Reading Virginia Woolf, Post-Modern Literary Pioneer
It's been years since I last read Virginia Woolf. We read Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse for AP English Literature class. Even now, I can faintly recall her particular style and stream of consciousness passages. Her writing imbues the air in the room with its own energy. Returning to her work at 29 years old is gingerly stepping into a small comfortable parlor where the windows may have been shut for years. The remnants of dried flowers from the English garden are sprinkled on the fireplace. There is perhaps a dusty veneer on the bookshelves, yet it only increases the comfort the worn, lived-in space provides. I sit myself in the well-used brown leather chair and crack open Jacob's Room.
Once finished with DeLillo's White Noise, I began searching the internet for "Post-Modern English Literature" syllabi. I want more context for the movement. I want to better identify the broader discourses the authors of the mid- to late 20th century were engaging, what those influences were, how this period compares to the modernist literary movement. A syllabus included Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf and I began to read.
I may be rusty, but I've been struggling through Jacob's Room. There are pages where I am utterly at a loss of what is happening. Characters jump in and out of scenes, both that we've been introduced to and those that are new. The titular Jacob remains in the background, a rather elusive character. I wrote the following in my journal this morning, as I made it halfway through the novel:
I think [Virginia Woolf] is trying to show us how all other people know about us are mere extrapolations of quick glimpses of ourselves. Maybe this is most easily evidenced in Mrs. Durrant's interactions with Jacob, where she inwardly notes ow awkward he is, despite his dignified appearance. Then of course, his friend Timmy Durrant has an entirely different perspective of him, as his pal with whom he sailed the Isle of Scilly. Who are we but the kaleidoscopic amalgamation of others' views of us? Unless, of course, our true selves can be found away from the crowds--the society parties, the opera, the study hall at Cambridge-and instead lie in our most intimate spaces, our bedrooms.
We shall see where this novel leads us.