It was pretty much the best day of summer thus far, weather wise, yesterday, sudden rain notwithstanding. Gaurav and I took advantage of the occasion to drive to a used book store in Port Colbourne (more accurately, Gaurav drove, while I offered occasionally insightful, but mostly snide remarks from the passenger seat).
At the book store proper, I was, of course, on my best behaviour, browsing, but leaving books on the shelves. I’ll be moving soon, and adding more books to the library is irresponsible. Also, I suspected once I reached the Virginia Woolf section it would be All Over.
My suspicions were apt. It’s difficult to leave behind an American first edition of the first volume of Woolf’s diaries: particularly when the ex libris inscription takes the form of my name.
I’ve made it through the first six weeks, which, as editor Anne Bell points out, forms a kind of “prelude” to Woolf’s endeavour at diary writing. Bell notes that after this six weeks, Woolf descends into an “aggressive and violent period” of madness. While this madness is not necessarily present or predictable in Woolf’s writing (the last entries record Woolf going to tea and buying a “ten & eleven penny blue dress”), one does have the sense that Woolf was, occasionally, a frustrated and angry person:
Considering that my ears have been pure of music for some weeks, I think patriotism is a base emotion. By this I mean (I am writing in haste, expecting Flora to dinner) that they played a national Anthem & a Hymn, & all I could feel was the entire absence of emotion in myself & everyone else. If the British spoke openly about W.C.’s, & copulation, then they might be stirred by universal emotions. As it is, an appeal to feel together is hopelessly muddled by intervening greatcoats & fur coats. I begin to loathe my kind, principally from looking at their faces in the tube. Really, raw beef & silver herrings give me more pleasure to look upon. (”Sunday 3 January,” 5)
Another entry from 5 January reads similarly:
The Times has a queer article upon a railway smash, in which it says that the war has taught us a proper sense of proportion with respect to human life. I have always thought we priced it absurdly high; but I never thought the Times would say so. [...] I bought my fish & meat in the High Street — a degrading but rather amusing business. I dislike the sight of women shopping. They take it so seriously. Then I got a ticket in the Library, & saw all the shabby clerks & dressmakers thumbing illustrated papers, like very battered bees on battered flowers. At least they are warm & dry: & it rains again today. The Belgians downstairs are playing cards with some friends, & talk — talk — talk — while their country is destroyed. After all, they have nothing else to do — (7-8)
There’s enough to be angry with: the war, the frivolity of female roles, Woolf’s exhaustion at maintaining a household and entertaining socially, and (elsewhere in the entries), the effect this exhaustion has on the quality of her writing (”I wrote all the morning, with infinite pleasure, which is queer, because I know all the time there is no reason to be pleased with what I write, & that in 6 weeks or even days, I shall hate it,” 9). It’s fascinating to see how much she restrains the anger in her writing, comparatively, in her fiction and essays; even in anger, however, Woolf writes with wit and satire. One more reason to admire her, I suppose.
7 July 2009 ~ St. Catharines
Works Cited.
Woolf, Virginia. The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume One, 1915-1919. Ed. Anne Olivier Bell. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.
The Novella proved much easier to follow along than A Mad Couple, though I think I am more confused by this, the second play in Brome’s works. At times The Novella seems to want to play with the structural similarities of comedy and tragedy; the errant letter trope, however, with which Brome produces effective comedy in A Mad Couple, and which Shakespeare uses to produce the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, is stillborn in The Novella. At the same instant in which Flavia, summarising the contents of her letter aloud, declares her intention to throw herself to her death should her lover fail to meet her at the appointed time, Francisco reveals himself as the messenger in front of her (4.1). Not only does he hold the potentially errant letter in his hand, but having already arrived to take Flavia away, eliminates the need for a plan depending on fortuitous timing (and so also elimainates the tragic potential of the plan). It’s somewhat disappointing: maybe that’s the point. In Romeo and Juliet the play destroys all hopes of a comic ending (and there’s something satisfying in that). The Novella gives us the comic ending, and it’s sudden, underwhelming, and absurd.
is a silly idea[i]. Good thing I have lots of poetry to read.
Yes, I resorted to visual notes in order to keep track of all the cons, bed tricks, and letters gone awry. Brome’s A Mad Couple Well Match’d is an excellent play, though (I suspect my inability to keep up with the plot on first reading reflects more about my own attention span than Brome’s writing — though the edition’s weird type may be partly responsible for my confusion.) Be wary: if the picture doesn’t entirely spoil the plot, the final paragraph below (following the excerpt) does.