THE SKIP OF MY SENTENCE

Virginia Woolf writing in the back room at the Hogarth Press:
Richard Kennedy

"Could I get my tomorrow morning's rhythm right - take the skip of my sentence at the right moment - I should reel it off;... it's not style exactly - the right words - it's a way of levitating the thought out of one."

from Virginia Woolf's Diary, 18 Nov 1924

Isn't that just... ooh? - makes you want to skip, along with your thoughts! I'm reading Lyndall Gordon's 1980s biography of Woolf, just issued in a new edition, and finding much intriguing and useful light thrown on her life and writing. I'm not a great one for biographies, tending to find an unrelenting flood of facts the opposite of illuminating. This one, though, is exceptionally subtle and thoughtful, steering with immense knowledge and sympathy the difficult path between the trudgingly obvious and unsubstantiated speculation. It's going to send me back to the work, which I've never really got to grips with, to read it in a new light.

The lovely drawing (badly scanned - it's a very fat book) of Virginia Woolf above, which I had not seen before, is an illustration from the book. Looking up the artist, Richard Kennedy, I discovered his fantastic memoir with sketches: A Boy at the Hogarth Press, which has been reprinted by Levenger in the US (click on 'excerpts' to see pages from the book).

Comments

[leslee]

Oh, what a wonderful find - the Hogarth Press book. Great sketches, both in words and pen (pencil?). He would have made a great blogger. :-) Really, it made me wish I were more observant. I'm really too fidgety and self-conscious to be nearly observant enough.

[tamarika]

I love everything about her. So this sounds like a good book to look into. Thanks for the review. And yes, you are right. That "skip of a sentence" idea is gorgeous. Almost equates the "mining nuggets" gift you gave me once : )

[MB]

That is delightful. Thanks.