I love the way this chapter ends with Mrs. Ramsey taking a bow. She has played her role, she has succeeded at her mission to have the dinner party a success, and now she can leave by taking her bow. But the last line--where she looks over her shoulder and sees the evening is already, so quickly, in the past--for someone who has not read the book, this is ominous, while at the same time it is exactly how we all live, none of us knowing the future, all of us living through major events of our lives only to have them recede immediately into the unchangeable past. All of us moving into the future. "And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves." Sing it!
Two observations from different characters regarding the duality of romantic love, its simultaneous gravity and beauty and campiness or coarseness or gaudiness:
Mrs. Ramsay:
"This will celebrate the occasion—a curious sense rising in her, at once freakish and tender, of celebrating a festival, as if two emotions were called up in her, one profound—for what could be more serious than the love of man for woman, what more commanding, more impressive, bearing in its bosom the seeds of death; at the same time these lovers, these people entering into illusion glittering eyed, must be danced round with mockery, decorated with garlands."
Lily:
"Such was the complexity of things. For what happened to her, especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that’s what you feel, was one; that’s what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her mind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I tremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own habit, to look for a brooch on a beach; also it is the stupidest, the most barbaric of human passions, and turns a nice young man with a profile like a gem’s (Paul’s was exquisite) into a bully with a crowbar (he was swaggering, he was insolent) in the Mile End Road."
And yet between men and women there is dissonance about what romantic love is, according to Lily:
"Yet, she said to herself, from the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreaths heaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would say they wanted nothing but this—love; while the women, judging from her own experience, would all the time be feeling, This is not what we want; there is nothing more tedious, puerile, and inhumane than this; yet it is also beautiful and necessary. Well then, well then?"
This may be the most generous thought I've ever read or heard coming from someone about another who is annoying her. Lily on Tansley: "Success would be good for him."
I underlined the section on the literary criticism as well! Though Woolf was a critic as well as a writer, I can't help but wonder if this is partly her responding to critics of her own work. I still feel like her own process is something more tied in with Lily.
So many phrases and ideas come together by the end the chapter; Mrs. Ramsey finds something of value in almost all of the main characters and seems to be looking at them from afar, just as she was remembering the dinner party from years ago with people she barely remembers. Relationships that merge with beginnings and endings, desires and disappointment. And death.
"It could not last she knew, but at the moment her eyes were so clear that they seemed to go round the table unveiling each of these people, and their thoughts and their feelings, without effort like a light stealing under water so that its ripples and the reeds in it and the minnows balancing themselves, and the sudden silent trout are all lit up hanging, trembling."
I kept also thinking of the “out of it” section in the beginning of the chapter as it gets repeated here again. And the room gets a voice at the end of the flowing chapter: "it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past."
I love how books "speak" to each other. Having recently read Jenny Offill's "Dept. of Speculation" in which she introduces the concept of an "art monster"--one who puts her art above all: "My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabakov didn't even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him." And then having read Claire Dederer's "Monsters", which asks if we can separate the art from a monstrous artist (in which Woolf is discussed), I can't help but hope Lily chooses to be an "art monster." In the dinner scene, where she keeps returning to her plan for her painting, I'm egging her on, "c'mon Lily, choose your art over the traditional path!"
"For what happened to her, especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that's what you feel, was one; that's what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her mind, as now."
I love this line, the way it sinks into the first person; the "f" sounds in "feel" and then "fought;" the way "violently" feels violent in the sentence and also connects to "fought;" how what one feels is often in opposition to what someone else feels; how we struggle to make sense of this opposition.
Two opposite at once - a common theme of the novel "Such was the complexity of things. For what happened to her, especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that’s what you feel, was one; that’s what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her mind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I tremble on the verge of it."
There is lovely tension between permanence and change that runs through the novel, which is on full display at the party scene:
"[There[ seemed now for no special reason to stay there like a smoke, like a fume rising upwards, holding them safe together."
"It partook, she felt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity; as she had already felt about something different once before that afternoon; there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out."
vs.
"Mr. Ramsay needed “somebody to say, Oh, but your work will last, Mr. Ramsay, or something like that."
"Ah, but how long do you think it’ll last?” said somebody. It was as if she had antennae trembling out from her"
“And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves.”
"it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past.”
What a brilliant, playful, masterful sentence: “It partook, she felt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity…” - that winking comma, tempting our ear to drop it.
I do think VW was of the Mr. Ramsay school and thought about her work and its place in history and whether it would last. Which of course it has, she changed the way people read and write, she advanced the art and did something truly original.
"What does one live for... Foolish questions, vain questions, questions one never asked if one was occupied." Now that I'm at the age where that sort of thing can be indulged in, VW has much to say about that and more in a tour-de-force chapter.
Checking in late today and surprised that no one has mentioned how the mood of the otherwise cantankerous Mr. Ramsay became playful upon the arrival of an attractive young woman. “She sat by Mr. Ramsay, which roused his chivalry… He liked these girls, these golden- reddish girls, with something flying, something a little wild, and harum-scarum about them,… There was some quality . . . some lustre, some richness, which attracted him, amused him, led him to make favourites of girls like Minta.“
How did Mrs Dalloway sneak in here? ;-)
I love the way this chapter ends with Mrs. Ramsey taking a bow. She has played her role, she has succeeded at her mission to have the dinner party a success, and now she can leave by taking her bow. But the last line--where she looks over her shoulder and sees the evening is already, so quickly, in the past--for someone who has not read the book, this is ominous, while at the same time it is exactly how we all live, none of us knowing the future, all of us living through major events of our lives only to have them recede immediately into the unchangeable past. All of us moving into the future. "And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves." Sing it!
