Virginia Woolf’s thoughts on fiction

Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, Chapter 3 (1929)

 

Fiction, like a delicate spider’s web is so light and impalpable, but it yet needs to anchor to reality to be perceptible. Some webs seem to float in air by itself, and it is barely possible to perceive where exactly the web is attached to when the fiction stands very close to life. The existence of the web becomes obvious when it floats gently in the air, its attachments clearer when we attempt to trace the points where the fragile silks meet.

To be able to create a web requires the craftsmanship of a spider. The works of writers like Virginia Woolf make us believe that their webs hang in mid-air. The webs of expression created by Virginia prove to have existence without materialistic attachment. Her effortless prose conveys the deeper meanings of life, even without the very mention of anything human. She draws images in air, and talks in metaphors. Her narrative is highly symbolic and imaginative, written chiefly in verse. Her command in language and futuristic feminist concepts makes her my favorite writer of the twentieth century.

This analysis of Virginia Woolf’s quote was written for Terra Curanda in March 2014. 

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Today

Today I crumpled a poem and used it as fuel to boil a cup of tea.

Untitled

It is discouraging to know
that I am a mediocre,
And will never do
anything of extraordinary value.
Like the painter who knows
that he is no da Vinci.
I sometimes get appalled
at the burden of life here
living as if I were the whole world,
Like the spider who got
entangled in his own web…
I hate to see things the way
everyone do,
although it is easier to see
things that way around.
It is tough to go against
what I am told to see or believe.
Much of what I think to be true
are lies.
I am done with the poem.
Friends, did I make any sense?

Eyes

Painted on Apple iPad using Apple pencil. 

Your eyes, filled with ocean
are dynamic, restless and blue.
I mistook that the Great Artist, the God-
had made a mistake in His unique creation
by painting them ocean blue, not muddy brown.
Poured in your eyes is the turbulence of the ocean.
I wonder the salty drops you weep belong to the deep blue sea.

Masterpiece

I want to lay the language open with a knife,
and make her bleed through a gore so deep.
(I could do that too, I could be cruel.)
So that I could drink the syrup of poetry
that runs through her veins, to my minds full.
She would lie motionless, (her face calm and serene)
like a frog, etherized on the dissection table.
(Would she endure the boundless pain?)
I shall not stop until I have licked
her syrupy blood to the very last drop.
I shall cut open every bone to see,
if the marrow encloses the secrets of prose.
I shall dissect her heart and brain,
to see if a bit of soul rests there.
If I find one, I would give it wings,
to fly to the aboard of happiness, the sky.
At the end, I shall be able to publish,
A pound of freshly peeled flesh, which smells-
of blood, cut neatly from her heart.
And that would be my masterpiece.

A walk by the seashore

The evening sun had robbed the blue colour of the sky and had put in its place tints of crimson red mixed with shades of grey. A few golden streaks of light added to the beauty of the painted sky. The fluid line of the horizon was getting erased slowly as the sun plunged into the sea, burning or drowning to death , hard to tell which. A solitary bird, which perched itself upon the tallest rock on the shore, was looking sun ward, without blinking its eyes. A group of cranes was flying homeward in a symmetric V shaped pattern, symbolising oneness. The wind was blowing in full speed, letting me hear its murmur . Suddenly, I felt jealous of the freedom of the wind. A few evening stars were seen pasted on the sky and the fingernail sized moon had already made his appearance.

This is that moment of the day when the beach looks most beautiful………