Brain Pain discussion
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The Waves
The Waves - Spine 2012
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Discussion - Week One - The Waves - Section 1 & 2
OK - this is the way I'm seeing it.It begins like waves ... the first thoughts of the children are small, then they gradually become larger, more in depth thoughts.
That's how a wave begins and becomes a larger wave. Then the thoughts of the 6 individuals become one big wave.
For me, personally, it would be ...
The garden is pretty
The garden is pretty, with many colours
The garden is pretty, with many colours, many scents
The garden is pretty, with many colours, many scents, harboring the lives of small insects, birds and animals
..............
I may see this differently as I read on. I'm not even sure where Section 2 ends - I'm assuming it's when they are going through the ceremonies and actions of actually leaving the school.
I find it hard to keep my mind on it, actually, but that doesn't mean I find it boring - it's just that I have to 'think', but I guess that's what this book club is all about - I have to think - ha ha!
And I'm pleased as punch to be here, Jim - it is a pleasure to have found a group that actually discusses the book and doesn't have 3 pages describing how long the members had to wait for their copies of the book, who had a tea party and for what purpose the party was given, yadda yadda ... good discussion.
I can see that the discussion isn't going to thin out to nothing and/or become a discourse on other books.
Thank you for providing this space.
Carly wrote: "...The big blade is an emperor; the broken blade a Negro..."Actually this and a couple of more lines in the sections so far seem to hint that the story is set in a time of colonial rule. Maybe there is another perspective here which I have missed, but this seems like an exemplification of the foriegn races being inherently broken (symbolised by the broken blade) and in contrast is the magnificence of the emperor. I felt a similar setting when Bernard imagines a swamp, which vaguely resembles British India, where he presumes ownership of the exotic land. But even in this vision, the jungle is malarial; the elephant is dead and covered by maggots.
But this is just my interpretation.
OK - I see ... so it's like saying one man is an Emperor while the other man is a beggar.It's class distinction.
Kinda' guessed that, but wasn't sure.
Mod
I can see that the discussion isn't going to thin out to nothing and/or become a discourse on other books.
Thank you for providing this space..."
I'm glad you're enjoying the discussion. Most of the credit goes to Virginia for sharing the beauty of her work. I first read The Death of the Moth when I was a senior in high school, then later read A Room of One's Own, The Voyage Out, and a few others. The Waves was the one book which I loved, but was too young to fully appreciate, so I am doubly happy to be re-reading the book and discussing it with all of you.
I would like to take a quick moment to thank all of you for your comments. I'm in France, so the bulk of the discussions will be taking place while I'm asleep. I don't know if I can adequately express how wonderful it is to read your comments this morning. Just 24 hours into this brain pain project, and already I have proof that the concept is valid and valuable. I cannot thank you enough for sharing your highest selves in this discussion of The Waves!
Merci beaucoup!
Vivek wrote: "Carly wrote: "...The big blade is an emperor; the broken blade a Negro..."Actually this and a couple of more lines in the sections so far seem to hint that the story is set in a time of colonial ru..."Virginia Woolf was engaged with imperialist ideology in several of her other books, it's interesting to see how this engagement will develop in The Waves which starts out as a seemingly innocent, non-political, lyrical prose novel of development/ bildungsroman. The imperialist interest (the degree to which Woolf is anti-imperialist is to be discussed when we get to it) really starts playing a major role in section 3 so I don't want to talk about it too much now, but even now we see how, hmm, unavoidable the question of the empire was for somebody living around that time because Louis is Australian. It's said that Louis was based on T.S. Eliot but I think it's telling that Louis is not American, but Australian so part of the British Empire.
Being Australian I was a tad annoyed by Louis being self conscious of his accent - his character altogether is the exact opposite of what i would expect of an Australian character. Was good to get a better insight into some of his determination in section 2 though.
Mod
“The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, ex...
Well, for me, Woolf started out by putting on her God hat – yes, “God”, not “Goddess.” LOL! This is not Woolf being modest, but at the height of her creative powers, was my very personal reaction."
Lily, thanks for raising this point. The opening very much recalls Genesis. As I believe we are going to discover, this book is all about the big mystery of life and death and human existence. There is a spirit in this book which we all feel deep inside.
