“What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.” In the summer, a family travels to a house on the top of a hill with the view of a lighthouse. A woman and her son look out to the lighthouse. He wants to […]
Woolf Pack: this title is for you!
I took a Virginia Woolf seminar as an undergrad ten years ago in the spring, and it proved to be enlightening and a catalyst for my career in twentieth- and twenty-first century fiction. We read 9-10 full-length works, including Jacob’s Room, To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway, The Waves, and The Years. I also read Orlando and Night and Day on my own and liked them both immensely. I’ve been meaning to read Between the Acts for several years, but it’s been hard to track down. […]
Finally read past the famous first line
Clarissa Dalloway, a high-society woman in post-World War I England, walks through London on a fine June morning after the famous first line–“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” We follow Mrs. Dalloway as she prepares for that evening’s party and although the plot takes place over the course of only one day, the thoughts, dreams, emotions, and memories of the characters cover a lifetime of choices and experiences. Clarissa is the main character, of course, but the narration weaves in and out of her story, spending […]
20th Century Dalloways
This short novel, a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award, deals with a circle of women who married and had children in the ’50s somewhere in New England. Much of their story is told in flashbacks from a point in the 1990s, when they have aged and have lost many of those who had been close. As a result, we get nothing like a linear narrative, and that’s not terribly important. The relationships that these women form, the choices they have made, and how […]