Tuesday, February 18, 2014

From the Archives: Part 121 of The Self and its Sources




The end of the novel.

While Virginia Woolf was writing “The Waves”, TS Eliot was writing “Ash Wednesday”.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

From the Archives: Part 120 of The Self and its Sources




Bernard: a man without a self. The little light of dawn, seen as the Nietzsche's "eternal return", elicits a new desire to be tantalized and thwarted. The romanticism of death and nihilism

Friday, February 14, 2014

From the Archives: Part 119 of The Self and its Sources




Charles Taylor’s study of the modern self: the modern self insists on a position of subjectivity exclusively, to the extent that one can only refer to one’s self in the third person.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

From the Archives: Part 118 of The Self and it Sources




Bernard stands at the back of St. Paul’s cathedral ready to verify and inform curiosity. Unable to rise on the shaft of someone else’s prayer he returns to the bustling street, swinging his stick, flowing with the stream of consciousness.

Monday, February 10, 2014

From the Archives: Part 117 of The Self and its Sources




Bernard at St. Paul’s Cathedral. He has come to the right spot for Virginal Woolf to end the novel. Can she do it? Bernard’s knee-jerk antipathy for received truth. Compare to Kierkegaard’s ‘purity of heart is to will one thing’.

Saturday, February 08, 2014

From the Archives: Part 116 of The Self and its Sources




Studied nonchalance – the appearance of disinterest – pretending that one is not pretending. Hiding our lack of self-sufficiency

Thursday, February 06, 2014

From the Archives: Part 115 of The Self and its Sources




Virginia Woolf’s attempt to conclude the novel: Bernard seizes his chance. At rush hour he dashes to the barber. It is shriving time. The melodrama is played out in mirrors.

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Sunday, February 02, 2014

From the Archives: Part 113 of The Self and its Sources




Great novels always spring from an obsession that has been transcended.
– René Girard