Status Updates From A Viagem

The end of this novel isn’t exactly what I expected based on the intro. We are given the POVs of the hotel folk who are pretty far from grieving, the closest we get to catharsis being Hirst’s return from the villa, and even he is looking to merely disengage with the emotional drain of the past fortnight. We are spared the intensity of Helen’s and Terence’s grief.

This section encompasses the entirety of Rachel’s illness. It is not lost on me that Woolf authored a novel where she imagines the death of her semi-autobiographical female protagonist and then examines how all of the characters react to her death. Somewhere in here is an acknowledgment that existence did not begin nor end with Rachel, which is echoed in Terence’s heartbreak once the shock of her passing ends.

this might be getting dnf’d… like it’s witty and stuff but it’s also plotless and boring

taking long book breaks sucks, lol. This section finishes up the river expedition, during which Rachel and Terence declare their love for each other, and then explores how they can be in love in distinctly separate ways while still consoling each other, in spite of not being “in sync”, because what two human beings could possibly be in such a harmony given Woolf’s outlook on us as utter individuals?