そのスレで議論されていることに十分についていけるほどの見識を僕は持っていないのが悲しい。 第一、James Joyce もまだ20ページくらいしか読んだことがないし、William Faulkner も ほんの100ページほどしか読んでない。William James は、"Varieties of Religious Experience" を大昔に読んだだけ。
Virginia Woolf だけは、ほんの2か月ほど前からあれこれ拾い読みみたいなことをしている。 基本的には翻訳を読まずに原文だけを読もうと躍起になっている。一つには「俺は外大の英米 学科を出たんだから、英米のものは翻訳を読むわけには参らぬ」という意地がある。
ついでに「ダロウェイ夫人」の本文の翻訳もちらちらと拾い読みしたら、その読みやすさにびっくりした。 翻訳とは思えない自然さ。無理をして原文でひいこら言いながら、辞書とかネット上のあちこちを 引っ張り回し、この小説に出てくる単語のみならず、引用される詩歌の全文を英文で端から端まで 読んでいき、出てくる地名は片っ端から Wikipedia やネット上の地図を見てその場所を確認し、 その地名に関連する写真も眺め、出てくる有名な人名も調べ、登場人物については、それぞれ Virginia Woolf がなぜそのような名前をつけたのかを考えながら読み進める。
そして、ため息ばかりついてしまう。僕は、原文ではたったの220ページほどでしかないこんなに 短い小説でさえ、満足には理解できないのだと思い知らされ、絶望に近いものを感じる。短くて 有名で比較的に平易なはずのこの小説についてさえこんなに苦労するんだから、もっとはるかに 難しいと言われる James Joyce の "Ulysses" とか Henry James なんて僕に読める日が 来るのだろうか？
何度も言うけど、僕はこの小説に出てくる Septimus Warren Smith という狂人が好きなのだ。 そして、Mrs. Dalloway も好き。さらには彼女に恋焦がれてきた不器用な Peter Walsh も好き。 さらには、自分の考え方が正しいと信じ込む Sir. William Bradshaw や男勝りの Lady Bruton も、この世の中によくいるタイプの人たちをよく描いていて、キャラクターとしてはとても面白い。
それはともかく、Virginia Woolf を読んでいると、今、誰のことを書いているのか、いつの話 なのかがわからなくなることが多い。一応は登場人物の名前がまずは書かれるとしても、そのあとはずっと he か she で済まされるだけで、そのあとは延々と独白めいたものが続くので、誰のことを言っているか がわかりにくくなる。
＞無理をして原文でひいこら言いながら、辞書とかネット上のあちこちを 引っ張り回し、この小説に出てくる単語のみならず、引用される詩歌の全文を英文で端から端まで 読んでいき、出てくる地名は片っ端から Wikipedia やネット上の地図を見てその場所を確認し、 その地名に関連する写真も眺め、出てくる有名な人名も調べ、登場人物については、それぞれ Virginia Woolf がなぜそのような名前をつけたのかを考えながら読み進める。
Henri Bergson and British Modernism という本の中の一節（Google Booksでの検索結果） http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=myWgaRhIbBIC&;pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq =woolf+henri+bergson+pure+duration&source=bl&ots=QDejRTXITC&sig= F7UWqzxvU-jf1CYjhRz1fl2-9aU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RLf3UKuyI4fDmQXZ4oCoBQ&ved =0CEUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=true
To do this she developed a contrast beteween what she called "moments of being" and "moments of non-being." According to Woolf, the latter constitute the vast majority of our life; she referred to living in this state as being like "cotton wool" ("A Sketch," 84), something that muffles the senses and prevents a feeling of being alive, Moments of being are much rarer, said Woolf, and also much more valuable. During these brief moments one becomes alive: aware of one's immediate surroundings and also aware of one's place in history. As Woolf describes the moment, "It is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; ... it gives me, ... a great delight to put the severed parts together" ("A Sketch," 84). These brief moments appear to arrest the flow of time, but they also bring about a conflation of times as each individual moment is related to previous moments that are resurrected almost instantaneously. （その2に続く） 0176吾輩は名無しである2013/01/17(木) 18:01:41.94 （その2） Far from being a moment out of time, Woolf's moments of being are instances of pure duration, moments during which past and present time not only literally coexist, but during which one is aware of their coexistence. In a Bergsonian sense, these are moments of pure duree. They are moments when we leave l'etendu and enter into an intuitive relationship with the essence of ourselves or those things that spark the moment. By penetrating to the level of duree, Woolf seeks to depict life as it occurs on a temporal, rather than spatial, level.
