One question to keep in mind as you read the opening pages of Mrs. Dalloway (to the point at which Mrs. D. ask Peter to remember her party as he is leaving):
How would you compare or contrast Leonard and Virginia Woolf?
You might consider concepts like self and place as you try to answer this question. Does Virginia Woolf represent place or describe places in the same way as Leonard does? Does Leonard Woolf handle the confrontation between cultures in the same way as Virginia Woolf? Is there a difference between the urban modernism and the colonial/village modernism? Do they each deal with the figure of the outsider in the same way? Do they both seem to be worried about individual identity or self-consciousness--or not?
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This question of comparison was at the forefront of my mind as I read Mrs. Dalloway today. I might be biased by what the accepted literary canon tells me to believe about the skill of Leonard Woolf as opposed to that of his wife, but it seemed clear to me that Virginia was stylistically far more nuanced. Dr. Engber asks specifically about issues like self and culture in comparing the two, but I found style to be the most marked difference and also the most convincing in formulating an argument for Virginia Woolf's superiority. Virginia Woolf is able to write an entire novel based on a single day in a woman's life--and it isn't boring! She accomplishes this task by weaving between memory and immediacy, following the thoughts of characters wherever they may go. Contrast her long, artful, prose-poem-like sentences with her husband's clunky, jagged ones. Another point on which Virginia exceeds her husband's achievement is digression. We talked in class yesterday about whether Leonard Woolf's various digressions, such as Karlinahami's story of the Buddha, advanced the plot or had any other significant effect on the novel as a whole. Particularly after reading this section of Mrs. Dalloway, my answer to that question is no. In contrast, Virginia Woolf's digressions seem to buoy the story and assist in its flow, giving little insights into different character's minds before floating off in another direction. I realize quotes would be helpful to prove my points; perhaps I will locate some and turn this into my next response paper. For now, these are my roughly outlined impressions.
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