The Book Page -- July 21, 2024

Locator: 48207BOOKS.

Matt Seaton:

• a senior editor of The Atlantic;
• former editor, nybooks.com.

"The Culture Survey," Isabel Fattal, The Atlantic, Matt Seaton, July 21, 2024, reviews a number of items for his weekly "culture survey."  This was one snippet from that long article published today, Sunday:

I'm happy to say that I've read Villette. Years ago. During a period in which I was reading voraciously. 

I had the same experience with Mrs Dalloway. I never understood the "appeal" of this much-read, much-reviewed novel by Virginia Woolf. It took me three readings to finally "get it," and that only because the third "reading" I typed out the entire novel. That gook me six months. I typed a few pages each day for six months before I finally completed it.

Several pages into the novel I realized it was a prose poem and typed the entire novel in "free verse," which I've uploaded to the internet.

I may have to go back and re-read Villette. But if I do, I'm also obliged to go back and re-read Silas Marner.