このあともずっと議論が続きます。この本も面白そうですが、これを読む前に僕はまず ここに出てくる Virginia Woolf の書いた "A Sketch" つまり "A Sketch of the Past" と いう評論を読みたいと思いますが、ネット上ではまだ読めないようです。この評論は、 "Moments of Being" という評論集（http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moments_of_Being） に収められたものなので、さっそくその評論集を注文しました。Virginia Woolf の評論集 はいろいろと買いこんで、すべてを網羅したつもりだったのに、これは漏れていました。 その評論集が手元に届いたら、さっそく拾い読みだけでもいいからしたいと思います。 この評論集は、とても面白いみたいです。 0177吾輩は名無しである2013/01/17(木) 18:15:28.31>>175-176 上記の二つの書き込みの中で長々と引用してしまいましたが、そのうち最も注目してもらいたい部分を ここに再び掲げます。
Woolf's moments of being are instances of pure duration, moments during which past and present time not only literally coexist, but during which one is aware of their coexistence. In a Bergsonian sense, these are moments of pure duree.
つまり、Woolf は時間というものを二つに分けている。
(1) "moments of being" という充実した時間。Heidegger 的に言えば恐らくは「本来的な」 時間ということになるんでしょう。このような時間においては、過去と現在は共存する。 (2) "moments of non-being" という、空疎な時間。Heidegger 的に言えば「非本来的な」 時間ということになるんでしょう。このような時間のことを Woolf は "cotton wool" と呼んでいる。 このような時間は、語感を鈍磨せしめる。
こういう考え方は大好きなので、ぜひぜひこれについて書いている Virginia Woolf の "Moments of Being" という評論集の中の "A Sketch of the Past" という評論 を早く手に入れて読んでみたいと思います。 0178吾輩は名無しである2013/01/17(木) 18:31:18.64 このように Virginia Woolf の時間についての考え方は Bergson のそれに近いみたいですが、 Virginia Woolf 自身は Bergson を読んだことがないと言っているそうです。
17. Bergson's influence on Woolf remains controversial, not least because of her denial that she had ever read him. For a fuller account, see Michael H. Whitworth, "Virginia Woolf" (Authors in Context) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp.120-9
上記の一節は、 "The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf," Second Edition, edited by Susan Sellers, p.122 から引用しました。 0179Xeno ◆ulOn/T2aKSkA 2013/01/18(金) 14:05:46.31 ウルフもベルクソンは読んでなかったみたいですね。
But what have I done with my life? thought Mrs. Ramsay, taking her place at the head of the table, and looking at all the plates making white circles on it. "William, sit by me," she said. "Lily," she said, wearily, "over there." They had that -- Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle -- she, only this -- an infinitely long table and plates and knives. At the far end, was her husband, sitting down, all in a heap, frowning. What at? She did not know. She did not mind. She could not understand how she had ever felt any emotion or affection for him. She had a sense of being past everything, as she helped the soup, as if there was an eddy -- there -- and one could be in it, or one could be out of it, and she was out of it. It's all come to an end, she thought, while they came in one after another, Charles Tansley -- "Sit there, please," she said -- Augustus Carmicheal -- and sat down. And meanwhile she waited, passively, for some one to answer her, for something to happen. But this is not a thing, she thought, ladling out soup, that one says. Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy -- that was what she was thinking, this was what she was doing -- ladling out soup -- she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly." (Woolf 83) 0181吾輩は名無しである2013/01/19(土) 07:30:01.27>>180からの続き
次に、それについての解説。
Mrs. Ramsay muses over the value of her life and her marriage to her husband -- weighty issues of much significance yet completely unrelated to the external events going on around her -- all while mechanically seating her guests round the dinner table and serving them soup. Throughout the whole of the novel Woolf makes the main characters' sensory feelings and internal sequences of thought accessible to the reader as she does here, thereby, reflecting the propensity of the human mind to rove even when our physical appearance gives pretense of our attention and listening.
