Review Post 37 - On the Money

One book by the redoubtable VW would be enough for most people for one year, but the review copy I received from OUP contained not only A Room of One's Own, but also Three Guineas, a sequel of sorts which seeks to explain the role women can play in preventing war.  Yes, I am a glutton for punishment...

*****
Three Guineas was published in 1938 as the clouds grew ever darker over mainland Europe and the two dictators, Hitler and Mussolini, began to exert more of a negative, and patriarchal, influence over their neighbours.  It is written in the form of a reply to a letter, which, before it can answer the original letter fully, must deal with connected issues arising from the receipt of a further two letters (bear with me here...).  The original letter is sent by a barrister leading a public organisation to prevent the outbreak of war, in which he asks for Woolf's support, both financial and moral.  In response, she takes over two hundred pages, leading the reader through a tangled maze of arguments about a woman's role in public life, outlining some of the recent progress made in the push towards equality as well as the many obstacles still standing in the way.

The first letter she polishes off is from a women's college, similar to the ones she lectured at in A Room of One's Own.  Their plea for pecuniary assistance is mulled over by Woolf for fifty pages or so while she discusses whether educating women is actually a step towards eradicating war or a move towards perpetuating the system under criticism.  The second letter is from a society for the promotion of working women, and Woolf again takes their plea for financial help very seriously, wondering if encouraging women to conform to masculine norms while receiving feminine standards of pay is a good idea at all.  Once these preliminary matters have been addressed, she returns to the original letter and, while promising a small donation, she decides that the best way women can further this cause is not to join the society, but rather to work from the outside and bring about change by non-conformism.  Yes, that does seem like one extremely long letter...

It's actually made even longer by the existence of two sets of notes for the book.  The first, added by the editor, contains short notes about classical allusions or contemporary name-dropping and is fairly straight-forward.  The second, however, added by Woolf herself, switches between simple references to her reading and anecdotal digressions lasting for a few pages, leading the poor reader to be torn between the desire to understand the background and a wish to just read more than a couple of paragraphs without turning to the back of the book again.  Now, when one word points you to both sets of notes, it really is time to reach for the paracetamol.  Where A Room of One's Own was a light skip through the daisies, Three Guineas is bog-snorkelling wearing concrete flippers.

Before you run away and look for a Harry Potter book instead though, it's not as bad as it sounds.  There are still flashes of the dry humour evident in the companion piece, and Woolf's frequent comments reminding herself that she mustn't waste her reader's time with details (before then embarking on a ten-page digression) show a writer fully aware of the demands she is making on the reader and determined to make the medicine she administers as palatable as possible.

After almost 250 pages then, what is the gist of Woolf's lengthy epistle?  Namely, that for women to assist in stopping war, they require a good education, equal pay and a decent career (but with the common sense to only work as much as they need to), and the freedom to stay out of structured societies in order to attack the system from the outside.  Easy.  And that's really all that needs to be said (even if Virginia needed slightly more space than me to get to that point).

Before I go though, it would be remiss of me to leave the title unexplained.  A Guinea was an imperial amount of money, one pound and one shilling, which never actually existed in coin or note form.  However, it had upper-class connotations, being the standard consulting fee in the professions, and it is this amount which Woolf decides to donate to each of the writers of the three letters (as symbolically shown in the photograph above).  As pointed out by critics (and comments I have received), Woolf comes from this privileged class: while she may preach attacking the system from the outside, is she really just inside the glass house throwing stones?

*****
Thanks again to Betty from Oxford University Press (Australia & New Zealand) for this review copy!

Review Post 36 - Give me my space, man...

Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?  Well, a lot of people, especially those who know her only by reputation and haven't read any of her works.  I read my first Woolf novel last year (To the Lighthouse), and since then I've also read Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves.  While there can be some mind-bendingly difficult passages, and while stream-of-consciousness can take some getting used to, Woolf's work can also be light, playful, elegant and easy to read (which definitely isn't the impression I had before).  Despite being best known for her fiction, Woolf also wrote some important essays and biographies, and today's post will look at one of these works and hopefully explain what the photo above has to do with the lovely Mrs. (Ms.?) W.  Shall we?

