Before this project, I had never read any Virginia Woolf, save for the short excerpted passages included in my Norton 5th Edition. I've always liked the idea of Virginia Woolf that formed somewhere along the line, but now I can say I love the real thing. She is a poet who prefers paragraphs to stanzas.
I had the same initial trouble penetrating this novel as I had with Mrs. Dalloway. There were so many characters and so many relationships to keep track of. My difficulty was compounded by Woolf's habit of so thoroughly stepping into the minds of her characters. I did not know who I was supposed to be critical of and who I was supposed to be rooting for. I don't think I ever realized how I look for these signals from an author when I read, but apparently, I do.
The difficulties of course worked themselves out as continual exposure let me trace out who was who and let me understand where everyone was coming from without the need to cheer for one character and boo down another. Everything evened up for me just in time to enjoy the amazing dinner scene in the first section. I wanted that scene to go on forever, jumping from head to head and thought to thought as the characters swim in the social waters. I found it mesmerizing and difficult to put down.
Part two, Time Passes, blew my mind. When has an author set up so many characters, especially what appears to me a main character, in the first part of a novel and then slaughtered them parenthetically in the second part without drama or incident. Mrs. Ramsey is simply not there one night to hold Mr. Ramsey. CRAZY! The second section was the most poetic. Had I a pen in hand (and was not reading from a library's copy of the book), I would have underlined the entire section for its beautiful insights and phrasings.
Politcally, I'm not sure I'm smart enough to suss out this book. It tackles the same difficulties of community and communication between people that Mrs. Dalloway does, but now it tackles gender issues and issues of art very aggressively. Mr. Ramsey the tyrant, the man for whom women are fonts of sympathy to coddle his gentle ego, who seems to take a sadistic glee in shattering dreams . . . what am I to do with him. Regardless of what and who he is, his children crave his approval, and Cam finds herself in love with his very form and dignity. How do we move beyond these social and constructed roles, if at all? So much lies with Lily Briscoe and her comparison with Mrs. Ramsey, but I'm not the guy to tease that out. Much smarter scholars than I have deciphered this text and I shall be happy enough for now to swim in the deep end of Woolf's work, unable to touch bottom, floating, just enjoying the waters.
Come on in; the water's fine!
Showing posts with label Virginia Woolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virginia Woolf. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Mrs. Dalloway - Brought to a SPOIL, then Left to Simmer
This was the most fascinating of the three novels so far to me. I found the first 10 pages to be VERY difficult. I am used to things opening in media res, but this took that to a whole new level. I must have reread each paragraph two or three times before moving to the next one, waiting for something to become clear. From the back of the book, I knew that the story took place in one day and that it followed Mrs. Dalloway as she prepares for an evening party. That knowledge helped very little to anchor me.
When we first jump outside of Clarissa to Scrope Purvis, who drives past her while she waits to cross the street, I was shaken. That paragraph got four or five reads. It wasn't until we left Clarissa and started wandering through all the people on the street that the book came into any real focus for me. Ah! We are going to be sitting in these heads and bouncing off of people as they pass, interact, and comment upon each other. We are in a novel of thoughts more than action. Then it all became delicious.
It felt to me like a poem forced into the suit of prose. I had to read slowly, digest each sentence both for appreciation and for meaning. Once I committed myself to this deliberate pace I loved it. Every sentence feels like its meaning is supposed to echo throughout the novel, just like the "leaden circles" of Big Ben tolling away the hours and tying all the players together. How different from the overwritten prose of Dreiser, to feel like every sentence demands your attention.
As for meaning, I am not smart enough to digest this novel. I will be chewing on it for a long time to come.
I loved being in each person's head, hearing Peter Walsh view the world and himself, struggling with Mrs. Kilman as she says things that she knows she shouldn't say. Every character here is respected, has something internal. I feel like we glimpse through our various viewpoints an entire culture, or at least an entire cultural moment. These characters are both self-aware and self-delusional.
I will point to a passage that I believe Ann will expound upon because it struck us as the center of the novel. This is from the ponderings of Peter Walsh restating Clarissa's youthful theory "to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people. But she said . . . not 'here, here, here' . . . but everywhere. She waved her hand, going up Shaftesbury Avenue. She was all that. So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them, even the places. Odd affinities she had with people she had never spoken to . . . ."
How apt then that the novel should be called Mrs. Dalloway and follow all these people, most of whom she knows and some of whom she does not, namely Rezia and Septimus. To know Mrs. Dalloway (or any other character here) we need to know them all.
No one exists in a vacuum. Just as important is that we all exist alone. At one point I thought the novel was downright existential as no one could communicate with anyone else effectively, Dalloway couldn't even tell his wife he loved her (not in so many words). We were stuck in minds, never getting satisfactory exchanges. We jump from character to character; there is no bridge, no connection. So, no one exists in a vacuum and no one exists together. Ouch. That is a tough bind for the human race, or at least for post-war Britain.
When we first jump outside of Clarissa to Scrope Purvis, who drives past her while she waits to cross the street, I was shaken. That paragraph got four or five reads. It wasn't until we left Clarissa and started wandering through all the people on the street that the book came into any real focus for me. Ah! We are going to be sitting in these heads and bouncing off of people as they pass, interact, and comment upon each other. We are in a novel of thoughts more than action. Then it all became delicious.
It felt to me like a poem forced into the suit of prose. I had to read slowly, digest each sentence both for appreciation and for meaning. Once I committed myself to this deliberate pace I loved it. Every sentence feels like its meaning is supposed to echo throughout the novel, just like the "leaden circles" of Big Ben tolling away the hours and tying all the players together. How different from the overwritten prose of Dreiser, to feel like every sentence demands your attention.
As for meaning, I am not smart enough to digest this novel. I will be chewing on it for a long time to come.
I loved being in each person's head, hearing Peter Walsh view the world and himself, struggling with Mrs. Kilman as she says things that she knows she shouldn't say. Every character here is respected, has something internal. I feel like we glimpse through our various viewpoints an entire culture, or at least an entire cultural moment. These characters are both self-aware and self-delusional.
I will point to a passage that I believe Ann will expound upon because it struck us as the center of the novel. This is from the ponderings of Peter Walsh restating Clarissa's youthful theory "to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people. But she said . . . not 'here, here, here' . . . but everywhere. She waved her hand, going up Shaftesbury Avenue. She was all that. So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them, even the places. Odd affinities she had with people she had never spoken to . . . ."
How apt then that the novel should be called Mrs. Dalloway and follow all these people, most of whom she knows and some of whom she does not, namely Rezia and Septimus. To know Mrs. Dalloway (or any other character here) we need to know them all.
No one exists in a vacuum. Just as important is that we all exist alone. At one point I thought the novel was downright existential as no one could communicate with anyone else effectively, Dalloway couldn't even tell his wife he loved her (not in so many words). We were stuck in minds, never getting satisfactory exchanges. We jump from character to character; there is no bridge, no connection. So, no one exists in a vacuum and no one exists together. Ouch. That is a tough bind for the human race, or at least for post-war Britain.
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