その原文である "The Tale of Genji" という Virginia Woolf による essay は、彼女の essays をまとめた "The Essays of Virginia Woolf," Volume 4 (1925-1928), edited by McNeillie の pp.264-268に納められています。日本語訳にするとおそらくは400字詰め 原稿用紙10枚くらいだろうと思われるものです。この原文を僕はここにすべて 書き写したいと思います。
"The Essays of Virginia Woolf," Volume 4 (1925-1928), edited by McNeillie, pp.264-268
(G-1) Our readers will scarcely need to be reminded that it was about the year 991 that Aelfric composed his Homilies, that his treaties upon the Old and New Testament were slightly later in date, and that both works precede that profound, if obscure, convulsion which set Swegen of Denmark upon the throne of England. (note 2) 0183吾輩は名無しである2013/01/22(火) 11:06:49.50 (G-2) Perpetually fighting, now men, now swine, now thickets and swamps, it was with fists swollen with toil, minds contracted by danger, eyes stung with smoke and feet that were cold among the rushes that our ancestors applied themselves to the pen, transcribed, translated and chronicled, or burst rudely, and hoarsely into crude spasms of song. ------------- (G-3) Sumer is icumen in, --------------------- Lhude sing cuccu (note 3) (G-4) -- such is their sudden harsh cry. (G-5) Meanwhile, at the same moment, on the other side of the globe the Lady Murasaki was looking out into her garden, and noticing how 'among the leaves were white flowers with petals half unfolded like the lips of people smiling at their own thoughts'. (note 4) （第2段落の始まり） (G-6) While the Aelfrics and the Aelfreds croaked and coughed in England, this court lady, about whom we know nothing, for Mr. Waley artfully withholds all information until the six volumes of her novel are before us, was sitting down in her silk dress and trousers with pictures before her and the sound of poetry in her ears, with flowers in her garden and nightingales in the trees, with all day to talk in and all night to dance in -- she was sitting down about the year 1000 to tell the story of the life and adventures of Prince Genji. (note 5) (G-7) But we must hasten to correct the impression that the Lady Murasaki was in any sense a chronicler. (G-8) Since her book was read aloud, we may imagine an audience; but her listeners must have been astute, subtle minded, sophisticated men and women. (G-9) They were grown-up people, who needed no feats of strength to rivet their attention; no catastrophe to surprise them. (G-10) に続く 0184吾輩は名無しである2013/01/22(火) 11:19:18.08 (G-10) They were absorbed, on the contrary, in the contemplation of man's nature; how passionately he desires things that are denied; how his longing for a life of tender intimacy is always thwarted; how the grotesque and the fantastic excite him beyond the simple and straightforward; how beautiful the falling snow is, and how, as he watches it, he longs more than ever for someone to share his solitary joy. （第3段落の始まり） (G-11) The Lady Murasaki lived, indeed, in one of those seasons which are most propitious for the artist, and, in particular, for an artist of her own sex. (G-12) The accent of life did not fall upon war; the interests of men did not centre upon politics. (G-13) Relieved from the violent pressure of these two forces, life expressed itself chiefly in the intricacies of behaviour, in what men said and what women did not quite say, in poems that break the surface of silence with silver fins, in dance and painting, and in that love of the wildness of nature which only comes when people feel themselves perfectly secure. (G-14) In such an age as this Lady Murasaki, with her hatred of bombast, her humour, her common sense, her passion for the contrasts and curiosities of human nature, for old houses mouldering away among the weeds and the winds, and wild landscapes, and the sound of water falling, and mallets beating, and wild geese screaming, and the red noses of princesses, for beauty indeed, and that incongruity which makes beauty still more beautiful, could bring all her powers into play spontaneously. (G-15) It was one of those moments (how they were reached in Japan and how destroyed we must wait for Mr Waley to explain) when it was natural for a writer to write of ordinary things beautifully, and to say openly to her public. (G-16) に続く 0185吾輩は名無しである2013/01/22(火) 11:39:59.69 (G-16) It is the common that is wonderful, and if you let yourselves be put off by extravagance and rant and what is surprising and momentarily impressive you will be cheated of the most profound of pleasure. (G-17) For there are two kinds of artists, said Murasaki: one who makes trifles to fit the fancy of the passing day, the other who 'strives to give real beauty to the things which men actually use, and to give to them the shapes which tradition has ordained.' (G-18) How easy it is, she said, to impress and surprise; 'to paint a raging sea monster riding a storm' (note 7) -- any toy maker can do that, and be praised to the skies.. (G-19) 'But ordinary hills and rivers, just as they are, houses such as you may see anywhere, with all their real beauty and harmony of form -- quietly to draw such scenes as this, or to show what lies behind some intimate hedge that is folded away far from the world, and thick trees upon some unheroic hill, and all this with befitting care for composition, proportion, and the like -- such works demand the highest master's utmost skill and must needs draw the common craftsman into a thousand blunders.' (note 8) （第4段落の始まり） (G-20) Something of her charm for us is doubtless accidental. (G-20-B) に続く 0186吾輩は名無しである2013/01/22(火) 12:02:50.75 (G-20-B) It lies in the fact that when she speaks of 'houses such as you may see anywhere' we at once conjure up something graceful, fantastic, decorated with cranes and chrysanthemums, a thousand miles removed from Surbiton and the Albert Memorial. (G-21) We give her, and luxuriate in giving her, all those advantages of background and atmosphere which we are forced to do without in England