Ah yes, the anchovies! Along with the elephant and the Isle of Wight ferry. It's not my insight (probably came from somewhered on the "Virginia Woolf Reading Group' Substack) but VW fills her narratie with striking and surprising physical objects. At the same tiem the story has only 3 similes (the crater on the moon, the pigeon's breast, and the box at the opera, all in the first 3 paras) and I was surprised to find even so many.
How interesting. I didn't know any of that about VW's father.
I found this story really interesting. This line caught my attention: the woman writes to her sister: 'The mountain just now reminded me how when I was alone, I would fix my eyes upon [our mother's] death, as a symbol.' It struck me that the letter writer has things upside-down - surely 'death' is nearly the only thing that can never be a symbol of something else; it is complete in itself and carries always its own valency. It cannot be a stand in - everything else is lesser.
I liked the atmosphere created by the presence of the mountain everywhere - up at such a high altitude, things lacking consequence drop away. One is near something grave and momentous. It's visible through every window. Everything that seems important in everyday life loses its substance up high: 'So little that was solid could be dragged to this height.'
Thanks for the restack, Tash! This one has now ceased to be my least popular posting ever.... Yes, for me the letter writer's failure to make sense of the Matternorn is the point of the story,. (Insofar as a VW story has a point, rather standing simply as itself, like the Matterhorn.)
Leslie Stephen was such an important figure in Woolf's life - she writes somewhere that if he'd lived longer that would have prevented her from becoming a writer herself... And her account of him ('My Father: Leslie Stephen') can be very illuminating when considering Mr Ramsay in To the Lighthouse.
Well, this was interesting. Do you think that Woolf's being - not disingenuous, but maybe staking out her territory, in her letter to Roger Fry? She knows her work's freighted with meaning but she's not interested in anything so crude as X=Y. Fascinating piece, though!
Roger Fry was a close friend whom she admired deeply. Me, I take her instruction not to read symbolic meanings into her work at face value! For several years she wanted to write the mountain story and Susan Hoyle has provided an extract from an earlier failed attempt (comment on my previous 'Virginia Woolf meets the Matterhorn'). Ah! Let's have a naive narrator trying - and abjectly failing - to apply symbolic meaning to the Matterhorn. So in this story, what are the elephant and the anchovies doing in there? I don't know, no idea at all. But I'm convinced they're there as themselves, a sharp flavoured fish and a large mammal respectively!
I’m delighted to have discovered both this story and your newsletter—since moving to the French Alps (Grenoble) I’ve had my ears pricked for all the intersecting histories of the Alps and mountains in general. I knew Leslie Stephen was a mountaineer (though not until I moved here!) but not that Virginia Woolf had written about it. Thank you!
Also, many of my colleagues in Grenoble are alpinists and one of them died in a climbing accent a year ago, so the story was especially poignant.
So sorry you lost your colleague. Climbing isn't kind to the ones left behind.
Leslie Stephen's book is a good read and easy to pick up 2nd hand so long as you don't insist on a 1st edition! I actually came to Woolf via her Dad ...
Thanks for the kind words about the Substack. I too surprised there isn't more mountain themed stuff here - do pass on anything you come across. (You were going to post about the main plant families did that happen and I missed it?)
Thanks Ronald. I've actually just decided to post an essay about the loss in a couple of days, given the anniversary.
Nice to hear Leslie Stephen's book is a good read, I've had it on my list and will bump it up. (Currently getting close on finishing The Magic Mountain.)
I'll keep looking for mountain content here! And yes, I'm still building up to posting about Alps plant families, I keep finding I need/want to give more biological background, haha. The next plant post should be a profile of lycopods in the Alps.
Honorable mention to the anchovies being served up along with the Rev. Bishop.
Ah yes, the anchovies! Along with the elephant and the Isle of Wight ferry. It's not my insight (probably came from somewhered on the "Virginia Woolf Reading Group' Substack) but VW fills her narratie with striking and surprising physical objects. At the same tiem the story has only 3 similes (the crater on the moon, the pigeon's breast, and the box at the opera, all in the first 3 paras) and I was surprised to find even so many.
How interesting. I didn't know any of that about VW's father.
I found this story really interesting. This line caught my attention: the woman writes to her sister: 'The mountain just now reminded me how when I was alone, I would fix my eyes upon [our mother's] death, as a symbol.' It struck me that the letter writer has things upside-down - surely 'death' is nearly the only thing that can never be a symbol of something else; it is complete in itself and carries always its own valency. It cannot be a stand in - everything else is lesser.
I liked the atmosphere created by the presence of the mountain everywhere - up at such a high altitude, things lacking consequence drop away. One is near something grave and momentous. It's visible through every window. Everything that seems important in everyday life loses its substance up high: 'So little that was solid could be dragged to this height.'
Thanks for the restack, Tash! This one has now ceased to be my least popular posting ever.... Yes, for me the letter writer's failure to make sense of the Matternorn is the point of the story,. (Insofar as a VW story has a point, rather standing simply as itself, like the Matterhorn.)
Leslie Stephen was such an important figure in Woolf's life - she writes somewhere that if he'd lived longer that would have prevented her from becoming a writer herself... And her account of him ('My Father: Leslie Stephen') can be very illuminating when considering Mr Ramsay in To the Lighthouse.
Well, this was interesting. Do you think that Woolf's being - not disingenuous, but maybe staking out her territory, in her letter to Roger Fry? She knows her work's freighted with meaning but she's not interested in anything so crude as X=Y. Fascinating piece, though!
Roger Fry was a close friend whom she admired deeply. Me, I take her instruction not to read symbolic meanings into her work at face value! For several years she wanted to write the mountain story and Susan Hoyle has provided an extract from an earlier failed attempt (comment on my previous 'Virginia Woolf meets the Matterhorn'). Ah! Let's have a naive narrator trying - and abjectly failing - to apply symbolic meaning to the Matterhorn. So in this story, what are the elephant and the anchovies doing in there? I don't know, no idea at all. But I'm convinced they're there as themselves, a sharp flavoured fish and a large mammal respectively!
I’m delighted to have discovered both this story and your newsletter—since moving to the French Alps (Grenoble) I’ve had my ears pricked for all the intersecting histories of the Alps and mountains in general. I knew Leslie Stephen was a mountaineer (though not until I moved here!) but not that Virginia Woolf had written about it. Thank you!
Also, many of my colleagues in Grenoble are alpinists and one of them died in a climbing accent a year ago, so the story was especially poignant.
So sorry you lost your colleague. Climbing isn't kind to the ones left behind.
Leslie Stephen's book is a good read and easy to pick up 2nd hand so long as you don't insist on a 1st edition! I actually came to Woolf via her Dad ...
Thanks for the kind words about the Substack. I too surprised there isn't more mountain themed stuff here - do pass on anything you come across. (You were going to post about the main plant families did that happen and I missed it?)
Thanks Ronald. I've actually just decided to post an essay about the loss in a couple of days, given the anniversary.
Nice to hear Leslie Stephen's book is a good read, I've had it on my list and will bump it up. (Currently getting close on finishing The Magic Mountain.)
I'll keep looking for mountain content here! And yes, I'm still building up to posting about Alps plant families, I keep finding I need/want to give more biological background, haha. The next plant post should be a profile of lycopods in the Alps.
Amazing