Stepping into the world of Woolf’s experimental narrative is both a gruelling and distinctly beautiful experience for the reader. Her use of prose balances on the precipice of poetry and transforms Clarissa Dalloway’s, perhaps prosaic party, into a puff pastry piece of fiction. And whether the process of reading does feel laborious, which at times it does, there is no denying Woolf’s talent of manipulating unfamiliar language into familiar feeling.
The novel is framed around the planning and occurrence of Clarissa’s party, while much of the focus trapezes around both the past and present condition of all her guests. In particular, her complicated relationship with Peter Walsh, who is considered an all-most love from her past. It is easy to admire the reminiscent use of metaphor that Walsh uses throughout the novel, which often highlights the natural and uncanny process of ageing.
“The compensation of growing old was simply this; that passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – the power which adds the supreme flavour to experience, of turning it around, slowly, in the light(69).”
While the context may seem tedious at times, following the social events of high British society, often its light-hearted nature is overcast by something darker. Â For instance, the representation of PTSD by Septimus Smith, who as a veteran of world war 1 is unable to swallow the memories of warfare and death. While his young wife helplessly looks on, unable to save him from himself. We witness the aftermath of war on the protagonists psych. The novels relationship with death extends to many of the characters, including Clarissa who compares gaining love to losing life. She describes a relief in letting go of life and this, is in some way, an act of rebellion.
“Death was defiance. There was an embrace in death (163).”
At times the narrative voice slips from the character to an omniscient narrator, that can be easily confused for Wolf’s own interpretation of events. She has the ability to make this transition feel natural and subsequently complicates the fiction from the non-fiction. Her ownership of language is why I have no doubt this novel will continue to live and breathe on our shelves.
Georgia Smith