*****
A Room of One's Own is a written version of lectures given by Woolf to Newnham and Girton Colleges (all-female colleges at Cambridge University) in October 1928.  Over 150 brisk, breezy pages, slightly digressing when the fancy takes her, the writer (who has been asked to lecture on women and literature) attempts to explain why so few women have been able to gain entrance to the pantheon of literature, and what relevance her title has.  This, of course, relates to the conclusion of her musings where she claims for a woman to become a serious writer, there are many requirements; the major ones, however, are a steady income of 500 pounds a year and a room - with a lock.

To explain why this is so, Woolf takes the reader (and the listeners) back to the sixteenth century, where she first speculates on the fate of the poor, brilliant (fictional) sister of the Bard of Avon, Judith Shakespeare, doomed to obscurity through being denied the advantages her famous brother enjoys in terms of education and support, before moving forward through the centuries to explore the lives and works of some famous and not-so-famous female writers.  In attempting to bring these women to life, the male world having largely ignored them, Woolf shows the obstacles female writers faced in attempting to create their art.

Even some of the more famous authors in the canon, when put under the Woolfian microscope, show signs of patriarchal oppression.  Charlotte Bronte is described as an angry apologist, excusing her unwomanly emotions in Jane Eyre; George Eliot's writing of novels, when non-fiction may have been a more suitable later occupation, is questioned by the writer (who hints that writing novels is easier than poetry or non-fiction for women who are constantly in danger of being disturbed and who thus must write in infrequent short bursts); Jane Austen is praised for being able to stay true to herself and unmoved by external frustrations in a way Bronte could not.  In all of these cases, Woolf believes that having a room of their own would have been a Godsend.

As well as the practical difficulties of creating a masterpiece while shackled to a shared desk in a common living area, female writers faced outright hostility from a society which preferred them to stay at home and look after the children.  Woolf touches on the difficulty for women of writing when the topics and language are the domain of men, forcing women to create their own words and style - something Woolf herself is obviously famous for.  However, she goes further, saying that the true artist should be neither masculine or feminine, that the perfect writer should be androgynous, a third sex, able to write clearly without being caught up in gender politics (apparently, Shakespeare was a good example of this...).

It's all fascinating stuff, and written in such a light, likable manner that it's very easy to cheer her on as she demolishes patriarchy, even from the male viewpoint.  However, women aren't the only undertrodden; Woolf touches on socio-economic issues (an issue closer to my heart) briefly, but there isn't really enough attention paid to this.  Another fault commented on by American writer Alice Walker is the absence of any mention of race (perhaps unsurprising in 1920s England?), leading to accusations that the room Woolf talks of is actually fairly limited in its availability.  Nevertheless, this short essay is generally considered an important feminist work and (more importantly) is great to read ;)

So, let's return to the picture above, which will lead me in to two closing points.  Firstly, as you can see from the bib in the photo, I am a proud father, and my wife now no longer works, staying instead at home to look after the girls.  By choice?  Yes and no.  You see, she was thinking about going back to work part-time but was put off after learning that she would only be able to go back to the work she was doing before if she returned full time.  The only work available for a part-time employee was not interesting enough to entice her to return to long hours and the hell of commuting: in short, even today, real equality is far from being achieved.

The second point is more personal and goes back to the art of writing and who can practice it.  Woolf is right to say that women require a fixed income and a private space to develop their writing, but the reality is that this is true for everyone.  In fact, anyone who is contemplating becoming a writer needs time, space and money to enable them to give it their best shot...

...which means that if you're paying off a mortgage, working full time, commuting for two hours each day and trying your best to help out with screaming babies, blog posts like this are the best you're likely to produce ;)

*****

Thanks are due to Betty from Oxford University Press (Australia & New Zealand) for sending me this review copy - merci beaucoup :)

Review Post 25 - Short Women

I'm all for gender equality, so after regaling you with my experiences of two novellas by male writers, it's time for a couple written by women. These ones were purchased rather than borrowed, but as they come from the incredibly affordable Wordsworth Classics range, I was happy to splash out the few dollars they cost me. Of course, the big question is how the ladies' efforts compared to those of the two Nobel Laureates. Allons-y...

