Reading Buddies Wrap-Up: “Moments of Being” by Virginia Woolf

Okay guys. I totally failed this month. After giving myself permission to skip around in Moments of Being a couple of weeks ago, I proceeded to get distracted. I had a crazy last week at my job. I’ve spent lots of time helping with a wedding I’m in later this month. But really, the blame lies here:

Yes, that is Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore: sequel to Graceling and companion to Fire, my very favoritest books of all time. Yes, I know it came out a month ago, but a mix-up with a preorder got the book into my hands only recently. I’ve been waiting for it for years. I simply could not resist.

(If, by the way, you haven’t read this series yet, please stop reading this post, go get a copy of Graceling (might as well pick up the others while you’re out, since you’re going to want to read them ASAP), clear your calendar, and read it cover to cover.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Finished? See?? Isn’t it amazing???

Now you know why I neglected poor Virginia Woolf this month.)

Here’s the thing. I really want to read Moments of Being. I ended up skipping “Reminiscences” and starting in on “A Sketch of the Past,” and whereas I struggled with the former, I absolutely adore what I’ve read of the latter. The tone is much more Woolf-esque, more flowing and introspective. It draws me in and dazzles me with its insight and loveliness.

I mean, how can you not be intrigued by a mini memoir whose fourth paragraph begins:

“Here I come to one of the memoir writer’s difficulties — one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: ‘This is what happened’; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened.” (65)

A few pages later, Woolf launches into what I read as a description of mindfulness vs. mindlessness, a topic I’m exploring in my own life and occasionally on my new site. Totally unexpected — so cool to find the topic in such an unexpected place.

So, I know I want to read this book in the near future. But this month, Woolf and I just weren’t meant to be. (Has that ever happened to you?)