today. (G-22) But we should wrong her deeply if, thus seduced, we prettified and sentimentalised an art which, exquisite as it is, is without a touch of decadence, which, for all its sensibility, is fresh and childlike and without a trace of the exaggeration or languor of an outworn civilisation. (G-23) But the essence of her charm lies deeper far than cranes and chrysanthemums. (G-24) It lies in the belief which she held so simply -- and was, we feel, supported in holding by Emperors and waiting maids, by the air she breathed and the flowers she saw -- that the true artist 'strives to give real beauty to the things which men actually use and to give to them the shapes which tradition has ordained.' (G-25および G-36) On she went, therefore, without hesitation or self-consciousness, effort or agony, to tell the story of the enchanting boy -- the Prince who danced 'The Waves of the Blue Sea' (note 9), so beautifully that all the princes and great gentlemen wept aloud; who loved those whom he could not possess; whose libertinage was tempered by the most perfect courtesy; who played enchantingly with children, and preferred, as his women friends knew, that the song should stop before he had heard the end. (G-27) To light up the many facets of his mind, Lady Murasaki, being herself a woman, naturally chose the medium of other women's minds. (G-28) に続く 0187吾輩は名無しである2013/01/22(火) 12:16:52.50 (G-28) Aoi, Asagao, Fujitsubo, Murasaki, Yugao, Suyetsumuhana, (note 10) the beautiful, the red-nosed, the cold, the passionate -- one after another they turn their clear or freakish light upon the gay young man at the centre, who flies, who pursues, who laughs, who sorrows, but is always filled with the rush and bubble and chuckle of life. （第5段落の初め） (G-29) Unhasting, unresting, with unabated fertility, story after story flows from the brush of Murasaki. (G-29-B) Without this gift of invention we might well fear that the tale of Genji would run dry before the six volumes are filled. (G-29-C) With it, we need have no such foreboding. (G-30) We can take our station and watch, through Mr Waley's beautiful telescope, the new star rise in perfect confidence that it is going to be large and luminous and serene -- but not, nevertheless, a star of the first magnitude. (G-31) No; the lady Murasaki is not going to prove herself the peer of Tolstoy and Cervantes (note 11) of those other great story-tellers of the Western world whose ancestors were fighting or squatting in their huts while she gazed from her lattice window at flowers which unfold themselves 'like the lips of people smiling at their own thoughts'. (G-32) Some element of horror, of terror, or sordidity, some root of experience has been removed from the Eastern world so that crudeness is impossible and coarseness out of the question, but with it too has gone some vigour, some richness, some maturity of the human spirit, failing which the gold is silvered and the wine mixed with water. (G-33) に続く 0188吾輩は名無しである2013/01/22(火) 12:51:50.96 (G-33) All comparisons between Murasaki and the great Western writers serve but to bring out her perfection and their force. (G-34) But it is a beautiful world; the quiet lady with all her breeding, her insight and her fun, is a perfect artist; and for years to come we shall be haunting her groves, watching her moons rise and her snow fall, hearing her wild geese cry and her flutes and lutes and flageolets tinkling and chiming, while the Prince tastes and tries all the queer savours of life and dances so exquisitely that men weep, but never passes the bounds of decorum, or relaxes his search for something different, something finer, something withheld. （これで Woolf のこの essay の本文は終わり。このあとに、この評論集の編集者が つけた脚注が続きます。）
[Note 1] A signed review in "Vogue", late July 1925, (Kp C264) of "The Tale of the Genji by Lady Murasaki", translated from the Japanese by Arthur Waley [1889-1966] (vol. i, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1925). VW (= Virginia Woolf) had met Waley, an acquaintance of Bloomsbury, at a recent dinner party, and found him 'a little demure and discreet' (III VW Letters, no. 1553 to Desmond MacCarthy, 17 May 1925). On 14 June she noted in her diary that she '. . . must answer Gerald Brenan, & read the Genji, for tomorrow I make a second 200 pounds from Vogue;' and wrote that day to Brenan, urging him to: 'Put this letter where it deserves to be, in Mrs Levey's earth closet; I would not send it, if I could write a better, but it is not possible, not in this perfectly divine heat. I'm reading Waley's Japanese novel and David Copperfield' (III VW Letters, no. 1560).
[Note 2] に続く 0189吾輩は名無しである2013/01/22(火) 13:17:58.19 [Note 2] Aelfric, called Gramaticus (d. c. 1020), 'Homilies' (990-2), 'A Treatise on the Old and New Testaments' (1005-12). Aelfred (849-901), king of the West Saxons (871-901). Swegen or Svein or Sweyn (c. 960-1014), king of Denmark, 986-1014, son of Harold Bluetooth, father of Canute, became king of England in 1013 upon the capitulation of Aethelred the Unready but died before he could be crowned.
[Note 3] Anonymous lyric of the earlier part of the 13th century, the second line quoted here being generally given as: 'Lhude sing! cuccu.'
[Note 4] Waley, vol. i, p. 93. Lady Shikibu Murasaki (c. 978-?1031)
[Note 5] According to Waley (Appendix I. p. 297) Book I of Murasaki's tale was read to the Emperor in 1008.
[Note 6] This passage does not occur in Waley and has not been discovered elsewhere.
[Note 7] For both quotations, Waley, ch. ii, 'The Broom-Tree', p. 49, which has 'striving to give', 'actually use and to give' and: 'One paints the Mountain of Horai (oの上に横 棒がついています); another a raging sea-monster riding a storm; another, ferocious animals from the land beyond the sea, or faces of imaginary demons. Letting their fancy run wildly riot they have no thought of beauty, but only of how best may astonish the beholder's eye.'