*****

The first of the two novellas is Edith Wharton's slim classic Ethan Frome, and when I found out that the introduction in my version wasn't much shorter than the actual story, I was not a happy bunny. Luckily, as has been the case with the other books of hers which I have read, I was very pleasantly surprised and had forgotten about the injustice of the lack of pages by the end of the story. Set in 19th-century rural New England, it is a story within a story, where a visitor to a sleepy, isolated town sets eyes upon the gaunt figure of Ethan Frome and, on learning sketchy details of his life, becomes fascinated by the taciturn farmer. On being caught in a snowstorm, he is invited into the Frome house, and it is at that point that Wharton throws us back a quarter of a century, and the real story begins.

The main part of the book describes Ethan's life, living with his older wife, Zeena, and her engaging and beautiful cousin, Mattie, on his farm. It becomes clear that Ethan has fallen for Mattie and that she is not adverse to him either. However, in the background, lurking like a vengeful zombie, is the awful Zeena, a hypochondriac who subtly gets into the mind of her husband and cousin, poisoning the atmosphere of the house and squeezing out what joy her two younger companions have left in their lives. You may have noticed that I wasn't particularly fond of old Zeena...

Wharton expertly creates a psychological prison, leaving Ethan flailing around blindly for a means of escape - but there is none. With no money, he can't countenance leaving his sick (in many senses of the word) wife, and he tortures himself thinking of what could be and what should never have been. The bleak, mid-winter New England landscape which the writer conjures up adds to the feeling of gloom and oppression, both real and imagined. When Zeena unexpectedly takes her cruelty to new heights, Ethan and Mattie, driven into a corner, suddenly make a decision which will alter their lives for good...

And then... Then we return to the present day where a surprise awaits us at the Frome farmhouse. And it's a good one.

Despite its brevity Ethan Frome is an excellent story, gripping and thought provoking, and in Zeena, Wharton creates a remarkable literary villain. Despite the best efforts of the academic writing the introduction to my copy, who has a lot of sympathy for Zeena, a woman who has no real choices in a time and place where women had little opportunity to improve their lot, I was content to boo and hiss and hope that the roof would fall on her head. Now Wharton, on the other hand, I have a lot of time for. Three out of three so far for a writer I hadn't even heard of a couple of years ago: that's a good strike rate in anyone's language.

*****

The second of my short ladies is Virginia Woolf, another (fairly) recent discovery of mine, whose books I have enjoyed immensely so far. I was a bit worried about this one though, and, for the first couple of pages, I thought my misgivings were justified, with a mind-bending switching of voices from line to line which was... well, just annoying, quite frankly. However, it settled down quite quickly, and The Waves turned out to be a thoroughly absorbing read.

There is no plot as such, which may come as a bit of a surprise to some. Instead, Woolf was writing to a rhythm, switching between the minds of her six protagonists, allowing us to see what's going on in their heads, what they are really thinking. The nine chapters follow the six from their childhood at a school near the sea to old age, and each one takes the characters further on their journey though life. At first, the voices are bewildering, clamouring, almost identical, but they quickly take on their own nuances, developing into individual personae. The characters appear to speak directly to the reader rather than to the others present at the moment, at times rendering the style similar to a Greek tragedy or a Shakespearean play. Look, just read it, and you'll see what I mean...

The flow of the characters' progression from childhood towards death is contrasted with descriptive pieces preceding each section, in which Woolf depicts one day of sunshine over the coast. The first piece captures the glories of sunrise and the first mention of the waves, and as the book progresses, so does the day, with the sun beaming out at the height of its powers when the characters are in the prime of their lives and beginning to crawl back towards the horizon as old age approaches.

