52:14.801-04:00Well, if Virginia Woolf and Steve Donoghue both st...Well, if Virginia Woolf <b>and</b> Steve Donoghue both stand by <i>The Antiquary</i>, that's good enough for me. In fact, maybe that means I can take it on faith rather than reading it for myself? Ha. Actually, I've already downloaded it to my Sony Reader, which is a good first step. Sir Walter needs little defending around here in general: my fondness for <i>Waverley</i> has been the Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-48793306041330126042010-02-21T23:23:30.547-04:002010-02-21T23:23:30.547-04:00Gulp! I trust the bombastic tone of the above comm...Gulp! I trust the bombastic tone of the above comment will absolve it of any suspicion of having been written by shy, soft-spoken, abstemious Sam Sacks! A mere Google SNAFU - it is I, Steve Donoghue, who defend Sir Walter!Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15647399315827596767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-15281030149766756512010-02-21T23:21:19.189-04:002010-02-21T23:21:19.189-04:00'The Antiquary' has some absolutely enchan...'The Antiquary' has some absolutely enchanting sequences, well worth anybody's attention - and that's the opinion of somebody whose reading and knowledge of literary history, though not phenomenal (I have SOME modesty, after all!), is mighty damn broad and deep.<br /><br />Scott will have his renaissance, and, as Rohan almost intimates about Woolf, his best stuff will be found to Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15647399315827596767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-80411442985638732892010-02-19T19:33:37.898-04:002010-02-19T19:33:37.898-04:00Yeah, that endorsement clinches it. I'm read...Yeah, that endorsement clinches it. I'm reading <i>The Antiquary</i>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-79282545667120149252010-02-19T14:18:18.150-04:002010-02-19T14:18:18.150-04:00From another of her letters, thanking Hugh Walpole...From another of her letters, thanking Hugh Walpole for the gift of <i>The Waverley Pageant</i> (1932):<br /><br />"I don't know [Scott] accurately and minutely as you do, but only in a warm, scattered, amourous way. Now you have put an edge on my love, and if it weren't that I must read MSS...I should plunge--you urge me almost beyond endurance to plunge once more--yes, I say to Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-12667040622173814692010-02-19T13:03:01.515-04:002010-02-19T13:03:01.515-04:00I am unduly influenced by Ford Madox Ford, who des...I am unduly influenced by Ford Madox Ford, who despised Scott:<br /><br />"<i>The Antiquary</i> is a more serious attempt at novel writing [than <i>Ivanhoe</i> or <i>Rob Roy</i>], but its longwindedness is unbelievable and its insistence on assuring the reader that Scotland is a historically important and gentlemanly kingdom, not to be borne." <i>The March of Literature</i>, p. 711.<brAmateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-79794633706024937912010-02-18T19:36:57.982-04:002010-02-18T19:36:57.982-04:00Funny you should ask. The very next sentence of th...Funny you should ask. The very next sentence of the letter is VW asking her correspondent to <i>please</i> read the 'awful' Antiquary one day and tell her if he doesn't hear traces of Shakespeare in the peasants' speech. (I have to paraphrase, as I left the volume at work, but that's pretty close.) I've never looked at it: does it look awful?Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-641443496612927441.post-42302457070161999662010-02-18T18:47:45.779-04:002010-02-18T18:47:45.779-04:00Woolf is so good with the 19th century novel. The...Woolf is so good with the 19th century novel. The only review I can remember where she is simply baffled is of <i>The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia</i>. As a novelist, any decent 19th century novel had <i>something</i> she could use in her own fiction. Sidney apparently did not.<br /><br />She is exactly right about the evolution of the use of dialogue in characterization. Reading Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.com