Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

This is a wonderful quote. I' like to say that I agree with it as much as possible without definitely saying that I do.

Sozobe, the specific tecniques that were employed better by Joyce were: the interior monologue, the use of psychological dissociation (as in the Molly Bloom monologue), and the relation of the individual and the setting (as in the Sirens chapter or the Gerty McDowell episode of Ulysses.) Proust doesn't use any of these specific techniques, I just find him a vastly superior writer to Woolf in terms of his social observation, his psychological depth, his comedy, and his profound understanding of love in all its guises. He is an ocean, while Woolf is a small stream.

Hazlitt, I'm pleased that you like my definition of great literature and that my E.M. Forster quote pleased you. I was starting to feel almost unloved on A2K.

Hey, I said I liked your literature definition! And I like the Forster one too, though I don't see it as pejorative. I think that Woolf's innovation is part of what makes her so interesting. More Forster on Woolf: "she gave acute pleasure in new ways, and pushed the light of the English language a little further against darkness."

Just saw the post directed at me, sorry. I have "Mrs. Dalloway" and "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" in front of me, and am leafing through them, trying to remember specifics. I'm glad you provide specifics. I know "Mrs. Dalloway" better than "Portrait", and so have a hard time with comparison -- I very much like Septimus Smith and Clarissa's internal monologues, the scenes remain vivid to me and leap into clarity when I see a sentence; "At Bourton they always had stiff little vases all the way down the table." However, I'd need to re-read both to give you a substantiative answer, I'm afraid, and I give you permission to claim victory if you'd like.

I think Joyce (who I like very much, more than Proust) is larger, while Woolf is smaller, but I again don't consider that necessarily pejorative.

Hazlitt - many years ago I studied English Literature to honours degree level - but I find I have forgotten all I ever knew - and of course, even if I remembered it, I would be hopelessly behind current analysis - it being nothing if not a fickle field - although it seems the same questions remain eternally present - this comparison of Woolf with "really important" writers being a favourite topic in the seventies, too.

So I come to it with eyes as innocent and untutored as anyone's could possibly be - though the intensity of those four years of intimate and feverish engagement with literature remain with me as a joy - speaking of transcendence I recall absolute shock to walk out into the city at the end of the day to find a modern place - not some Elizabethan mythical Illyria or a Jacobean bedroom or a Palladian garden. I must say too, that I think my most transcendent prose literary experiences have been "Moby Dick" and "Middlemarch" and parts of "Daniel Deronda" and "Tristram Shandy"- though there are so many others...

I am WAAAAY off topic!

Sozobe--the relevant Joyce novel for interior monologues and stream of consciousness is ULYSSES, not PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST. He doesn't really use the technique in the earlier novel.

Any chance of excerpting representative passages from each ("Ulysses", "Dalloway")? I could give a better answer if I had that to work with.

I don't have DALLOWAY in front of me, sorry. I don't quite understand what you're trying to achieve--you have already decided that I am wrong about Virginia Woolf, and a bad person in general judging from your other posts, so what do you want to do now?

If you will read my earlier post about Joyce carefully, you will see the sections of ULYSSES I specified as examples.

No, I mean text. A prepresentative page or long passage worth of text from each.

Not trying to achieve anything (sigh), just I already said I don't have an adequate memory of the texts to go into that kind of specifics -- I don't have the time right now to re-read both novels, but if you want to carry on further with the specific Woolf vs. Joyce discussion, I'm happy to, and willing to given text. No conclusions on my part. Said above that if you'd like to declare victory, you have my permission.

Declare victory, Sozobe? I didn't know we were in a contest. That remark illuminates your state of mind. I didn't start this thread to "win" anything, I wanted to get a discussion going. But if you are admitting defeat, I can accept an unconditional surrender.

To make some more general statements:

I too find the whole ranking thing a little silly, but find it useful in some ways to start discussions about books, and I like talking about books. Former English major, author of countless student "compare and contrast" papers. I like to compare and contrast.

I am willing to say that "Ulysses" is better than, what, "Fury", or even "Cold Mountain", (one of the few works of decent fiction I've read that I really didn't like). So I am not willing to say that there is no way to make such judgements, or that such judgements are uninteresting.

However, when we get to the higher levels -- "Dalloway" vs. "Ulysses" -- I'm more interested in compare and contrast than in the absolute judgement of which is better. They are both very, very good. I think people should read them both. I would not tell someone not to either of them.

Whether they should be on curricula is a slightly different subject. That has less to do with out-and-out quality -- the top 20 books ever written -- than with exposure to the varieties of quality that exist, in my view.

Oy. If.

(I love discussing books, but geez.)

Sozobe, you were the one who "gave (me) permission" to "declare victory" in your earlier post. Is your short-term memory failing you? All you need to do is to scroll up to the top of this page and read your first post.

The premise of this thread is that Woolf is not on the same artistic level as the greatest 20th century fiction writers. That, clearly, is a matter of taste and it is also a question of ranking. I tried to do a compare-and-contrast by citing the relevant chapters from ULYSSES. If you are incapable of dealing in such specificities, that is not my problem.

I said I was incapable of dealing with such specificities, and suggested (but did not demand) a specific solution -- that you provide text which I could then work with. You have not. That's fine.

Cheers.

Dlowan, I enjoyed your last post. Thanks.

Sozobe & Larry, I enjoyed following your intense literary discussion; although, it was necessary to separate the literary part from the pyrotechnics, at which I thought you each gave about as good as you took. You two produced a little fire but not enough smoke so that anyone choked.

Hazlitt--thanks for the review from the peanut gallery.

Sozobe--did you really think I was going to data-enter long passages of ULYSSES onto this thread for your convenience?

There's nothing online? (Cut and paste is nice.)

Again, though, no, didn't expect, and not at all bothered if it doesn't happen.

This thread has gotten derailed from its primary focus (to mix a metaphor.)

Can we please get back to the question of Virginia Woolf and her relative standing in 20th century European fiction?