The six main characters are thought to represent people in Woolf's life: family, friends, lovers. However, it is also said that they actually represent different facets of the writer's own personality, allowing her to explore the different sides of her life, revealing all of her true colours. The Waves is obviously one of those books which you have to read about before actually reading...

No plot, as mentioned, but there are, of course, trillions of themes and motifs, much too many to even attempt to explore outside a doctoral thesis (and I'm certain a good few academics will have spent their PhD years on this particular work). Every reader will take something different from the book and will probably identify with one of the characters more than the others (or, at least, with their way of life). For me, it's Bernard's sad obsession with stepping outside life, avoiding the pressing constraints of civilisation, the rush, rush, rush, the must, must, must that fascinates me (like most bookworms, I am forever wanting to turn the outside world off for a time and exist suspended in a stress-free cocoon). Sadly, however magical the moment, eventually the bubble pops, and we are left to continue with our busy, busy lives.

This is an intriguing book and well deserving of its reputation. It needs to be read and reread; and I'm sure that that's exactly what I'll do.

*****

After a week of short fiction, it's time to hand out the prizes, and I would have to give this match to the ladies. Woolf played a very strong game and was ably backed up by her American partner, whose concision and precision made her a formidable protagonist. On the other side of the net, Garcia Marquez used his unorthodox style to great effect, his cunning and elegance making up for a lack of brute strength. Sadly, Naipaul, usually very strong, let his partner down slightly; a little off his game, I feel he didn't take this one too seriously - not bad, just not up to the level of this company.

Still there's always the chance of a rematch...

Review Post 1 - Religion, Sex and Cross-Dressing

Welcome to Year 2 of my little blog, dear reader. There'll be something old (the jokes), something new (the reviews), something borrowed (any decent opinions I can steal from other people) but nothing blue (not my style - sorry). Don't worry: this isn't a proposal...

There will be a few changes around here for 2010 though. 2009 saw me read and review 91 books in, at times, exhaustive depth, something which will be beyond me this year (unless I only read books longer than 600 pages in length). Instead, I will be blogging at regular intervals with summaries of what I've been reading, with the occasional full, in-depth analysis. Unless, that is, I change my mind. It's my blog, and I'll do what I want to.

So, taking advantage of the fact that I will not be blogging like it's 2009, I started the New Year by looking at a lovely style of book, but one I avoided a little towards the end of last year for fear of having to write a full review every twelve hours: the novella. The exact definition of a novella varies, but I believe it is any book which you look at and think "Well, I'm glad I didn't pay full price for that". As alluded above though, there is one problem with novellas; you tend to get through them very quickly, which is why I find myself about to tell you about my first three books of 2010 - after three days. I really need to slow down...


*****

My first book for the year is an old friend and the first in a series which I will be rereading over the first half of 2010. Anthony Trollope's delightful book, The Warden, is the first of his Chronicles of Barsetshire, the series which brought him fame. I first came across this book when living in Japan (now about ten years ago - how time flies...), stumbling across it in a second-hand English bookshop in Kobe, reading it voraciously and then scouring the shelves for the other books in the series. I was put off reading it when I went through my first real bout of classic literature reading in England by the description of its taking place in a rural clerical setting, but despite the prominence of Bishops, Archdeacons and Prebendaries, it has very little to do with religion and everything to do with the church.

The core of the book is an attempt by an over-zealous reformer, John Bold, to look into the management of an almshouse for poor workers, run by the Anglican church in the fictional city of Barchester and overseen by a warden, Reverend Septimus Harding. Bold, with the aid of a cunning solicitor and the greed of some of the almsmen, manages to set the national newspapers onto the poor unsuspecting warden, who stands accused of profiting from money set aside originally for the benefit of the poor of the city. The full might of the Church of England (in the shape of the formidable Archdeacon Grantly and his father, the slightly less formidable, but much nicer, Bishop of Barchester) gathers itself to see off the challenge from London and the secular world, but these legal machinations go over the head of the sweet old warden, for whom the question is not so much of proving himself to be right as of being so. What follows is a sketch of a good man trying to stay true to his conscience in the face of opposition from family, friends, employers and public opinion: can the warden throw away his livelihood merely to ease his conscience?


