She,
of the strong nose and distinctive style. An experimenter and
innovator, as stated by Jeanette Winterson in a foreword to my
favourite novel. A lover, so I presume, of words. But, in fact, they
may have been a foe, even if she did enjoy them so. Friend and
tormentor in equal measure, with Virginia in-between.
Between
the Acts
is, besides being her last, her finest work. Fictional work. Yet the
manuscript hadn't been revised and may have been destroyed if
Virginia's wishes had been carried out. She was full of doubts about
it.
Like
her, I'm sure you're (as she did with her publisher) questioning the
statement I just made. Favourite novel! Finest work! As well as
possibly my authority to make it. I haven't dissected it as you might
in a English Literature course, and with it pulled all her other
previous works apart. I like to mostly glide along the surface.
That's how all literature should be read; you can try to understand
too much.
Ah,
yes, Virginia Woolf, I've read, struggled with as well as drank
copiously from, forgotten, remembered and very occasionally come back
to. All as a reader, a simple reader with no BA (Hons), Masters or
PhD to my name.
This
is just a view and views change. Even I may not agree with myself in
future, but at present Between
the Acts,
is, for me, a work I still think of and turn to – in mind if not to
its physical pages – since it provides a side of Virginia we don't
often see.
Oh,
but what about Flush
and Orlando,
and To
the Lighthouse?
I'm
not that fond of Mrs
Dalloway,
I don't know why. And as for The
Waves,
I don't think I would choose to read it again should the opportunity
ever arise. My sole memory of it is this: complicated. Orlando
was a romp. Mrs Ramsey and Lily Briscoe are firmly fixed on the Isle
of Skye, and Flush
was a delight from beginning to end, though sadly less remarked upon,
either in praise or criticism. I don't remember much about Jacob's
Room,
though it's supposed to be moving; so why don't I recall being moved?
I must have been! No, all that comes to mind is a feeling of
irritation, something grating...a lingering dissatisfaction.
Oh,
it's all a state of mind: what state it's in, what else is
interfering or influencing your impressions, and what data is
essentially stored and what is lost.
But
Between
the Acts
has always been (pardon the pun) a hard act to forget. In essence.
How I long for a brain that could quote from memory! No, instead I'm
left with sensations, a mark of my enjoyment, which, it's true, in
some cases have proved false. Or it could be that on re-visiting I'm
not susceptible to the tone or language that once spoke to me, on
which I was borne along. Between
the Acts
left me with itch.
An
itch that was only recently scratched, after an interval of some
years – a good five years, I think - though it had occurred to me
to scratch more than once during that time. A second, a third, a
fourth reading of anything
can often diminish the delicious sensations, spoil the first
impression made on the mind; changes, instead of deepens your
appreciation, and so I'm always hesitant to give in.
When
I've done so in the past it's been a disappointment. The same reading
spirit couldn't, or wouldn't, be captured. So if I do now it's rare,
and only if the compulsion is strong or chance conspires to lay the
same novel, read only once, again in my path, in a different printed
edition to that which originally read.
That's
how I came to re-read Between
the Acts.
By chance: finding a Vintage Classics edition where it shouldn't be.
On the wrong shelf, in the wrong library. Serendipity!
I'm
glad I took the hint. I almost didn't, but it being a nice legible
copy persuaded me, as did the fact that it had no explanatory notes
which I seemed to remember the Oxford World's Classics having.
And?
Ah, yes, Virginia Woolf. Here you are, again, at your most lyrical,
your most poetical; looser in language and freer in tone; in every
character committed to the page.
Picture credit: Virginia Woolf, 1927 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
This post was penned in 2019 (I've since revisited Mrs Dalloway and had a change of heart.)