[Note 8] に続く 0190吾輩は名無しである2013/01/22(火) 13:19:01.25 [Note 8] Ibid., p. 50, which has: 'like, -- such work,'.
[Note 9] For the account of this episode, ibid., ch. vii, 'The Festival of the Red Leaves', p. 211.
[Note 10] Princess Aoi was Genji's first wife. Princess Asagao resisted his attempts to court her. Fujitsubo was the Emperor's consort and an aunt of Murasaki. Yugao became a mistress of Genji. Princes Suyetsumuhana was, according to Waley (p. 12), 'A timid and eccentric lady'.
[Note 11] L. N. Tolstoy (1828-1910); Miguel Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616).
これで、 "The Tale of Genji" by Virginia Woolf "The Essays of Virginia Woolf," Volume 4 (1925-1928), edited by McNeillie, pp.264-268 の書き写しを終わります。 0191Ｇ ◆Y.6.rbvT92 2013/01/22(火) 20:34:17.16>>182 ありがとうございます。 0192吾輩は名無しである2013/01/28(月) 20:01:47.46 失礼します。スレ汚し申し訳ありません。 学校の講義に使用したテキストに、"a society”が断片的に掲載されており、 とても気になる作品だったため、全文、できれば日本語で読みたいと思い、 手を尽くして探したのですが見つけることができず、ここで質問させていただきます。
a societyの邦訳は出ていないのでしょうか… 詳しい方、教えて頂ければ有り難いです。 0193吾輩は名無しである2013/01/28(月) 20:13:26.60 Virginia Woolf の "Mrs Dalloway" の全編を6枚のCDに吹き込んだものを数日前に 手に入れて、それ以来、毎日、歩いたり食事したりするときにはそれを聞いている。
こんな短編を僕も書けたらなあ、と思う。文体はとても平易。わかりやすい。大学での購読テキスト としては、最適だと思う。ひねくれたスラングなんかないし、専門的な用語もない。装飾の多すぎる 美辞麗句もない。これがほんとに Virginia Woolf かと思うくらいにわかりやすい。
いや、ほんとは Virginia Woolf は実にわかりやすい文章を書く人のはずなんだけど、 "To the Lighthouse" と "Mrs Dalloway" と "The Waves" という重要な三部作が 雲をつかむような作品であるため、彼女の文体は深遠かつ難解であるかのようなイメージがつきまとって しまっているだけなんだろう。現に彼女の書く日記や評論 (essays) はとてもわかりやすい。
あとで時間があれば、この短編について詳しく書きたい。
"A Society"（短編）の全文を収録したウェブページ http://www.online-literature.com/virginia_woolf/857/0210吾輩は名無しである2013/02/01(金) 17:00:41.74 他のスレで誰かが紹介してくれていた本。 "Lectures on Literature" by Vladimir Nabokov その英文原書を一週間ほど前に手に入れた。まだ拾い読みしかしていないけど、パラッとめくったところで いきなり Vabokov がいい文章を引用してくれている。
Comme l'on serait savant si l'on connaissait bien seulement cinq a six livres. (What a scholar one might be if one knew well only some half a dozen books." （"Lectures on Literature" by Vladimir Nabokov の冒頭から5行目あたり）
If one begins with a ready-made generalization, one begins at the wrong end and travels away from the book before one has started to understand it. Nothing is more boring or more unfair to the author than starting ti read, say, "Madame Bovary," with the preconceived notion that it is a denunciation of the bourgeoisie. We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. ("Lectures on Literature," Vladimir Nabokov, 冒頭から12行目あたり） 0212吾輩は名無しである2013/02/06(水) 19:20:05.64 女性の言語表現（話し方や書き方）は男性から見れば曖昧であることこの上ないけど、それは 男性から見てそう思えるだけのことであって、女性には男性とはまったく違う世界観に基づく 表現の方式があるに違いない、という意味のことをすでに書いた。
MR. BOLDWOOD: You never liked me. BATHSHEBA EVERDEEN: I did; and respected you, too. MR. BOLDWOOD: Do you now? BATHSHEBA: Yes. BOLDWOOD: Which? BATHSHEBA: How do you mean which? BOLDWOOD: Do you like me, or do you respect me? BATHSHEBA: I don't know -- at least, I cannot tell you. It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs. ("Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy" （Everyman's Library の一節を、わかりやすくするために僕が台詞の一つ一つを 誰がしゃべっているかを明示しました。）
この「言葉は主に男性が造った」という主張は真実かどうかは突き詰めてみると実は本当か どうかはそう簡単には結論が下せないと思うけど、仮に言葉は男女が半々に作ったものだとしても、 その言葉を使って女性が男性にわかるように説明するのは難しい、ということは言えると思う。 それは逆に、男性が女性にわかるように男性自身の感情を言語で表現するのも難しいということになろう。 0213吾輩は名無しである2013/02/06(水) 19:23:02.35 上記の "Far from the Madding Crowd" の一節は、Chapter LI すなわち「第51章」 にある一節だ。書き忘れてた。 0214吾輩は名無しである2013/02/06(水) 19:51:56.91>>212で引用した一節は、Project Gutenberg 版では次のようになっている。
You never liked me." "I did; and respected you, too. "Do you now?" "Yes." "Which?" "How do you mean which?" "Do you like me, or do you respect me?" "I don't know -- at least, I cannot tell you. It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/27/pg27.html0215吾輩は名無しである2013/02/08(金) 11:14:48.12 William Makepeace Thackeray の "Vanity Fair" は、ずっと前から気にはなっていた。 でも、いまだに読んではいない。今さっき、Wikipedia 英語版にあるその小説についての 解説記事をすべて読んだ。単に荒筋を読んだだけなのに、何度も大笑いした。 僕の好みにぴったりの作品みたいだ。さっそく注文した。
