vswpaper's Diaryland Diary

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Beginning at the end

When I first moved to Seattle, nearly a decade ago, I actually started on this paper--I really did--reading Jacob�s Room (my copy still bristles with Post-its), then Mrs. Dalloway (still more Post-its), then sadly running out of steam. I think at least part of the problem then was starting at the wrong end. I was earnestly making notes about men and women and the characteristics associated with each exclusively, and nothing very clear was turning up. It made me doubt my thesis and get nervous about the whole enterprise, which was already fraught with emotional peril. I had no idea what I was working toward as my idea clouded over, and it's no wonder I let the thing slip away.

But this month I started with The Waves, flipping through the pages and noticing some basic outline stuff--Bernard is the first one who speaks, and the last one, and in fact the whole last "chapter" belongs entirely to him. He completely has the last word, with the final, single bracket sentence serving just as the wash after the fall of his last wave of utterance. And it turns out he starts all the "chapters" but two, and those starts are parcelled out one each to Louis and Neville. Then there's the fact that he's a writer, and the whole business of the characters in this book saying "I," which is Bernard's first word even. Several other structural aspects like that have me feeling much better now, confident that I needn't rely on finding exclusive male and female characteristics to label and trace through the characters of the several books.

The point being, by beginning with The Waves, I'm figuring out where I'll be headed; I have a pretty good sense of the other books in my head so can make some mental comparisons as I go and pick out what's an end point with a line most likely leading to it. I can then go back and see what holds up, and what new I might find in light of my goal.

I'll read The Waves again after the other seven (or maybe eight) books, and that should enable me to order everything for writing the paper.

Of course, it will probably turn out to be more difficult than it sounds right now, but I do have hope now, which was in short supply the last time I tried picking up this thread.

9:56 p.m. - 2006-05-19

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