Virginia Woolf wrote:
“There is one peculiarity which real works of art possess in common. At each fresh reading one notices some change in them, as if the sap of life ran in their leaves, and with skies and plants they had the power to alter their shape and colour from season to season. To write down one’s impressions of Hamlet as one reads it year after year, would be virtually to record one’s own autobiography, for as we know more of life, so Shakespeare comments upon what we know.”
[Source: Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on How to Read ]
If you could record your autobiography by reviewing one piece of literature, year after year, which piece of literature would you choose?
I think I would pick Mrs. Dalloway, one of Woolf’s own. That book changed my life. It’s about life, death and the beauty that is everywhere if we stop to look.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 