You are right to refer to her 'God hat'. A part of Woolf's ideas about feminism is the transcendence of our demographics (reminds me of some of James Baldwin's comments about race). This quote from Woolf's essay 'Women and Fiction' caught my attention:
The greater impersonality of women's lives will encourage the poetic spirit, and it is in poetry that women's fiction is still weakest. It will lead them to be less absorbed in facts and no longer content to record with astonishing acuteness the minute details which fall under their own observation. They will look beyond the personal and political relationships to the wider questions which the poet tries to solve - of our destiny and the meaning of life.
This comment connected for me with George Eliot's character, Dorothea, in Middlemarch. Dorothea (and by extension, Eliot) wished to move beyond the restricted world assigned to women and instead join the broader world of the male scholar she imagined was embodied by Casaubon. I can imagine Woolf wanting to go far beyond the 'astonishing acuteness' of her predecessors and into the broader, all-encompassing questions of the poets. The Waves, from page one, has that feeling and even though we're only discussing the first two sections, I believe Woolf is indeed, a Poet exploring the big questions of existence.
Travis wrote: "Being Australian I was a tad annoyed by Louis being self conscious of his accent - his character altogether is the exact opposite of what i would expect of an Australian character. Was good to get ..."I think the situation of Australians in Britain at the beginning of the 20th century was quite different from the present one, at least when it came to accent/language. While now the general reaction to an Australian accent in Britain is 'ohh your accent is so cute!', back then non-RP/Oxford/Queen's English accents were considered vulgar/uneducated/working class.
Travis wrote: "Being Australian I was a tad annoyed by Louis being self conscious of his accent - his character altogether is the exact opposite of what i would expect of an Australian character. Was good to get ..."I can't imagine feeling ashamed of an Australian accent - I've always admired it.
Of course, that's how we tend to appreciate accents - by hearing it from others. Our own accents don't mean a thing.
I'm Canadian and see myself as having a 'plain' accent, yet I'm told I sound Irish, at times. Well, my heritage is Welsh and English.
I do tend to speak with an east coast flavour, even though I'm Southern Ontario born and raised.
I have helped immigrants, from time to time, in speaking and writing English. But something I've never done is encouraged anyone to drop their accent.I had an Indian friend - he came from the north part of India. Giri spoke with a darling Indian accent. Some people we know tried to correct that, but I was always the first to defend it.
Andreea wrote: "Travis wrote: "Being Australian I was a tad annoyed by Louis being self conscious of his accent - his character altogether is the exact opposite of what i would expect of an Australian character. W..."I agree, its actually funny every recorded voice I've ever heard from early 20th Century Australians has sounded like awful attempts at a posh English accent. In saying that, Louis being from Brisbane, at that time it was very underdeveloped and well and truly 'the bush' so his accent would of been fair dinkum, true blue, dinkie die Aussie, or Strine as we call it.
Well, I guess I can understand that. I should remember that back in that time (mid-century) we were less sensitive to that kind of thing.But let's give the English folks in this novel credit - I haven't seen anybody use the 'N' word yet. That's common in many works written before the 60's and 70's.
'Common' in more ways than one.
To pick up on a point Bill made earlier about it being hard to imagine a novelist writing with the consciousness of a critic later taking it apart... isn't that precisely what Joyce did in Ulysses? (Perhaps I should leave this until the Ulysses discussion....)
Jim wrote: "...You are right to refer to her 'God hat'. A part of Woolf's ideas about feminism is the transcendence of our demographics..."It was her wonderful Orlando that gave the most insight to my comment, where the protagonist freely moves among overt sexual presentations over time. Coming through the 'Sixties myself, Woolf and Beauvoir have always been the writers (for me) who have pushed open the windows of how we perceive womanhood in society. Woolf, in particular (like Proust?), has explored how permeable are the boundaries.
Jim, would you expand on how you were using the word "demographics" in your comment?
For those of you touching on the issues of imperialism in Waves, you might find interesting an undergraduate thesis by Jocelyn Rodal at MIT in 2006: "One World, One Life": The Politics of Personal Connection in Virginia Woolf's The Waves. I have read only a small part of it so far, I need to spend time on the original instead. But there are several insights in the first pages on how or whether Woolf truly viewed her narrators as characters or as multiple facets of a single personality!?
(Thanks for your encouragement to all of us, Jim!)
Jim wrote: (from Woolf): "It will lead them to be less absorbed in facts and no longer content to record with astonishing acuteness the minute details which fall under their own observation..."I just flipped back and realized how, as she seeks that great scope, Woolf still reaches back to observe that detail which might be more likely to be noted by the female eye, such as "creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it." I think we see others as well in these passages.
