Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 19434

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'I can't tell you what delight and happiness The Eternal Moment has been to me, and I can't thank you enough for your very great kindness in sending it to me. Even though I was undergoing the horrors of a bad attack of influenza, I realised what a wonderful book it is. Well, all I know is that "The Machine Stops" made me feel as though I had come out of dark tunnel in which I had always lived into an immense open space, and were seeing things living for the first time. I believe it is the most tremendous short story of our generation. But then the whole book has got every quality of beauty and truth and illumination. I do think "The Point of It" is such a wonderful story too, and "The Eternal Moment" is enough to frighten one out of one's wits - but not to frighten one only. It is, in a way, the most terrifying ghost story I have ever read. The strange thing about these stories is that every time one reads them and I've read them all several times already, one finds fresh beauties in them. They seem to have an inexhaustible store.'
Century: 1900-1945
Date: Between 1 Jan 1928 and 30 Mar 1928
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: specific address: Likely to be 22 Pembridge Mansions, Moscow Road, London W2
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Edith Sitwell
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Female
Date of Birth 7 Sep 1887
Socio-economic group: Gentry
Occupation: Poet
Religion: Christian
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: England
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: E M Forster
Title: The Eternal Moment
Genre: Fiction, Autobiog / Diary
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: 1928. The Eternal Moment is an assembly of six stories that, although not published until 1928, were all written before 1914.
Provenance: owned

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 19434  
Source - Print  
  Author: Edith Sitwell
  Editor: Richard Greene
  Title: Selected Letters of Edith Sitwell
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1998
  Vol: n/a
  Page: 90
  Additional comments: This is an extract from a letter dated 30 March 1928 to E M Forster that begins ' 'Dear Mr. Forster' and in which Edith goes on to relate her experiences at a 'Poets Reading' that included Bob Nichols reading an Act of his 'Don Juan'. She also suggests that 'it would be delightful to see [Forster] again'.

Citation: Edith Sitwell, Richard Greene (ed.), Selected Letters of Edith Sitwell (London, 1998), p. 90, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=19434, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

Edith's effusive praise here may be an indication of the extent to which she agreed with the ethical values ( their ' ..quality of beauty and truth..') espoused in the book and the extent to which she was able to relate to the content of some of the stories personally. Her reaction to ' The Machine Stops' for example is, perhaps, an indication that she found the story an acute metaphor for the 'emotional distancing' that she suffered in her own life. We might consider that this is what she found'...illuminating...'

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)