Evan Kindley from The New Yorker discusses connections between Mrs. Dalloway's story and our lives under quarantine in this article: [link]
Although we haven't read much of this novel, it's interesting to see the points Kindley makes about the sudden growth in consequence of formerly normal acts like walking to the store or crossing a street. Even in the novel The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker, where the reader is thrust into a hyper-analyzed account of going up an escalator, readers in 2020 can relate deeply with the ironic significance of such a simple deed. However, this does bring up the question of "Are we supposed to relate to these personal accounts?". Did the authors of these novels truly mean for the reader to have a personal connection with their accounts or are the stories enclosed meant more to be a "time-capsule" or snapshot of a single individual's life?
As we read more of Mrs. Dalloway, I expect that we will continue to make connections with our modern predicament and Mrs. Dalloway's adventure.
I think that although the reader can connect passages from these books to personal accounts they aren't meant to necessarily be relatable. On the other hand, even if they were first intended to be relatable, time passes and they wind up better serving as a "time-capsule". This is evident when looking at both of the stories, The Mezzanine offers relatable content to us while Mrs. Dalloway is much harder for us to connect to in this day and age.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting take. I actually had the opposite interpretation of these novels (And there's no true "right or wrong" here, of course. To me, it seemed like the sole reason for these novels was so that the reader could connect with them. From the deliberate but still stream-of-consciousness narrative told by Howie to the life of an English woman in Mrs. Dalloway, the reader is thrust into the mind of the characters. As someone in another blog post mentioned, we only ever "see" one character's perspective (Although in Mrs. Dalloway, we are thrust into other character's minds, the "important" perspective is hers). I would argue that the time period of these novels doesn't really matter other than for the effect of, as you said, acting as a time-capsule for the quirks of each time, and that even the plot of each novel doesn't matter. I find that these novels are written about how these people think, which can be very relatable.
DeleteThe hyper-analysed stories seem to me like a slow motion version of a story from anyone's life. I think you're right that we can relate more to Mrs. Dalloway because she just got out of a sort of quarantine herself. "The grass is greener, the flowers are prettier" sort of thing. In both stories, they take a special appreciation for things that "normal" people would take for granted which I think we can relate to more in this day in age. Based on what we've learned about Virginia Woolf prior to this book, she was trying to make a more believable character in this book. That makes me think that we were supposed to relate to Mrs. Dalloway. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting to me is how hyper-analyzed condensed time period situations in Mrs. Dalloway (such as Mrs. Dalloway walking to a store) are able to touch so much on the rest of her life. Even though the book takes a day, in real time, we've learned so much about Mrs. Dalloway's life (in relatively chronological order) that it almost feels like the book doesn't just take place during a day but is through Mrs. Dalloway's whole lifetime.
ReplyDelete