Already in the first 28 pages, I have an idea of what Mrs. Dalloway will be like as a novel. Virginia Woolf's distinct style uses abundant description and intrusive narrator that, at first, I found to be bothersome, but on the second reading have come to really enjoy. Though there isn't a huge vigorous plot, there's enough of a story, or character background, that keeps interest and drives what plot there is, along.
I'm not entirely sure how to explain the sensation I had, having just completed the night's reading, but it is one of giddiness, awe, or excitement. It seems silly saying that because there has barely been any action, but the second I finished the reading assignment, I jumped to my computer to put some thoughts down (that hopefully I recorded fast enough and with enough coherence to be interesting to others).
I find the character of Septimus to be enthralling. The odd things he thinks or does create such a queer disposition, and I wish more of the book was from his thoughts. It was very comical to read how Septimus thought everyone was staring at him and that he was trying to find his purpose in life, or I love that while Septimus is sitting next to his wife, the voice of the nursemaid "rasped his spine deliciously (21)." That's just such an odd thing to read! Or how he wants his wife to shut up so he can think and "get away from people." I really hope he shows up more throughout the novel!
I think the way Woolf switches from Septimus to Lucrezia to Maisie Johnson to Mrs. Carrie Dempster to Mr. Bentely is delicious, and she does so in such a smooth yet clear transition that I can't help but admire her work. It must have been such a bizarre thing to read when it was published, and I greatly admire Woolf's innovation as well as her success in carrying it out. Aside from the interesting royal car scene and the quirky airplane-spelling-toffee part, a segment I thoroughly enjoyed was Maisie Johnson's description of her view of Septimus and Lucrezia on the bench in the park:
I'm not entirely sure how to explain the sensation I had, having just completed the night's reading, but it is one of giddiness, awe, or excitement. It seems silly saying that because there has barely been any action, but the second I finished the reading assignment, I jumped to my computer to put some thoughts down (that hopefully I recorded fast enough and with enough coherence to be interesting to others).
I find the character of Septimus to be enthralling. The odd things he thinks or does create such a queer disposition, and I wish more of the book was from his thoughts. It was very comical to read how Septimus thought everyone was staring at him and that he was trying to find his purpose in life, or I love that while Septimus is sitting next to his wife, the voice of the nursemaid "rasped his spine deliciously (21)." That's just such an odd thing to read! Or how he wants his wife to shut up so he can think and "get away from people." I really hope he shows up more throughout the novel!
I think the way Woolf switches from Septimus to Lucrezia to Maisie Johnson to Mrs. Carrie Dempster to Mr. Bentely is delicious, and she does so in such a smooth yet clear transition that I can't help but admire her work. It must have been such a bizarre thing to read when it was published, and I greatly admire Woolf's innovation as well as her success in carrying it out. Aside from the interesting royal car scene and the quirky airplane-spelling-toffee part, a segment I thoroughly enjoyed was Maisie Johnson's description of her view of Septimus and Lucrezia on the bench in the park:
"...the young woman [Lucrezia] seeming foreign, the man [Septimus] looking queer so that should she [Maisie] be very old she would still remember and make it jangle again among her memories how she had walked through Regent's Park on a fine summer's morning fifty years ago ... and now how queer it was, this couple she had asked the way of, and the girl started and jerked her hand, and the man -- he seemed awfully odd ... (25-26)"
Not only do we get a taste of Woolf's eloquent writing style in this passage, but we also get a painted picture of Lucrezia and Septimus and their oddness -- a picture that you can see clearly: a couple sitting in a park on a bench on a warm June morning with birds singing and green grass and pretty flowers, that on closer inspection seems to be two extremely bizarre people. We also get the innocent and outsider point of view of Maisie, who like so many other people mentioned so far, may just be a temporary observer of the scene that Woolf used to describe an otherwise simple and insipid episode. Getting a view of Lucrezia and Septimus that wasn't from Lucrezia's sorrowful aspect or Septimus' detached one, really brought life to that fleeting and probably inconsequential scene. Woolf was all about character development in the essay we read, so I'm glad to see that she is certainly not hypocritical and delves deeply into all the temporary characters she introduces.
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