Thursday, January 14, 2010

Mrs. Dalloway and The "Right Order" of The Seven Species

At last I've made it and added a print to my "Seven Species collection". It took me a long time to arrange them in the "right" layout, and once I did it felt right to add the Biblical verse that "invented" the seven species.
I might be inspired by Moshe. After teaching (while studying for a PhD in comparative literature) for 5 years now, all kinds of subjects in the realm of literature and writing - Race, Gender, Tragedy, Comedy, Autobiographies, etc... this term he is back to "the roots": he is teaching for the first time "Biblical poetry" at the teeny tiny Judaic studies program of the university here in Eugene.

So from the beginning of January our apartment is filled with the spirits of the old high language of Biblical charcters. Deborah, Hannah, Job, David, Sisra...
While Moshe quotes Biblical poetry for breakfast I continue slowly but consistently to read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf , which seems to be (along with the books of Alice Monro) more like my taste in scriptures.
Mrs. Dalloway is at the same time a "Bible" and an "anti-Bible". On the one hand, like the Bible, it is a literary masterpiece, on top of having historic and cultural importance. On the other hand, it is so secular...
And why Mrs. Dalloway now? Well I was exposed, like many I guess - to the impossible to refuse trigger for this book - to the movie The Hours.

The Hours

I saw it 7 years ago and now again and it's definitely one of the best movies I ever saw and also one that inspired me to go forward (backward) to books of Virginia Woolf. (By the way, also at a second view - I could realize where they hid Nicole Kidman in Virginia wolf character - what an amazing acting and makeup work!)

Virginia Woolf
Picture by Wikimedia

So I postponed for 7 years the reading of Mrs. Dalloway but it came to the point that "a man has got to do what a man has got to do!" besides that I have to put myself in par with Moshe who does his heavy reading all the time.
Illustrating The Seven Species and setting it at the "right order" for a framed print felt like a very feminine craft, maybe similar a bit to the way Clarissa Dalloway had to put so many details together to make her parties....

2 comments:

nomadcraftsetc said...

This is a wonderful post! Thanks so much for sharing!

Tamar Hammer said...

Thank you Janelle, Glad you liked it!