Two observations from different characters regarding the duality of romantic love, its simultaneous gravity and beauty and campiness or coarseness or gaudiness:
Mrs. Ramsay:
"This will celebrate the occasion—a curious sense rising in her, at once freakish and tender, of celebrating a festival, as if two emotions were called up in her, one profound—for what could be more serious than the love of man for woman, what more commanding, more impressive, bearing in its bosom the seeds of death; at the same time these lovers, these people entering into illusion glittering eyed, must be danced round with mockery, decorated with garlands."
Lily:
"Such was the complexity of things. For what happened to her, especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that’s what you feel, was one; that’s what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her mind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I tremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own habit, to look for a brooch on a beach; also it is the stupidest, the most barbaric of human passions, and turns a nice young man with a profile like a gem’s (Paul’s was exquisite) into a bully with a crowbar (he was swaggering, he was insolent) in the Mile End Road."
And yet between men and women there is dissonance about what romantic love is, according to Lily:
"Yet, she said to herself, from the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreaths heaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would say they wanted nothing but this—love; while the women, judging from her own experience, would all the time be feeling, This is not what we want; there is nothing more tedious, puerile, and inhumane than this; yet it is also beautiful and necessary. Well then, well then?"
This may be the most generous thought I've ever read or heard coming from someone about another who is annoying her. Lily on Tansley: "Success would be good for him."
Someone reaches for a pear. You can’t have your fruit and eat it, too!
I underlined the section on the literary criticism as well! Though Woolf was a critic as well as a writer, I can't help but wonder if this is partly her responding to critics of her own work. I still feel like her own process is something more tied in with Lily.
So many phrases and ideas come together by the end the chapter; Mrs. Ramsey finds something of value in almost all of the main characters and seems to be looking at them from afar, just as she was remembering the dinner party from years ago with people she barely remembers. Relationships that merge with beginnings and endings, desires and disappointment. And death.
"It could not last she knew, but at the moment her eyes were so clear that they seemed to go round the table unveiling each of these people, and their thoughts and their feelings, without effort like a light stealing under water so that its ripples and the reeds in it and the minnows balancing themselves, and the sudden silent trout are all lit up hanging, trembling."
I kept also thinking of the “out of it” section in the beginning of the chapter as it gets repeated here again. And the room gets a voice at the end of the flowing chapter: "it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past."
Such ominous longing.
I love how books "speak" to each other. Having recently read Jenny Offill's "Dept. of Speculation" in which she introduces the concept of an "art monster"--one who puts her art above all: "My plan was to never get married. I was going to be an art monster instead. Women almost never become art monsters because art monsters only concern themselves with art, never mundane things. Nabakov didn't even fold his own umbrella. Vera licked his stamps for him." And then having read Claire Dederer's "Monsters", which asks if we can separate the art from a monstrous artist (in which Woolf is discussed), I can't help but hope Lily chooses to be an "art monster." In the dinner scene, where she keeps returning to her plan for her painting, I'm egging her on, "c'mon Lily, choose your art over the traditional path!"
"For what happened to her, especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that's what you feel, was one; that's what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her mind, as now."
I love this line, the way it sinks into the first person; the "f" sounds in "feel" and then "fought;" the way "violently" feels violent in the sentence and also connects to "fought;" how what one feels is often in opposition to what someone else feels; how we struggle to make sense of this opposition.
Candles lit, night coming on, delicious food, anxieties subsiding, camaraderie all around: I’m feeling woozy and the dinner party feels familiar now.
Two opposite at once - a common theme of the novel "Such was the complexity of things. For what happened to her, especially staying with the Ramsays, was to be made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that’s what you feel, was one; that’s what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her mind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I tremble on the verge of it."
There is lovely tension between permanence and change that runs through the novel, which is on full display at the party scene:
"[There[ seemed now for no special reason to stay there like a smoke, like a fume rising upwards, holding them safe together."
"It partook, she felt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity; as she had already felt about something different once before that afternoon; there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out."
vs.
"Mr. Ramsay needed “somebody to say, Oh, but your work will last, Mr. Ramsay, or something like that."
"Ah, but how long do you think it’ll last?” said somebody. It was as if she had antennae trembling out from her"
“And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves.”
"it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past.”
What a brilliant, playful, masterful sentence: “It partook, she felt, carefully helping Mr. Bankes to a specially tender piece, of eternity…” - that winking comma, tempting our ear to drop it.
I do think VW was of the Mr. Ramsay school and thought about her work and its place in history and whether it would last. Which of course it has, she changed the way people read and write, she advanced the art and did something truly original.
"What does one live for... Foolish questions, vain questions, questions one never asked if one was occupied." Now that I'm at the age where that sort of thing can be indulged in, VW has much to say about that and more in a tour-de-force chapter.
Checking in late today and surprised that no one has mentioned how the mood of the otherwise cantankerous Mr. Ramsay became playful upon the arrival of an attractive young woman. “She sat by Mr. Ramsay, which roused his chivalry… He liked these girls, these golden- reddish girls, with something flying, something a little wild, and harum-scarum about them,… There was some quality . . . some lustre, some richness, which attracted him, amused him, led him to make favourites of girls like Minta.“