Leselampe

von Susan Hawthorne
Australische Dichterin, Autorin mehrerer preisgekrönter Bücher u. Herausgeberin. Sie unterrichtet Kreatives Schreiben an der James Cook University, Townsville. Mit Renate Klein betreibt sie den feministischen Verlag Spinifex Press in Melbourne.

Virginia Woolf
Die Wellen
(Roman), Aus dem Englischen von Maria Bosse-Sporleder, Gesamtausgabe, hg. von Klaus Reichert, Taschenbuchausgabe, S. Fischer 1994.

This was the first Virginia Woolf book that I picked up in about 1972. It was a while before I read it (probably early 1980s) but when I did it was with the eyes of a writer. I was fascinated by the structure of "The Waves". It has six speakers, all of whom are talking about the same events and each brings to their telling such a different perception of what has occurred. There is a seventh - who is spoken about and who never speaks - but plays a key part in what the six speakers tell the reader. "The Waves" is a novel (although more accurately a dialogue) between a shared consciousness, of which each speaker reveals a part.

Writing a multi-centred novel like this was incredibly unusual at the time (1931) and without a press of her own, might never have been published. I recall being overwhelmed by the skill of Virginia Woolf in making this structure work. But she was always experimenting and her novels, stories and essays can be read over and over because they are so complex and rewarding.