Monday 27 October 2014

The Waves



Different waves on different seas ...  It doesn't quite come across in this pairing, but I was struck by the extent to which the remnant of the "old pier" at Brighton could be the wireframe for a model reconstruction of St. Catherine's Hill.  The resemblance is strange, though I may be the only person in the world in a position to notice it. There's a point there about timescales, processes, and our temporary but persistent presence on the planet which makes itself, once the connection is made, without me drawing it out further.


Apart from the broad compositional parallels, my original point of comparison was the breaking surf and the frozen wave of chalk, but then I remembered the smudge of bonfire smoke on the hill's right shoulder, which was what had drawn my eye in the first place.
Visual impressions often communicate thus briefly statements that we shall in time to come uncover and coax into words.  I note under F., therefore, "Fin in a waste of waters." I, who am perpetually making notes in the margin of my mind for some final statement, make this mark, waiting for some winter's evening.
Virginia Woolf, The Waves

4 comments:

Huw said...

Mike,

Earlier this year I read The Waves and was astonished by it as a work of art. So much of it was visual - despite being so abstract - and I started a list of images and ideas from the book to photograph. Unsurprisingly I haven't got very far as it's not straightforward, but it's something I keep poking away at. Some are perhaps impossible (swallows dipping their wings in a pool) but the recurring images of doors opening and drops falling must be translatable. I try.

Huw

Mike C. said...

Huw,

Woolf is astonishing all round -- "The Years" is my favourite. I was lucky enough to be introduced to her early enough (and ignorant enough) to bring no prejudiced baggage to my reading (gender, Bloomsbury, snobbery, etc.). The middle-class British disdain for Bloomsbury strikes me as self harm...

Mike

Huw said...

Mike,

I've not read The Years yet. After the 'major' works I'm slowly working through all her novels. Curiously I've come at Woolf from the other direction: introducing myself to her late enough I've escaped the prejudices of a young English graduate, and have (hopefully) a bit more experience to appreciate the work. The recent exhibition of photos & paintings at the NPG was interesting, although I came away mostly with an increased admiration for Vanessa Bell's painting. Woolf's actual writing felt somehow incidental to the exhibition, perhaps understandably.

Olivia Laing's To the River is an excellent read if you feel so inclined.

Huw

Mike C. said...

Huw,

No, not read "To the River" -- but another one for the pile, by the look of it...

Mike