tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077938022508723610.post2274132897586039680..comments2024-01-26T10:25:37.321+00:00Comments on Thoughts of The Common Reader: A Dialogue Upon Mount Pentelicus 1906Flohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10312538685856436794noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077938022508723610.post-55361301723979539142009-09-28T21:21:44.774+01:002009-09-28T21:21:44.774+01:00I liked the way she said the Mount was carved with...I liked the way she said the Mount was carved with an image that everyone from Socrates to the donkey herders had seen, which I understand as a way of saying that its accessibility within the Greek culture gave everyone since time immemorial the opportunity to reflect upon it. Whether they did or not is up to them and what they gain from that reflection is a matter of personal character and education.<br /><br />I also liked the way she differentiated English tourists from French and Germans; she said the English tourists would not consider themselves tourists but Greeks. Then she poked fun at their speaking Greek they learned in Harrow, presumably an English school, to the donkey herders though the donkey herders didn't understand it. At first I thought she was saying that the English were pompously trying out an ancient Greek tongue that was no longer current. I'm not sure, on second thought, however, that she was so much making fun of the English as saying something about modern day Greeks loss of their noble heritage. If they had lost the language of Socrates time when the highest values were the beautiful and the good--forget about charity, religion, domestic life, learning and science—than they had lost something priceless. <br /><br />The other point of striking interest was the appearance of the monk in his brown robes, rising out of the shrubbery like a strange animal. His presence dominated the last part of the story because in that miraculous way Virginia Woolf has of going from the particular to the eternal, she describes the gaze he casts on the Englishmen and all that it signifies.Beethovenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01181774327696867137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4077938022508723610.post-27721360197590693892009-08-17T02:29:33.969+01:002009-08-17T02:29:33.969+01:00The way she does dialogue is something I also find...The way she does dialogue is something I also find unusual and fascinating. She seems to slip freely between the inner thought of the person, that person's spoken words and her own thoughts and feelings about the character.Beethovenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01181774327696867137noreply@blogger.com