The Common Reader by V. Woolf page 531

Exercises

• In conventional novels the essential, important thing sought by the reader is missing.

• Life is described by Virginia Woolf as the essential thing that refuses to stay in stable and assured limits, it goes beyond and we cannot control it. Moreover, life is not regular, it is a “semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end”, line 35.

• “the life of Monday or Tuesday” line 27: V. Woolf refers to ordinary days.

• The novelist has the task of conveying the varying and unknown spirit of life in a mixed and external way. In addition, fiction should be based on feelings and not on conventions: it should follow no plot and no fixed style.

• MONET and VIRGINIA WOOLF: the painting at page 532 shows an ordinary subject (the Parliament) depicted in a no conventional way. Indeed Monet refuses the traditional way of painting, like the other Impressionists, and chose to displays subjects by following his feelings and emotions. The reaction of the artist to the subject is put on the forefront: therefore, the scene is not represented in a realistic way, but according to Monet’s sensations.