イギリス文学作品をもとにしてBBCが作る映画はとても優れていると思うけど、その中でも、 一つの文学作品を5時間から6時間ほどかけて描く映画は、細かいところもじっくり描いてあって とてもうれしい。 0219吾輩は名無しである2013/02/13(水) 16:27:25.11 YouTube で E. M. Forster の小説に基づく映画を三つほど見て、興味が湧いたので彼の 小説を少し買ってみた。Forster は、Virginia Woolf と同じく Bloomsbury Group の 一員だ。
E. M. Forster の "A Passage to India" を手に取って拾い読みしていて、大笑いしてしまった。
Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside its cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend.
そこにある写真の一番左が、Virginia Woolf ですね。Virginia って、落ち込んでる時は すごく落ち込むけど、活動的な時はとことん活動的で明朗快活だったようですね。 0222吾輩は名無しである2013/02/19(火) 14:50:55.54 Charles Darwin の "The Origin of Species" は、世界中の人々、特に欧米人たちに 激しい衝撃を与え続けてきた本だ。19世紀の後半から20世紀の前半にかけては、 特にその衝撃が色濃いように思う。文学小説を読んでいても、登場人物たちが しきりに Darwin のこの学説を持ち出す。
ネットで無料で読める時代になったので、拾い読みしてみた。取っ付きにくそうだと 思い込んでいた Darwin の文章は、実はかなり読みやすそうだと思った。しかも、書いてある 話がかなり面白いところもある。次の一節を拾い読みでいいから、してほしい。
ある種のアリの話だ。奴隷なしでは生きていけないアリの生態をえがいている。 この種類のアリは、自分では何もしない。自分で食事することさえできない。 奴隷のアリが食べさせてくれない限り、食事ができないのだ。このほか、いろいろと 詳しく、しかも分かりやすそうな英語で書いてある。 0223吾輩は名無しである2013/02/19(火) 14:53:03.20 “SLAVE-MAKING INSTINCT. This remarkable instinct was first discovered in the Formica (Polyerges) rufescens by Pierre Huber, a better observer even than his celebrated father. This ant is absolutely dependent on its slaves; without their aid, the species would certainly become extinct in a single year. The males and fertile females do no work of any kind, and the workers or sterile females, though most energetic and courageous in capturing slaves, do no other work. They are incapable of making their own nests, or of feeding their own larvae. When the old nest is found inconvenient, and they have to migrate, it is the slaves which determine the migration, and actually carry their masters in their jaws. So utterly helpless are the masters, that when Huber shut up thirty of them without a slave, but with plenty of the food which they like best, and with their larvae and pupae to stimulate them to work, they did nothing; they could not even feed themselves, and many perished of hunger. Huber then introduced a single slave (F. fusca), and she instantly set to work, fed and saved the survivors; made some cells and tended the larvae, and put all to[…]”
Excerpt From: Darwin, Charles. “The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, 6th Edition.” Project Gutenberg より 0224吾輩は名無しである2013/02/20(水) 11:20:03.92 "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hide" を書いた Robert Kouis Stevenson の結婚観。男は、結婚すると、 その安楽さのあまり、心身共にダメになるという考え方を述べた一節。その考え方が 正しいかどうかはともかくとして、言い得て妙な部分もあるので、笑ってしまった。
But marriage, if comfortable, is not at all heroic. It certainly narrows and damps the spirits of generous men. In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being. It is not only when Lydgate misallies himself with Rosamond Vincy, but when Ladislaw marries above him with Dorothea, that this may be exemplified. The air of the fireside withers out all the fine wildings of the husband’s heart. He is so comfortable and happy that he begins to prefer comfort and happiness to everything else on earth, his wife included. Yesterday he would have shared his last shilling; to-day “his first duty is to his family,” and is fulfilled in large measure by laying down vintages and husbanding the health of an invaluable parent. Twenty years ago this man was equally capable of crime or heroism; now he is fit for neither. His soul is asleep, and you may speak without constraint; you will not wake him. It is not for nothing that Don Quixote was a bachelor and Marcus Aurelius married ill.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde By Robert Louis Stevenson 0226吾輩は名無しである2013/03/02(土) 20:32:25.32 肝心の Virginia Woolf は最近はあまり読まず、他のものばかり読んでいる。でも、主に 19世紀から20世紀初め頃のイギリスの文章を読むことが多い。最近はイギリスに凝っているのだ。 できればもっと古い時代のものもどんどん読んでいきたい。とはいえ、いくら頑張っても Shakespeare でさえ苦しいので、それ以前の Chaucer あたりになると、原文の英語が古すぎて、 本格的なその時代の英語の文法などをしっかり勉強しない限りは読めない。
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu という、1689年から1762年までいきた英国の書簡文作家だ。 ここに彼女の日記を少しだけ引用する。こんなに古い時代のものなのに、まるで 現代の作家の日記みたいだ。これなら、日本の高校や大学で英語のテキストとして教えるのに 格好の教材になるだろう。書いてある内容も、実に面白い。 0227吾輩は名無しである2013/03/02(土) 20:35:27.82 LETTER 1.
