To The Lighthouse, To Sleep

I hate reading Virginia Woolf.

For my book club, I am reading To The Lighthouse. I read this book in university. Did an essay on it even. But I have no recollection of what the book's about. And no wonder. I need a translator. I need some action to keep me awake. It is an annoying book obsessive in minutiae.

Oh sure, there are literary techniques at play - the utterance of a phrase that sets off different reactions in various characters, revealing aspects of human nature, a phrase becomes the common element that strings the characters together, there are observations that detail the supposed richness of the inner life, there is the slow tracing of the passage of time, the setting and speech that evoke the social milieu of Woolf's intellengentsia at the turn of the last century.

Stream of consciousness writing is necessarily flighty writing. You drift from one character's mind to the next in a continuous stream. Yeah, yeah, if you paid caffeinated attention, you pick up cues about the characters' personalities. You get a glimpse into each character's nature, views about life, relationship with other characters. But you know, I don't care about the characters and their petty concerns. I don't want to know the minutiae of their self-important observations. The details bore me, the characters frustrate me, the narrative obstructs me, the tone and language baffle me.

I was once fascinated by Woolf, a female writer who captured all of the above and more, despite her ongoing depression and the condescension toward feminist expression of the time. I had trouble accepting that a woman of her talent would kill herself. But now I think, god, if I were that obsessive with petty details, I'd kill myself too.

I once found her work artistry exemplified, her insight into the mind and its vacillations brilliant. But now her writing just bugs me. I wonder if that's a function of aging. I have no patience for my own brooding, nevermind someone else's, and a fictional someone at that.

Yet, I loved The Hours, the movie based on Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Right, that's because The Hours is Mrs. Dalloway translated, moved to a different medium, the theme updated and applied in more relevant contexts. Fine, she's still brilliant. I just hate reading her.