One of the reasons I noted your comment, Jim, is that my über-light reading at the moment is a small book by a woman that is absolutely delighting me with its record of little details that I would never expect to find in Trollope or any of the great male writers, yet I recognize as integral to having been a wife and mother, usually with lead responsibility for a household. I shall now pay additional attention to what Woolf notices and records for us.
Liz wrote: "To pick up on a point Bill made earlier about it being hard to imagine a novelist writing with the consciousness of a critic..."Liz -- I didn't read it that Bill said it would be hard to imagine a novelist doing such; to me, he more said he found it hard to imagine the pressure that would create. I think we see evidence of what exactly that pressure can do to some writers, including Woolf, versus to others who have had enough hutzpah to sufficiently ignore or override it. (But even Joyce certainly felt it during the long years Ulysses was banned. The intro to my copy touches on those feelings.)
My impression is Woolf may have vacillated between welcoming that critical view, e.g., as she "took on" the biographical form with Orlando, and stumbling under its weight elsewhere.
Mod
I just flipped back and realized how, as she seeks that great scope, Woolf still reaches back to observe that detail which might be more likely to be noted by the female eye, such as "creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it." I think we see others as well in these passages...."
Regarding demographics, I'm talking about male/female/caucasian/asian/african/etc. I remember reading an essay (interview?) with James Baldwin where someone asked him what it felt like to be one of the great Black writers. His response was something like "I don't want to be a great black writer. I want to be a great writer." (My apologies for paraphrasing, but I'm reaching back 30-odd years for this nugget.) What I think Woolf wanted was to be a great Poet. Not a great woman writer. She, and Baldwin, wanted to be appreciated for their work and not as, for lack of a better term, the best of their type/demographic. I think of Woolf as one of the great minds of the 20th century, which is how I believe she wished to be thought of.
That being said, I agree with you about her record of details. And more amazing to me is how much information is communicated by the small details, like the girls' thoughts as they look in the mirror in the stairwell, or the male power dynamics when Bernard wants to continue a story and Percival says "No!" A few deceptively simple lines by Woolf is often like an entire chapter. I'm constantly amazed by what I read in her work.
Mod
At this point in the book, I don't think the issue is specifically about being from Australia, but about being an outsider in class-conscious England. I imagine Louis would feel just as much an outsider if his father was a banker from Belfast, Edinburgh, or Toronto. What his father is NOT, is a banker from London, which would then make Louis one of the "them" he feels excluded from.
In any case, his accent is a constant reminder of his outsider status, just as it would be if Irish, Scottish, or Canadian.
Jim wrote: "...That being said, I agree with you about her record of details. And more amazing to me is how much information is communicated by the small details..."Which perhaps helps demonstrate how impoverished we have been by elitism and how enriched we can be by diversity.
Mod
Amen sister!
BTW, any thoughts about the characters individual personalities? Any ideas about Susan?
I'm wondering about Percival. So far, he seems to be representative of a dominant, alpha-male type - and also a love interest for Neville.
Jim wrote: "Lily wrote: "Which only helps demonstrate how impoverished we have been by elitism and how enriched we can be by diversity..."Amen sister!..."
LOL! Thank you for catching and confirming my stronger conviction ("only") before I downplayed my statement to "perhaps."
Susan is between Jinny and Rhoda, She isn't so outgoing like Jinny but not so introverted like Rhoda. She's their balance, reflected in a character. For example, we can see Jinny is desperate to find a man, Rhoda still can't see him walking on the streets of her own world but Susan wants to be loved at the same time she can't forget Louis. And she's the only one who regrets about her family, she's a bit nostalgic anyway.
Mod
It's true, other than Louis mentioning his father, she does seem to be the only one who misses her home, her father, her life before school. She also seems to want to live in communion with nature rather than in the structured world of the classroom where "...bells ring; feet shuffle perpetually."
Jim wrote: "It's true, other than Louis mentioning his father, she does seem to be the only one who misses her home, her father, her life before school. She also seems to want to live in communion with nature ..."Rosario wrote: "Susan is between Jinny and Rhoda, She isn't so outgoing like Jinny but not so introverted like Rhoda. She's their balance, reflected in a character. For example, we can see Jinny is desperate to f..."
