A note on the source

A fact worth knowing about me is that I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between different written materials. I love seeing how they link up, hunting down the influences running beneath the surface text. See my Lesbian eXcursions essay for more on that theme.

I told you we literary lycos have to follow things right through to the bitter end and even farther, digging up our own graves, sirens howling, frantically seeking the source of the source.

(Miss X or The Wolf Woman, Christine Crow)

I begin to realise that a large part of my discussion is related to the idea of the source. This is one purpose of the library: a hunting-ground for the source; somewhere to look ‘things’ up; to enter and to exit armed with references. It’s also a potential ‘cruising-ground’ – well, another basis for learning, anyway. Learning how to be a lesbian reader. …

The extract above is from Chapter Three of Lesbian eXcursions.