버지니아 울프, 문장의 기억

정말 비극은

버지니아 울프. 유명한 영국 작가이다. 하지만, 작품보다는 스스로 목숨을 끊은 생의 마지막 선택, 혹은 영화에서 버니지아 울프로 분한 니콜 키드먼의 분장으로 더 유명할지도 모르겠다. 그녀의 작품 속 문장을 뽑아 둔 책을 집어 들었다. 40대가 되고서야. 20대엔 부담스런 숙제였는데 말이다. 그녀의 작품을 모두 읽어보진 못했다. 하지만, 대단한 작가임엔 틀림 없다. 내겐 '의식의 흐름' 기법보다 중요하게 와닿은 게 따로 있었다. 삶을 대하는 주체적 태도와 당대 여성의 삶에 대한 그녀의 통찰력이다. 여성이 독립적이려면 경제적 여건이 너무도 중요하다는 건 그냥 현실적인 조언 정도가 아니라 진리인 것을. '그 누구도 아닌 자기 자신으로 사는 게' 누구에게나 중요함을. 하지만 그녀는 140여년 전 사람. 요즘도 사회가 온전히 인정하지 않는 현실에서 그녀의 앞선 의식은 얼마나 외로웠을 것인가. 또한, 빛나는 통찰력으로 써내려간 단단한 문장을 보며 이런 게 작가의 재능이자 사명이 아닐까 생각했다. 작금에는 그저 글을 쓴다면 작가라 부르는, 어찌보면 '작가 과잉'의 시대가 아닐런지. 그 고독과 작가로서의 무게감을 곱씹으며 필사해본다.

필사

p.16 "불행해질지도 모르지만 행복해질지도 몰라요. 수다쟁이 갑상주의자가 될지도 모르지만, 언젠가 책 속의 글자 하나하나를 활활 타오르게 할 그런 작가가 될지도 몰라요."

p.36 So long as you wirte what you wish to write, that is all that matters.

p.38 Let us never cease from thinking - what is this "civilization" in which we find ourselves? What are these ceremonies and why should we take part in them? What are these professions and why should we make money out of them?

p.51 That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people calle living.

p.88 I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river, to me you're everything that exists.

p.104 The strange thing about life is that though the nature of it must have been apparent to every one for hundreds of yeras, no one has left any adequate account of it. The streets of London have thier map; but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner?

p.124 The florwer bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.

p.126 That we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fiber of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.

p.141 Love. Hate. Peace. Three emotions made the ply of human life.

p.154 What is the meaning of life? That was all - a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.

p.165 Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent.

p.182 Somebody had talked about her life. And I haven't got one, she thought. Oughtn't a life to be something you could handle and produce? - a life seventy odd years. But I've only the present moment, she thought.

p.184 How terrible old age was, she thought; shearing off all one's faculties, one by one, but leaving something alive in the center.

p.191 Arrange whatever pieces come your way.