Yes, Susan is more moderate, while Jinny and Rhoda occupy the extremes. I see Susan and Jinny both as being free spirits, connecting more with nature and such, but Susan is more constrained and inhibited. Many of Susan's soliloquies relay her anger at convention and the subsequent restraints put upon her. Jinny appears to be less aware or less concerned with what is expected and simply does what she desires to do. Susan, on the other hand, grows bitter because of the order and routine she is forced to be a part of in the school etc. She is more preoccupied with what she can't do and what she isn't, while Jinny seems more in the moment.
A couple of things.1)Whether this helps or not, a) Percival was based on her much loved older brother, Thoby (view spoiler) Louis may have been based in part on Eliot, but Virginia wouldn't have known the young Eliot who was raised in St. Louis and New England, whose New England connections were American aristocracy, going at least back to the 17th century where he had an ancestor, like Hawthorne, presiding over the Salem witch trials. (Eliot felt badly about it.) In St. Louis where the presiding spirit of the household was his grandfather's, a public figure and Unitarian minister who crusaded against "regulating" -- and therefore to some extent condoning -- prostitution. Eliot's father's rebellion was not to become a minister.
Eliot went to Harvard where he would have earned his Ph.D. had he returned to defend his thesis -- he did it and it was accepted. So to the extent she used Eliot, who Hogarth Press published, she was also imagining a childhood. c) Neville was perhaps to some extent based on Lytton Strachey, a key member of the Bloomsbury group and author of Eminent Victorians.
How useful knowing that is, I'm not sure. :-) But for what it's worth, I offer it.
2. Midcentury.
I'm distinctly getting the feeling a number of people don't know how long ago it was Virginia was born or how long ago 1931 was, the date when The Waves was published. It was not "midcentury."
a) Had she lived, Virginia would be 122 this coming January 25. This would have made her the oldest person for whom we have birth records. :-) Perhaps we should all meet in Bloomsbury and drink something together. Let me know soon because I need to get my passport renewed. :-)
But to continue, that means, in 1900 she was 18. She was angry at not having been sent to prep school as her brothers were because she was a girl -- and why bother? It was not as though she came from a working-class family, either. Her father was an intellectual, the editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, famous for his atheism, and his collections of essays is called Hours in the Library. Virginia was allowed to read the books, though. Oxford would not accept women until she was 38. How she felt about Dad might be gleaned from her portrait of Mr. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse.
When she born, the Civil War in the US had been over just seventeen years. All through her life black Americans were effectively disenfranchised in the American South through a variety of laws. The period between the wars, the years of her maturity and the height of her creative expression, notably racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic. In the US, anti-lynching laws were repeatedly rejected in the US Senate because of filibusters of the Southern Democrats (the South was solidly Democratic until the 1970s because Lincoln was a Republican, and they were still pissed -- but the Southern Democrats were not liberal.) The KKK was in its second incarnation and instituted cross-burning during the 1920s, when Virginia was in her forties .
When Virginia Woolf wrote The Waves at around 40-something, women only had gotten the right to vote around ten years previously in the UK -- and wouldn't until, oh, 1945 in France and 1971 in Switzerland.
People said things like -- well, in case anyone will be offended by racist words, I've hidden it -- (view spoiler)
And the idea of gay rights hadn't even come into existence in a mainstream way.
In the 1960s, which I remember, the key issues moved from "ban the bomb" -- which you see Barbra Steisand's character crusading for at the end of The Way We Were to "civil rights." Rosa Parks' famous decision not to ride in the back of the bus dates to 1955 or 56, the Freedom Rides to the early sixties which merged with anti-Vietnam War protests in 1964 an 1965 and were central for most of the 1960s. Kennedy was notably elected president in 1960 despite his Catholicism ("taking orders from Rome") and Nelson Rockefeller was notably elected governor of New York State, despite his divorce (divorce!!!).
Oh yes, the sixties was also focused on the "sexual revolution", the everyday de-sanctification of virginity, Eastern religious ideas, socialism, tie-dyed T-Shirts, long hair on boys, and, since I mentioned sex, I should also mention drugs and rock 'n' roll.
It was only in the mid-late 1960s that the notion of black pride and identity politics became mainstream. "Black power" only made the news in the mid-sixties -- and the button of SNCC was no longer a white hand shaking a black hand.
Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was written in 1963, but women's issues, consciousness raising groups, etc. were more a product of the late 1960s and 1970s than the early or mid-1960s, although the mainstreaming of the idea that virginity was not required until marriage, however it may have benefited us guys, was I think experienced as freedom by women as well.
And Virginia Woolf was dead almost 30 years by 1970.
An interesting perspective from 1974 was the opening verses of Philip Larkin's poem, "High Windows" which presents a 50 or 60 year old man's view of the sexual revolution.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...
I don't recall actually meeting anyone who brought up feminism until early 1969 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when she invited me to a play about feminist ideas. And then of course it exploded, from protests at the Miss America pageant, to consciousness raising groups, etc. It wasn't as though I was working for a conservative bank and mixing with the gentry either. But at worst I was only a year or two behind the times.
The fact that Virginia Woolf has been claimed by contemporary feminists does not mean she was entirely free of all the prejudices of her time, race or class. Anymore than anyone can.
Mod
1)Whether this helps or not, a) Percival was based on her much loved older brother, Thoby [spoilers removed] Louis may have been based in part on Eliot, but Virginia wouldn't h..."
Not to get too far off topic from The Waves, but the feminism of the 1960's is often referred to as "The Second Wave". The "First Wave" originates in the 19th century and extended into the early 20th century, and though focused on voting rights, it also encompassed equal rights for women as well. Virginia Woolf would be considered a first wave feminist, though that particular nomenclature would not have been part of her era.
Some thoughts about the connection between the interlude and soliloquies in part I.When the sky whitened (the light of day) it divided the sea from the sky and the cloth (wrinkles in the water) began to move with “thick strokes” “one after another, following each other.” (A vessel as a boat, that carries the children toward shore). As it neared shore, one bar (individual ripple) after another swept onto the shore leaving it covered in a thin veil of white (purity) water (as in baptism, and clean slate)
After the children had been deposited on the pure white shore, the wave paused momentarily before returning out to sea (a sigh, like a divine mother having now to leave everything to providence).
I’m guessing that Woolf is the arm of the woman mentioned who is crouched beneath the dark bar of the horizon with a lamp. Her lamp separates the air into three bars of colors, white, green and yellow. (perhaps in Woolf’s mind the primary colors of the surface of all things?). Raises it higher (above the surface of things) and the air turns fibrous red and yellow flames. (Passion? Desire?) and fuses into a haze (grayness, confusion). That haze rose steadily into the “woollen gray sky” till it turned it to a “million atoms of soft blue.” (tiny bits of understanding, derived from the sea, in constant flux and movement). And the surface of the sea became transparent (obvious). She raises it higher still until a broad flame (passion? Desire?) became like an “arc of fire burnt on the rim of the horizon.”
The light brought life to the earth. The sun provided outlines of the “house” (dwelling place) with the blades of the fan (white, green and yellow mentioned above) and leaves a “blue fingerprint” (the fingerprint of an unknown but intuited identity). “All within was dim and unsubstantial.” The bird’s song was even a “blank melody”
Part I of the Soliloquies: How the reader is at first introduced to the six characters who are deposited on the shore of her pages.
Bernard’s first words, “I see a ring hanging above me…in a loop of light. (the arc of fire mentioned in the interlude? Feels his desire though not yet plainly?)
Susan sees a slab of pale yellow (pale as in soft, hardly detectible) spreading to reveal a purple (red/blue mixture of passion and understanding) stripe and a green caterpillar. (objective reality)
Rhoda hears the chirp of the bird (a blank melody) then sees the light on the grass. She also notices a gray snail. (her eyes are downward cast already)
Louis first hears the stamp of a great beast on the beach. (is he referring to the crashing waves? Does he intuit his spiritual self already?) And I find it especially interesting that he is the first (perhaps only) one who intuits Woolf’s lamp. “A shadow falls on the path,” said Louis, “like an elbow bent.”
Neville sees the bird’s eyes (as opposed to it’s song or color) (his keen sense of observation?)
Jinny is immediately sensitive to the heat and light of the sun and seeks shelter. She chimes in later, as if just waking up and notices that the ‘house” windows are covered in white blinds. (everything for her is an uncomfortable mystery)
I love the rich imagery! I could spend the entire week on part I alone!
I have to agree with Catherine and Erika. I believe that Virginia, at this stage of her writing career chose every word and every phrase with exactitude. I feel that this is a work of pure genius.