To the Countess of ――.
Rotterdam, Aug. 3. O. S. 1716.
[1.1] I flatter myself, dear sister, that I shall give you some pleasure in letting you know that I have safely passed the sea, though we had the ill fortune of a storm. We were persuaded by the captain of the yacht to set out in a calm, and he pretended there was nothing so easy as to tide it over; but, after two days slowly moving, the wind blew so hard, that none of the sailors could keep their feet, and we were all Sunday night tossed very handsomely. I never saw a man more frighted than the captain. For my part, I have been so lucky, neither to suffer from fear nor seasickness; though, I confess, I was so impatient to see myself once more upon dry land, that I would not stay till the yacht could get to Rotterdam, but went in the long-boat to Helvoetsluys, where we had voitures to carry us to the Briel. I was charmed with the neatness of that little town; but my arrival at Rotterdam presented me a new scene of pleasure. All the streets are paved with broad stones, and before many of the meanest artificers doors are placed seats of various coloured marbles, so neatly kept, that, I assure you, I walked almost all over the town yesterday, incognito, in my slippers without receiving one spot of dirt; and you may see the Dutch maids washing the pavement of the street, with more application than ours do our bed-chambers. The town seems so full of people, with such busy faces, all in motion, that I can hardly fancy it is not some celebrated fair; but I see it is every day the same. 'Tis certain no town can be
more advantageously situated for commerce. Here are seven large canals, on which the merchants ships come up to the very doors of their houses. The shops and warehouses are of a surprising neatness and magnificence, filled with an incredible quantity of fine merchandise, and so much cheaper than what we see in England, that I have much ado to persuade myself I am still so near it. Here is neither dirt nor beggary to be seen. One is not shocked with those loathsome cripples, so common in London, nor teased with the importunity of idle fellows and wenches, that chuse to be nasty and lazy. The common servants, and little shop-women, here, are more nicely clean than most of our ladies; and the great variety of neat dresses (every woman dressing her head after her own fashion) is an additional pleasure in seeing the town. You see, hitherto, I make no complaints, dear sister; and if I continue to like travelling as I do at present, I shall not repent my project. It will go a great way in making me satisfied with it, if it affords me an opportunity of entertaining you. But it is not from Holland that you may expect a disinterested offer. I can write enough in the stile of Rotterdam, to tell you plainly, in one word that I expect returns of all the London news. You see I have already learnt to make a good bargain; and that it is not for nothing I will so much as tell you,
(66) Then a shout sounded across the watchers, a woman’s voice: God, oh God, it’s a shirt, it’s just a shirt. (67-1) It was falling, falling, falling, yes, a sweatshirt, fluttering, and then their eyes left the clothing in midair, (67-2) because high above the man had unfolded upward from his crouch, and a new hush settled over the cops above and the watchers below, a rush of emotion rippling among them, (67-3) because the man had arisen from the bend holding a long thin bar in his hands, jiggling it, testing its weight, bobbing it up and down in the air, a long black bar, so pliable that the ends swayed, (67-4) and his gaze was fixed on the far tower, still wrapped in scaffolding, like a wounded thing waiting to be reached, (67-5) and now the cable at his feet made sense to everyone, and whatever else it was there would be no chance they could pull away now, no morning coffee, no conference room cigarette, no nonchalant carpet shuffle; (67-6) the waiting had been made magical, and they watched as he lifted one dark- slippered foot, like a man about to enter warm gray water.