*****

Our second book also deals with matters of character, albeit of a slightly less noble kind. 'On Chesil Beach' is the shortest of the three books reviewed today, 162 pages long but with the kind of font size last seen in a teenager's deluded attempt to convince their teacher that they had fulfilled the word count criteria. If you're going to charge full price for that, you'd better make sure that the book is good, and McEwan doesn't disappoint; this is well worth reading (especially if, like me, you get it second hand). Edward and Florence are two English newlyweds, dining in a hotel on their honeymoon, ready to start their lives together. This being 1962, however, what should have been a pleasant meal is, instead, fraught by sexual tension and fear: you see, the wedding night will be the first time for both of them...

McEwan masterfully sketches out the nervous behaviour, suppressed sexual urges and contradictory actions of the confused young couple, interspersing his running commentary on the lead up to the main event with flashbacks to the couple's early lives, their chance meeting in Oxford and their long, slow courtship. As the reader is allowed to witness what led to the current moment, the two move off to the bedroom to consummate their marriage. This may sound slightly voyeuristic (if not pornographic - and there are a couple of extremely memorable scenes), but it is, in fact, a highly moving and somewhat sad portrayal of the complex courtship dance of two creatures trapped in a traditional society, where matters are not discussed until the last possible minute.


*****

To say more would detract from the enjoyment of the book, so I'll just leave the young couple in the bedroom and move on to the next story - which is a very different kettle of fish indeed. If only Edward and Florence had been around in the twenties heyday of the Bloomsbury group of writers, there would have been little embarrassment in bedroom matters (although there may well have been a third party present, something which might have soured the wedding night somewhat). Virginia Woolf, feminist icon, genius writer and general woman about town, was not backward about coming forward and was a solid believer in her group's relaxed attitudes towards relationships. So much so, in fact, that she created the trans-genre (and trans-gender) work Orlando as a tribute to her lover, Vita Sackville-West (nicer than the usual box of chocolates, but a little more effort).

Orlando is a young nobleman, born in Elizabethan times, who somehow manages to end the novel in 1928 - a pregnant, married woman. Over the course of the 160 pages, (s)he engages in various affairs, attempts to write plays and poetry, ponders the meaning of life, travels to Constantinople (where the world's first sex change - without surgery - takes place) and makes the acquaintance of three centuries worth of monarchs and literary icons. It's all a bit daft at times (and Woolf herself thought of it as a recreation from her usual writing), but this traveller's tale, reminiscent of Don Quixote or Candide (Woolf also meant it as a bit of a tribute to Defoe, drawing on the style of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders) does have a serious side.

In addition to the thinly-veiled allusions to Sackville-West, the 'biography' looks at the evolution over the centuries of attitudes towards women and the societal constraints forced upon the fairer sex. On reentering civilisation as a woman, Orlando becomes aware of the many barriers separating women and free will, suffering especially under the stifling atmosphere of the 'moral' Victorian era which compels her to adapt and conform to the prevailing norms. Well, as much as a trans-gender, cross-dressing nobleman/woman is able to anyway...

The book is a quick and easy read, and the plot fairly races along, despite the more serious issues threaded around the hilarity. This would be a very good introduction to Woolf before diving into her more usual stream-of-consciousness style, even if it is one of her slighter and more whimsical works!

All for now; I hope I haven't disappointed my readers by fitting three reviews into one. As for my next review, I'll leave you now with a little clue. There was an Englishman, an Australian and an American with a confused Tory on the beach... No idea what I'm talking about? Then you'll just have to wait until next time...