Mod
Ashley wrote: "Jim wrote: "It's true, other than Louis mentioning his father, she does seem to be the only one who misses her home, her father, her life before school. She also seems to want to live in communion ..."I agree with you !
Because of all the wonderful comments so far, I'm going back a rereading the first section, but far more carefully than I did the first time! You all are going to double my reading time!!
Jim wrote: "Louis remarks on the stamp of the great beast several times. I haven't got a fix on what that's about beyond the sound of the waves themselves. Any ideas?"I agree with you, perhaps he compares the waves to a big and furious beast which wants to escape from the thick and tight chains or maybe it's himself who wants to be free to express his deepest feelings to the other children without feeling ashamed about what people might say about him because of his accent, nationality, etc.
Rosario wrote: "Jim wrote: "Louis remarks on the stamp of the great beast several times. I haven't got a fix on what that's about beyond the sound of the waves themselves. Any ideas?"I agree with you, perhaps he ..."
Perhaps it has to do with how he sees the world as well. If it's the waves he is comparing to a great beast, it could be interpreted as his view of the world as threatening or menacing. He seems to view people and the world in general as negative and out to get him: he assumes people look down on him for his family background, his accent, etc.
ETA: I'm with Catherine--these great discussions are going to double my reading time! :)
Jim wrote: "Louis remarks on the stamp of the great beast several times. I haven't got a fix on what that's about beyond the sound of the waves themselves. Any ideas?"I was wondering about this too.
Catherine wrote: "Because of all the wonderful comments so far, I'm going back a rereading the first section, but far more carefully than I did the first time! You all are going to double my reading time!!"Catherine, I think I'll be spending more time with these two chapters again tonight too! When I first started reading the book I noticed that I would read and then go back and re-read, or I would read to a point and remember something earlier, go back and read back through to where I was and then go beyond that, only to go back again to something else. In short, I felt like I was reading it in waves.
Linda wrote, "I have to agree with Catherine and Erika. I believe that Virginia, at this stage of her writing career chose every word and every phrase with exactitude. I feel that this is a work of pure genius."I'm sure she did in one sense, but in another the notiona of ANY writer being in complete control of his or work seems unlikely if not impossible. I think she saw and thought and tried to find the best words to express what she felt. I'm sure she did edit what she wrote to shape it as most writers do (contrary to someone knowing a lot about her work habits it that contradicts it.)
Whether or not Virginia Woolf actually thought of Genesis when she wrote the opening few pages -- and remember she grew up in a home with a father conspicuously associated with atheism -- doesn't make Lily's excellent comment any more interesting. It could be conscious on Woolf's part, unconscious or only in our consciousness. The association is still highly legitimate. It's interesting for us now to have the comparison in mind.
But there's a good deal of luck involved with creating great art and the combination of intuitive and editorial minds -- two separate minds within the same -- person -- and not necessarily a critical one, which is something else, which is more detached or just differently detached. But I don't think it's the mind of a creative writer no matter how well the craft of writing has been mastered.
Now the same writer might have a critical mind when looking at someone else's work.
Sometimes readers think things a writer just have planned were in fact wholly unconscious.
But it doesn't matter how much control she had, just how the work she produced.
Jim wrote "Not to get too far off topic from The Waves, but the feminism of the 1960's is often referred to as "The Second Wave". The "First Wave" originates in the 19th century and extended into the early 20th century, and though focused on voting rights, it also encompassed equal rights for women as well. Virginia Woolf would be considered a first wave feminist..."Absolutely. But another way of making my point was simply that first wave feminists shouldn't be confused with a second wave, and many of the assumptions and attitudes of the second wave, as well as the general acceptable attitudes at the time of the second wave, wouldn't necessarily be hers.
And it wasn't you I was really addressing. :-)
Jim wrote: At this point in the book, I don't think the issue is specifically about being from Australia, but about being an outsider in class-conscious England. I imagine Louis would feel just as much an outsider if his father was a banker from Belfast, Edinburgh, or Toronto. .."I definitely got that it was more on a personal level than anything that it irritated me.
And i had the same thought as Rosario about the stamping feet, i thought straight away it was to do with some sort of inner determination wanting to break out.
