After
reading the first three chapters of The
Sun Also Rises, I was, quite frankly, relieved. Compared to the maddeningly
complex sentence structure in Mrs.
Dalloway, which I was only able to fully parse at a rate of thirty seconds
per sentence, Hemingway’s clear cut sentences were gifts from heaven, and
reading Jake’s narrative induced a sort of drugged, euphoric sensation in my
brain. Needless to say, if I had to choose one to read on my own, The Sun Also Rises would be the obvious
choice.
Reading
the books in an English class, however, with daily discussions and debates, changed
things. Mrs. Dalloway, once an
impenetrable mess of semi-colons, near run-on sentences, and confusingly
unrelated thoughts, started to become a little more accessible, and I found to
my surprise that it actually contained a lot of valuable insight. The idea of Septimus
and Clarissa making up two halves of the person, for example, is one that I
would never have considered, but is actually quite eye-opening. From the point
of view of someone who goes through Bipolar Disorder or something similar, such
as Virginia Woolf herself, I imagine that they might feel that each of their
alter-egos is really a completely different person, and that neither version of
themselves should be judged by the actions of the other. In fact, many people
with multiple personality disorder who have committed crimes when one
particular personality is dominant but are normal, law-abiding citizens when
the other is dominant have argued this very point.
Another example of the power
of Woolf’s free indirect discourse was her criticism of the accepted treatment
for the mentally ill in England in the 1920s. By describing Septimus’s most
intimate thoughts, we see that his reality is fundamentally different, and that
the simple treatments prescribed by Dr. Holmes and Dr. Bradshaw were in fact
grossly inadequate. Even more interestingly, the reader is the only person who
truly understands Septimus, with the possible exception of Rezia, and we see
that although he is perceived by many as simply insane, he actually has a lot
of extremely deep and profound thoughts, thoughts that are even described by
Rezia as “beautiful.” This phenomenon is something that I would never have
expected, and it was only through free indirect discourse that Woolf was able
to portray it accurately.
Although Mrs. Dalloway was often hard to
understand, I think it was definitely worth taking the time to unravel, as it
allowed us to really get into the heads of the characters, and led to a lot of
profound realizations that I never could otherwise have gotten.
You're right: Woolf requires her reader to *work* (work that's mirrored in the work she's put in to orchestrating and innovating this very particular narrative style), but that work is worth doing. This isn't fiction that's designed simply to "entertain" (although I do believe pleasure and entertainment is to be found in this book, as well as insight).
ReplyDeleteBut if Woolf is deceptively difficult (she seems harder to get into at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's not so bad), I'd say Hemingway is deceptively simple. You *can* read the sentences quickly, but as I hope recent discussions have shown, you can easily miss their deeper implications. The seemingly flat, straightforward sentence often refers to a vast subterranean emotional realm.
I can definitely attest to the fact that Virginia Woolf's style of writing was really hard for me to get into; I found myself rereading some of the same sentences over and over again! However, I do agree that it was a valuable experience to actually delve into some of the deeper themes that Woolf is trying to present to us. I had actually done my panel presentation on the idea that Septimus and Clarissa were somehow intermittently "connected," and represented the same person. If I hadn't really taken the chance to look beneath the surface and really pay attention to how Woolf uses free indirect discourse, I wouldn't have gotten that insight, either.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Virginia Woolf's narrative style is much more wordy and complex, with the free indirect discourse giving an incredibly deep scope into each character's internal consciousness, I think Hemingway's more clipped narrative style serves equally well as a scope into his characters' group consciousness. By letting the dialogue flow and ricochet between characters without interruption, you almost get the feeling that you're sitting with the gang and sensing every single tension that arises in conversation without being told by the narrator how to feel.
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