執筆用具に関していま一つ注目すべきものと言えば、彼女が好んで使ったヴァイオレットインクだが、これに関しては面白そうなサイトを見つけられないでいる。 とはいえThe Letters of Virginia Woolf. vol.3に次のような記述がみられるので、彼女が何を使っていたのか、ということははっきりしている：
"This ink is Waterman's fountain pen ink. Cheap, violet, indelible. (Which sounds as if I were paid to write their advertisements.)" (To Dorothy Brett. 5? March 1923; p.18)
なんだかとてつもなくとりとめのない書き込みをしてしまった。 02532432014/05/04(日) 23:05:35.44 訂正 *「どちらかと言うと機能を重視していたらしく」→誤り どこか別のところで読んだ話を混同したか、別の要因によってかはわからないが、とにかく言及先のサイトで このようなことは言われていない。"Woolf probably regarded her binding efforts (in most cases) as temporary steps taken for maintaining the integrity of her books, rather than as examples of fine craftsmanship"というのが 元の表現。 02542432014/05/04(日) 23:26:21.91 訂正に次ぐ訂正 *「調子が悪く」→誤り 引用されている言葉は確かにウルフが自分のタイプライターに不満を抱いていたことを示唆しているが、 記事の筆者はウルフのタイプライターの「調子が悪」かったとは言っていない。そうではなく、ウルフは レナードのレミントン(銃器メーカーのあのレミントン)を気に入っていた、と言っている。
Jacob's Room 1922年 邦題『ジェイコブの部屋』 Mrs Dalloway 1925年 邦題『ダロウェイ夫人』 To the Lighthouse 1927年 邦題『灯台へ』 Orlando 1928年 邦題『オーランドー』
The Common Reader (1925) A Room of One's Own (1929) 邦題『自分自身の部屋』
Freshwater: A Comedy (1923年初演, 1935年改訂, 1976年出版)
Selections Autobiographical and Imaginative from the Works of George Gissing Alfred Gissing編 序文ヴァージニア・ウルフ(London & New York, 1929) 0256吾輩は名無しである2014/09/30(火) 07:07:10.78 『灯台へ』を初読しましたが、よいですね、これは 0257吾輩は名無しである2014/09/30(火) 07:35:56.97 たいへんよろしいでしょう 0258吾輩は名無しである2014/11/21(金) 00:12:50.98 俺も『灯台へ』読了 大傑作ですな、読んでよかった 0259吾輩は名無しである2014/11/21(金) 20:28:08.31 『灯台へ』は原書で読みました。今後何度も再読するでしょう。 Youtubeにあがっていた映画も素晴らしい。 また『灯台へ』に似た質感の作品としては、ウルフと交友があったキャサリン・マンスフィールドの作品があります。 こちらの方が読みやすい。丹精に彫琢された静謐と自省の芸術です。 0260吾輩は名無しである2014/11/21(金) 20:34:52.82 『灯台へ』は岩波で読んで感動したから原書トライしたけどあっさり挫折 むずいわ、この人の英文 0261吾輩は名無しである2014/11/21(金) 22:38:53.39 灯台へ、はいいよなあ。 おれの生涯ベスト小説３０にまだ入ってるぞ。
新訳で読めるのを楽しみにしていただけに落胆が激しい。だが、だからといってハードルを高く設定していたつもりはない。 ちょっとやそっと悪いくらいなら新訳で読める喜びが勝ったはずだ。ところが実際にはどうか。 初回の読書から当惑させられ、五十頁も進まないうちに我慢ができなくなった。 これはちょっと駄目かもしれないと覚悟して初めから読み返していくと一ページごとに粗が見つかるようになった。 そもそも日本語になっていない。文意が通ってないのだから読めるはずもない。 この新訳の担当者は他作品の翻訳でも同様の仕事をしている。いわば前科持ちだ。 0301吾輩は名無しである2016/05/10(火) 22:51:00.28 History Lovers Club Virginia Woolf 1935 by Man Ray http://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChrmwZZVAAA7zc4.jpg 2016年5月5日 0302吾輩は名無しである2016/05/10(火) 23:21:58.62http://sixx6sixx.blog35.fc2.com/blog-entry-169.html Gleb Kolyadin (Piano)とMarjana Semkina (Vo)によるロシアのチェンバーデュオ、前作『Belighted』から2年ぶりの3rd。
今回のアルバムタイトル『Lighthouse』は Virginia Woolfの著作『To the Lighthouse（邦題「灯台にて」）』を モチーフにしていることが推測され、 また収録曲の歌詞も生きることに対する孤独・疑問・痛みが ストレートに描かれた悲痛なものとなっており Virginia、Sylviaのような精神疾患を患った人間の思いが反映されている。
アルバム序盤と終盤に配置されたI Came Before the Waterにある
And so, walking into water, I accept my final defeat
This album is dedicated to the subject of mental illness and we'd like to pass on the message to all the lost souls out there: you are not alone, ever.
