The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway
What seems always on my mind these days is a particular workshop entitled "Bridging the Gap." The workshop is just that--a workshop and it happens in April. Participants and I will endeavor to draw connections between Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham's The Hours. We will view two films Mrs. Dalloway (1997) and The Hours (2003) and will discuss them in tandem with exerpts from the novel and other readings. Participants can expect to keep a writing folder in which they will record images, diagrams, thoughts, and streams of consciousness. The objective of this exercise is to produce an essay in which a bridge is built between the two works.
By using the lens of relationship(s) we may be able to build a "bridge" between the two works; at the very least gain a greater appreciation of what Woolf and Cunningham have given us.
I look forward to meeting and working with the participants of "Bridging the Gap."
posted by Paula @ 1:24 PM
9 Comments:
great idea...could this bridge be built out of surprizing and unnoticed details in each book? Give me one such detail, please...that will get us started.
Whether this detail, though it may be obvious, is a good starting place. In Mrs. Dalloway the word "plunge" appears in a number of spots. The word itself is extremely suggestive, especially in terms of relationships--romantic or otherwise. What instances in the various relationships presented in the novels suggest falling, being thrown, plummeting--perhaps, more philosophically, Heidegger's idea of "throwness"?
"Plunge" is from "plumbicare", Low Latin, "To heave the lead"...I don't know. It suggests to me a descent into water, which doesn't sound very good if we're building a bridge. But Virginia took the plunge when she could've used a bridge, and the Ed Harris suicide took the plunge out the window, and maybve the whole movement in the books is a downer like Dante's plunge.
Jim, the Low Latin "to heave the lead" seems a most fitting image in that is suggests experience not only visual or psychologically, but physical as well. Plunging the depths of a relationship is perilous, but a "bridge", I argue is the hope and the will of the individuals involved to self-actualize within the relationship--hell or high waters. Of course, the possibility of the literal act of "taking the plunge" or suicide is real, as it was in Woolf's case and with the character Richard in The Hours who jumps from the window. There is something lost and gained. What are we to make of this "bridge"?
Please ellaborate on your intriguing comment: "the whole movement in the books is a downer like Dante's plunge." I suspect you allude to the possibility of ultimate self-actualization.
Thank you for your most thoughtful comment, Jim. It is more than helpful. Send others to me.
Paula
well, pitbull,what's good about Woolf's plunge? really wet. and no more novels. but she really knew how to finish. and her plunge becomes ours when we plunge into her Dalloway as Dalloway plunges into her dallying day of hours of flower-buying, parties, and other "trivial ordinaries" all us non-
Woolf-geniuses are guilty of. her book keeps our trivialities from being trivial, elevates them from the wet plunge of ordinary life. plumbers plunge with their plungers and get the crap out of the crappers so they can run more freely. unlike Woolf who could not novelize her own life and got wet. she saved Clarissa and drowned herself by plumbing her own depths. all those postpartum headaches after each novel.
I can't wait for this class. Unfortunately I have only read the first 25 pages of The Hours while I was sitting in Barnes & Noble. When the funds are better I hope to acquire these works. Check out my blog... I've been at it since the end of November. See what you think!
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