Love Is Deep, A Mystery - Who

The Kiss Was Innocent--innocent Enough--but It Was Also Full Of Something Not Unlike What Virginia Wants From London, From Life; It Was Full Of A Love Complex And Ravenous, Ancient, Neither This Nor That. It Will Serve As This Afternoon's Manifestation Of The Central Mystery Itself, The Elusive Brightness That Shines From The Edges Of Certain Dreams; The Brightness Which, When We Awaken, Is Already Fading From Our Minds, And Which We Rise In The Hope Of Finding, Perhaps Today, This New Day In Which Anything Might Happen, Anything At All.

Virginia Woolf Came Along In The Early Part Of The Century And Essentially Said Through Her Writing, Yes, Big Books Can Be Written About The Traditional Big Subjects. There Is War. There Is The Search For God. These Are All Very Important Things.

Yes," She Answers And Does Not Move. She Might, At This Moment, Be Nothing But A Floating Intelligence; Not Even A Brain Inside A Skull, Just A Presence That Perceives, As A Ghoast Might. Yes, She Thinks, This Is Probably How It Must Feel To Be A Ghost. It's A Little Like Reading, Isn't It-that Same Sensation Of Knowing People, Settings, Situations, Without Playing Any Particular Part Beyond That Of The Willing Observer.

Jenny Offill's Dept. Of Speculation Resembles No Book I've Read Before. If I Tell You That It's Funny, And Moving, And True; That It's As Compact And Mysterious As A Neutron; That It Tells A Profound Story Of Love And Parenthood While Invoking (among Others) Keats, Kafka, Einstein, Russian Cosmonauts, And Advice For The Housewife Of 1896, Will You Please Simply Believe Me, And Read It?

But There Are Still The Hours, Aren't There? One And Then Another, And You Get Through That One And Then, My God, There's Another.