[General] Between the Acts

[Wouter]

Between the Acts was Virginia Woolf's final novel. It was written under the upcoming threat of invasion by the Germans in 1941 the same year Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the river Ouse. Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf's husband, was a Jew and they agreed they would commit suicide when the Germans would take over England. In her introduction to the novel Gillian Beer states that "With Orlando, Between the Acts is Woolf's most mischievous and playful work, as well as one that muses upon death and extinction."

The novel starts in 1939 just before the outbreak of the Second World War. The main characters don't notice it right away, but it looms in the background in Woolfian descriptions. The novel focuses a lot on the communal and the future of England: "Woolf wants to explore how England came to be; and how it came to be as she described in in Three Guineas, patriarchal, imperialist, and class ridden. Between the Acts acknowledges those characteristics, but face with the probable obliteration of people, landscape, and history in war, Woolf sought to produce another idea of England, one might survive, but survive without portentousness - as mixture and common place." (Beer, p. xxxiv).

The following themes, motifs and elements could be incorporated while reading the novel.

Death and extinction – With the Second World War coming near Woolf explores the idea of extinction; the end of history, the end of repetition: “emptiness and silence are the shaping shadows behind language” (Beer, p. xxvii).

Repetition - With the focus in the pastoral, the pageant, the novel explores repetition, the promise of continuance, the ineluctable passing of time. This is represented in the acts and words used in Between the Acts. Language also promises continuance, perhaps because language needs time to exist. So as long language exists, time exists and no extinction has taken place.

Communal and community - When Virginia Woolf lived in Monk’s House in Rodmell, she found herself an outsider of the village and she tried to involve herself. However, the plays practised and performed in the village were too shallow for her. The communal has its attraction, yet community has also brought the country into the state of war.

Opposites - With the previous theme and motifs ‘opposites’ should not be overseen: repetition versus obliteration, language versus silence, past versus present, change versus continuance. But opposites also seems to cancel each other’s meaning.

Language - One of the pivotal themes of Woolf’s novels is language; words and sounds. Gillian Beer tells us: “rhyme makes the ear arbiter of significance”. Gossip, pageant, sounds, new words, historical context and meaning, Woolf explores, again, the significance and mystery of the reality of language.

Reality - “what’s real: that which is embodied? what is believed? or what’s acted? Close to Woolf’s fascination of language is her fascination of reality. What is this thing called reality wherein we live our lives, have our parties, our frustrations, our fears and our happiness?

The novel doesn't have any chapters so I have divided the novel, quite rudimentary, into four parts. Each part will take a week so readers have enough time to let the words sink in, get ideas and reread more complicated parts.

Reading parts:

15th April 2013 - Part 1: pages 1 - 36 (up to 'She heard laughter, down among the bushes, where the terrace dipped to the bushes.')

22nd April 2013 - Part 2: pages 36 - 72 (up to 'It's time to go')

29th April 2013 - Part 3: pages 72 - 103(up to '...followed the procession off the stage').

6th May 2013 - Part 4: pages 103 - 130

Ofcourse you are not forced to incorporate the themes and motifs in your reading. Feel free just to enjoy the novel on your own terms.

Between the Acts is not the best novel to start reading Virginia Woolf. I would advise new readers of Virginia Woolf to start with Mrs Dalloway or maybe even To the Lighthouse. However, Between the Acts is not a very difficult read. But without taking notice of typical Woolfian elements it can become a tedious read.

Reading starts on the 8th of April, no reader has committed him- or herself to join the read, but I will start anyways :).

[Nina]

Thank you for the commentary. It provides great context and depth for reading this book. I'm starting in--