Viginia The Poet

When I first began reading Mrs. Dalloway, I found myself very confused and uninterested. I gave up reading for comprehension or enjoyment, and read only because I was assigned too. A procrastinator, I skimmed quickly to make up for lost time, trying to reach my page quota.

The next day in class Mr. Lannon informed us that Virginia Woolf's intricate and detailed "stream of consciousness" technique cannot be read in a hurry. Strike one. It cannot be read when you are tired. Strike two. I was off to a bad start, but determined to try better. After going over the first third of the book in class, I had a better grasp on the novel, and was able to enjoy reading it immensely. I think that Woolf writes beautifully, and I really admire her ability to delicately capture even the most minute details of an average day. At first glance Clarissa Dalloway's life would seem uninteresting and average. As a woman, her life during this time would seem unimportant and two dimensional. I like how Woolf has shown that beneath the exterior facade of the "network of visiting, leaving cards, being kind to people; running about with bunches of flowers, little presents (77)" that made up a typical ladies life, there could be love and heartbreak, suppressed eroticism, secret adventures and silent shouldered burdens. I also like how Woolf can tell a character's life story in a short paragraph. Certain aspects of her writing remind me of her fellow contemporary, modernist writer Ernest Hemingway, but only slightly. Similar to Woolf, Hemingway (though in a more dramatic way, and more habitually) had the unique gift of being able to capture and imply intricate life details through a short span of words. Virginia Woolf teaches readers quite a lot about her characters in a short amount of time.

Another thing I love about Mrs. Dalloway is the presence of dramatic irony through Woolf's omniscient third party observer. As readers, we are allowed to know each (or at least most) of the character's inner workings and thoughts. We can see that Clarissa is not truly happy, however Peter does not. We know that Peter still loves Clarissa, and not the girl from India, but Clarissa is oblivious to this. Septimus panics when Rezia takes off her wedding ring, but we the readers know the real reason she took it off is due to the simple fact that it was falling off her slim finger. Readers are given the unique and conflicting perspectives of both Rezia and Septimus in their struggle to cope with their stresses, traumas, personal relationship, and befuddled minds. Knowing what each of the characters is thinking can be quite stressful for me as a reader though. Take for instance the scene between Clarissa and Peter when he charges up the stairs unannounced, surprising her while she mends her dress. While reading the scene, it is like watching a clip from a dramatic romance movie, in which the lovers, obviously made for each other, are risking everything by yelling at each other in a heated moment. As you are watching you want to pound on the T.V. screen and yell, "NO! Don't go, don't say that! You don't mean it! You love her, and she loves you!" But we can't. It's no use. As I'm reading pages 40 to 48 I find myself in a similar position, wishing that each character knew what the other thought. Woolf can be quite captivating; I couldn't put the novel down.

I find Woolf's writing style tricky, to be sure. I definitely have to make sure that I concentrate wholly on what I'm reading. But this trickiness is refreshing, and interesting. I am fascinated by the novel, and generally enjoy reading it. I really like her poetic language, certain phrases and fragments are just so perfect, I stop reading, and scan over the lines again and again and think, 'wow.' Emily Dickenson said something along the lines of "If I feel like the top of my head has just come off, I know it is poetry." Sometimes you read something, and you have to pause briefly, give your mind time to digest it, otherwise it is too large an idea, or too beautiful an object to fit all at once. When reading poetry, I sometimes have to wait for my mind to catch up, because it is busy just gaping in awe at this or that. Some phrases cannot even be contained to my mind, and so, like Dickenson, I feel them just float right on out through the top of my head, because they are that good. I feel this when reading Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf just explains certain things so simply, so perfectly, that they make absolute sense to me. Take page 30, "A matter-of-fact June morning." I can honestly say that I have experienced June mornings such as these, mornings in which you know that your only job is to exist and bask in the sunlight. I would never choose those words to describe it, but that's because I am not Virginia Woolf. She is one of those writers that you sometimes begin to resent, because they are just so darn good. You read a nicely structured sentence, with the perfect word choice and diction and you think, "well that's just great. That's perfect. Now none of us will ever have a chance at explaining a June morning so well. Thanks a lot, Virginia. Showoff."

The thing about talented writers, however, is that their lives are usually so screwed up and shitty, that you forgive them little faux pas like being good at what they do.

(Oh, and one more thing, I sorta like how Woolf is "paren-happy" like me. I can't help it, but I almost always seem to litter my written pieces with far too many parenthesis. I'm trying to break the habit.)