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Virginia Stephen (Woolf) in disguise on the far left, William Horace de Vere Cole in tophat on the far rightSomething a little lighter for today… On February 7, 1910, the HMS Dreadnought hosted a hastily arranged tour of four Abyssinian princes, or so they had been told. It turns out to have been an elaborate […]
Links to the Mrs. Dalloway posts are below, but I thought I would spend a little space on some works that pay homage to the novel and to Woolf herself. (section deleted) The Hours was also made into the 2002 movie with Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. While I haven’t read any of […]
A woman throws a party, sees some old friends, and thinks of times gone by. The storyline by itself of Mrs. Dalloway makes for a challenging transition from book to screen. Factor in the novel’s use of n internal dialogue to represent consciousness and I didn’t expect much from the movie. Fortunately the film was […]
Draft for Mrs DallowayThis post covers the last third of the book, starting from the narration returning to Septimus and Rezia in the late afternoon and going through the end. Septimus briefly returns to some semblance of sanity, content at home and making Rezia happy as well. His reflections on marriage provide an interesting contrast: […]
The London Walks of Mrs. Dalloway by E.K. Sparks, Clemson UniversityThis post will cover from the old woman singing outside the Regent’s Park Tube station at approximately noon to the narration leaving Elizabeth on the Westminster bus in the late afternoon. This middle third of the novel fleshes out many of the themes and begins […]
Big Ben clock tower from Westminster Bridge Picture source Guidedrius: Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages, Thou thy worldly task has done, Home art gone and ta’en thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Arviragus: Fear no more the frown o’ th’ […]
Mrs. Dalloway, London: Hogarth Press, 1925. Dust jacket designed by Vanessa Bell. Picture source It is difficult–perhaps impossible–for a writer to say anything about his own work. All he has to say has been said as fully and as well as he can in the body of the book itself. If he has failed to […]
Many posts related to Woolf and To the Lighthouse, so here goes… Virginia Woolf online resources Woolf’s “Modern Fiction” and How Should One Read a Book?” essays Audio recommendation To the Lighthouse: The Window, Chapter 1 To the Lighthouse: The Window, Chapters 2 – 9 To the Lighthouse: The Window, Chapters 10 – 16 To […]
The IMDB page for the movie can be found here. An adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s work is going to be a challenge. How to capture the consciousness of the characters that fills the majority of the book? Despite the massive changes to storyline, wholesale additions and omissions, and a pared down character list, the movie […]
Godrevy Island lighthouse (Source)“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. This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley and the breaking wave; Mrs Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs Ramsay saying, “Life stand […]
The first chapter of “Time Passes” highlights the difference in narrative style for this section. Events after the dinner are conveyed through a third-person approach rather than the stream-of-consciousness in the “The Window.” This change in technique mirrors the shift in focus regarding the impact of time. The first section, which viewed the world through […]
I saw the CD version of To the Lighthouse with Phyllida Law as reader at my local library and decided to give it a try. This in spite of my general misgiving about books on tape (I’m rarely able to give my full attention to them) and the specific worry about the adaptability of this […]
Cover of To the Lighthouse by Vanessa Bell The last three chapters of “The Window” section takes place during the dinner and later that evening. I will briefly look at the dinner and some topics covered then and afterwards. The dinner starts off with weariness and dissatisfaction of many of the participants. Several characters wish […]
Talland House, where the Stephen family spent their summers. From Leslie Stephen’s photo album at Smith College Libraries site. This section covers up to the dinner party and allows the reader to meet more of the Rasmay family and guests. Mrs. Ramsay expresses her desire to spare her children from what she views as the […]
“…she felt…how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach.” Picture–Hebridean Sunset While there are many things going on in this section, the use […]
I first read To the Lighthouse about 6 years ago and I’m looking forward to reading it again. A few chapters into the book I realized how much of the book’s approach and themes permeate the first chapter. I thought reviewing just this one chapter would make writing about the rest of the book easier. […]
Before reading To the Lighthouse again, I wanted to read some of Woolf’s essays from both volumes of The Common Reader. I have posted several excerpts below from “Modern Fiction” and “How Should One Read a Book?” that I think will prove useful in understanding Woolf’s works as well as benefiting reading in general. From […]
Listed below are a few online resources I found on Virginia Woolf and the two books I intend to read now. VIRGINIA WOOLF Virginia Woolf’s Wikipedia entry Works available at Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg Australia has ebooks available to more of Woolfs’ books. Copyright law will vary depending on country. Virginia Woolf seminar page from […]