Friday, 17 February 2012

A Room of One's Own

I am currently reading A Room of One's Own (ROO) for my Literary History class at CUHK.  Before this we read Mrs Dalloway, which I found very difficult to read the first time.  This is not the case with ROO, probably because Woolf wrote it as an essay, instead of a piece of fiction.  As I read through the book I find very entertaining thoughts going through her mind, that I totally agree with, such as:

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well" (which may just become my new motto in life)
 or
"Why are women, judging from [a list of books written about women], so much more interesting to men than men are to women?" -maybe because we have better things to do!

And after this thought she concluded with:
"It seemed pure waste of time to consult all those gentlemen who specialize in women" because they could not provide her with the answer to her question - why women (of her age and previous periods) were poor, and so could not afford either a college or a room of her own, through which they could produce fiction.

"Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top" - I love the romance of this quote, and I find it is most surely accurate.

I am sure there is plenty more interesting and entertaining thoughts in this essay, I just have yet to discover them considering I am only half way through.  While I should be working on my Mrs Dalloway essay which is due very soon, I find myself preferring to pick up ROO.  There is a reasonable amount of just weird thoughts and one or two garbage conclusions, but most of the essay is completely enjoyable and really every person (every woman at least) should read A Room of One's Own.

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