Bill wrote: "And the idea of gay rights hadn't even come into existence in a mainstream way."There are efforts to fight for gay rights dating back from the 19th century fueled mostly by the extremely harsh punishments people got for sodomy (in some cases even the death penalty). The first British organization devoted only to gay rights was a secret society called the Order of Chaeronea which was founded in 1897, but even before that there were individuals and groups who spoke out in support of gay rights. Also it should be noted that Virginia Woolf was one of the potential witness in the trial following the publication of The Well of Loneliness in 1928.
Interesting comment about VW and "The Well of Loneliness". And of course her sympathy is unsurprising. Of course, the key word was "mainstream" -- and I was speaking generally. My point was ONLY that VW shouldn't be expected to exist apart the current of attitudes, snobberies, prejudices of her own time, class and country anymore than we exist apart from the attitudes and prejudices of ours. It felt for a moment that people forgot how long ago the 1920s and 1930s were.
Mod
My point was ONLY tha..."
Speaking of her own time, I wonder if any of you have a feel for what time period The Waves might be set in? So far, no mention of automobiles or airplanes, but that doesn't tell us much. So far, all travel is either by horse-drawn carriage or steam train. I was hopeful that the mention of 'gasometers' might give us a clue, but turns out they are another term for gas storage tanks and the term originates in the 1820's, so at best, the time period is post-1820's. Maybe not a terribly important point, but I am curious. They also seem to read by candle-light (and probably oil lamp), so that might leave us in the 19th century. I imagine they would also have gas-lights, but I don't remember them being mentioned yet.
Jim wrote: "Bill wrote: "Interest comment about VW and "The Well of Loneliness". And of course her sympathy is unsurprising. Of course, the key word was "mainstream" -- and I was speaking generally. My point..."
Was actually something i was wondering about as well... I assumed pre-20's just from the non-automobiles and candlelight thing but was purely instinctual
Jim wrote: "Speaking of her own time, I wonder if any of you have a feel for what time period The Waves might be set in? So far, no mention of automobiles or airplanes, but that doesn't tell us much. So far, all travel is either by horse-drawn carriage or steam train..."The time period seems to be a little confusing.
Lack of any automobiles suggests pre 1888 time period which was when gasoline driven automobiles first came in to commercial production (correct me if I am wrong) but weren't popular until after 1890, a full two years after Bertha Benz, Karl Benz's wife, had proved - with the first long-distance trip in August 1888, from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back - that the horseless coach was absolutely suitable for daily use and even then it was considered luxurious not commonplace.
Trains, while they had been in existence for a long time, were popularised post 1840's in Britain. And although the first infant school in Britain was opened in 1820 by Samuel Wilderspin in Spitalfields, it was incorporated into the state school system in 1877 after education became compulsory there.
The subtle reference to British India (totally my personal view from Bernard's imagination of the swamp) again hint at a time period of 1757 to 1947, which could be split essentially into two parts: 1757-1857 India under the control of British East India Company and 1857-1947 India ruled by the crown.
This makes me think that it is set in the mid to late 1800s.
One thing I was wondering about was why the three male characters seem to be developing literary ambition of sorts? Is it purely based on the inspiration behind them, or is there some other reason?
Vivek wrote: "One thing I was wondering about was why the three male characters seem to be developing literary ambition of sorts? Is it purely based on the inspiration behind them, or is there some other reason?"That was a little...intriguing, I thought, too. At some level each one of the three male characters does seem to be developing literary ambitions. We may not, however, be able to adequately discern Woolf's reasoning for this, if she indeed had any reasoning. It may be because of her context; maybe many of the men she knew had literary ambitions. Or, there may be more in the story to come.
Catherine wrote: "Vivek wrote: "One thing I was wondering about was why the three male characters seem to be developing literary ambition of sorts? Is it purely based on the inspiration behind them, or is there some..."What do you mean by 'her context'??
Mod
And even more intriguing, why are these ambitions restricted to the male characters?
Travis wrote: "Jim wrote: At this point in the book, I don't think the issue is specifically about being from Australia, but about being an outsider in class-conscious England. I imagine Louis would feel just as ..."The waves that don't want to be part of the ocean/river, just an individual force, like a person respect of a croud.
Jim -- I begin to feel as if I must read the little signs alongside the paintings on the wall?
Brain Pain
Books mentioned in this topic
The Well of Loneliness (other topics)Orlando (other topics)
The Waves (other topics)
Orlando (other topics)
quote
The big blade is an emperor; the broken blade a Negro
unquote
What is meant by that? Anybody know?