Pilgrimage, Years end, Final comments

[Kristel]

Now that you've read it all. This is the place for any of those final thoughts about his years annual read.

[Amanda]

Just posted my final section comments! While it was a little dry and dragged on in parts, I'm overall glad it was included on the list and that we read it this year. It was also really cool to read such a pioneer in the stream of cnsciouness genre, and an early piece of literature to address feminism, miscarriage, affairs, female desire etc.

It makes me kind of sad the Richardson did not get to finish this book on her own terms, but I'm glad that despite her finishing the series in obscurity, that it has since risen to some more academic attention and that we're all reading it now s long after it was first published :)

[Pip]

One of the characters in The Pilgrimage tells the protagonist that if she could write about people the way she writes about nature she would become a good novelist. Dorothy Richardson wrote something unlike any novel written up until that time. Her meticulous descriptions of everyday events reminded me of Proust and his madeleine; the harking back to previous events such as the incidents in tearooms reminded me of Powell, and having finished this mammoth tome I have an equal sense of satisfaction in having completed it. Actually, I believe I enjoyed it more than Proust, because I could identify much more easily with Richardson's description of social gatherings where she stops to wonder what she was doing there, rather than Proust's enjoyment of them. I also felt more affinity for Richardson's love of solitude and her appreciation of living and insisting on the Being rather than Becoming which she labelled a more masculine outlook. Her careful examination of how married women responded their spouse made her heroine, Miriam, decide against giving up her liberty to a man and one of the important themes is how differently men and women view the world and, in particular, how women are more attuned to what men want while men remain oblivious to women's needs. How much did that resonate with this reader! She was describing the time of the suffragette movement and the rise of socialism, both of which feature in interesting ways, particularly when Miriam gets rather strident. So like my young self! I especially relished Richardson's descriptions of living independently in London. She did not seem to have the fear of getting about (even at midnight) in the big city that one assumes a young woman at the turn of last century would experience. She dared to enter an unsalubrious cellar late one evening that became an habitual haunt. She had little money but she made little of that because she so valued her independence. Her descriptions of nature were, however, spectacular. Her sojourn in Switzerland made one want to spend a winter in the Alps and her stay on a farm near the sea in a Quaker community made one appreciate the patience and solidity of those people. Altogether a most meaningful and satisying read. Oh, that more men would read it!

[Gail]

I am sad to say good-bye to Miriam and her view of the world during the fin de siécle and into the new century with all its radical changes. I sometimes struggled through some of the books (The Tunnel) was sometimes bored and sometimes came to them delighted to be walking around London late at night without fear, and visiting a small cafe in the basement with a very protective proprietor. I will really miss Richardson's descriptions of city trees, alley shadows, mountains crowned with gold but mostly I will miss Miriam who had such challenges with social engagement and Richardson's descriptions of these challenges. I have become suspicious of all the people that Miriam fell in love with and who appeared to fall in love with her. One does not necessarily trust her ability to "read the room", and yet, we do know she had strong attachments and opted to live with very little money and no husband throughout the 4 volumes.
It is amazing these books were published at all, but they continue to be amazingly modern in their chronological jumps, their leaping from internal to external dialogue without giving the reader many clues, with the stream of consciousness and the incredible detail shared with the reader. I am so glad I persevered.

[Diane]

I didn't care for this series in the beginning, but it did steadily grow on me with each book. As much as I wanted this too end, I now feel said to say goodbye to Miriam.

[[deleted user]]

I am with Diane the book got better as it went along and I will miss Miriam just a teeny bit