18 - 'Mrs. Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf

Tony was walking home, thinking about all the things he had to do that evening, gazing idly at the dandelions (silly things, really, when one thinks about them, yellow, fluffy, idle things) growing in the field next to the road leading up to the station. 'What am I going to say about Mrs. Dalloway?', he thought, 'What are the main themes, why did she write it (she being Virginia Woolf of course, a stream-of-conciousness writer Tony had lately become aware of; a little late in the day, but never mind), what does it all mean?'. He continued walking, passing a woman, probably in her mid-thirties, pushing a pram down the slight incline which rolled down towards the university buildings before levelling out slightly, pushing a chubby-cheeked baby in the pram (and wasn't that one of the things that most came through, the role of a woman, the energy, the effort expended - wasted - on organising the household, holding parties when, and this is the tragedy, the talents of the wife far outstripped those of the bread-winning husband?). The woman nodded as she passed, happy, content to have escaped the gloomy living room and enjoying the fresh air; the child looked on ignoring Tony.

And as he trudged up the hill, thinking back to the characters and events of the book, he thought how topical some of it still was; poor old Septimus, a victim of medical malpractice, misdiagnosis - well initially anyway. Unable to cope with the aftermath of a terrible ordeal during an awful war (just like those returned from the first Gulf War, or the soldiers, and civilians, on both sides out in Iraq and Afghanistan): post-traumatic stress they called it nowadays, 'shell shock', the specialist had labelled it. He had, nevertheless, the moment of peace and happiness with his wife before taking the fatal step - Tony paused while crossing the road, careful not to be caught by the impatient traffic (another parallel?) - out of the window, and into... who knows? Was he starting to come round? Was it merely a moment of lucidity before the inevitable? If the doctor hadn't come, would he have... - one more road safely navigated, on the last stretch now.

But the writing, he thought, actually said, for a moment talking to himself as he walked past the playground, his voice tailing off as he became aware of the parents pushing their daughter on the swing, looking suspiciously at him until he smiled, looked away and continued down the road, thinking (not speaking) once more of the way the dialogue, the thoughts of the protagonists meandered, got sidetracked, mingled with other people's minds, before giving way to the next person, sometimes so quickly that you were never quite sure who was thinking. It's people like that that you have to be careful of, she thought, pulling her daughter off the swing and looking coldly down the road. But Tony had gone.

And now he was springing down the last hill, remembering the party, the bringing together of all the characters, making them interact, act, perform for the reader in one last hurrah before the fall of the curtain (not far to go now, just around the corner), although Clarissa seemed deliberately kept back, away from Richard and Sally, prolonging the suspense until (just coming up the driveway now) when Clarissa finally comes up to Richard, (his wife comes to meet him at the door) and the blood starts to come to his face (he bends toward her and kisses her, still thinking, distracted), and the book ends -

"Tony, for God's sake, you are not Virginia Woolf. Stop daydreaming, and go and pick up the baby."

Make of that what you will.

4 - 'To The Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf

'Stream of conciousness' is one of those expressions that I had a vague idea of, but had never really come across until last year. Then I read 'On The Road' and experienced the style of writing where you are inside the head of the characters, confusing as that may be at times, something which makes you keep reading even though it's sometimes difficult to follow the ideas.

Well, 'To The Lighthouse' is that to the power 27. The book is only about 220 pages long, and the short middle section is comparatively easy to read, but what comes before and after this passage of literary calm is more mentally taxing than a whole shelf at your local Borders. The quick exchange of points of view from the numerous characters at the Ramsay's (not-so-secret code for the Stephens, Woolf's family) holiday house on the Isle of Skye draw you in; it's difficult to stop (but a relief, at times, when you do!).

Essentially, as Woolf puts it, 'an elegy' to her parents, especially her philosopher father, it also explores various relationships (husband-wife, father-son, friends) and lays bare the tension that is always present in human relationships. The use of stream of conciousness brings the aggression and tension to the forefront of the reader's attention, similar to the way D.H. Lawrence shows us the thoughts of the characters of 'Sons and Lovers' and 'The Rainbow'. I always had Woolf down as a feminist writer and was a little unsure as to how I would like this book, but it's definitely enjoyable (providing you don't have too many external distractions!).

So, is it worth reading?

In short, I bought this on a whim, and after reading it, I'm keen to read 'Mrs. Dalloway' and explore Woolf's literary world a little more. I think that's about as good a recommendation as you'll get!