Stream-of-Consciousness Philosophizing Correctly Executed

This is a lesser-known work of Woolf’s. I ran a brief test on “Woolf’s” Orlando when I reviewed it earlier, and it matched James Muddock’s linguistic signature (group-G), which also includes “Dickens’” Tale of Two Cities, Conan Doyle’s White Company and other British classics. Woolf might have killed herself because she used up some residual Muddock texts she kept in her closet between his death in 1934 and 1941, when Woolf died. It is safe to assume Muddock probably also ghostwrote Street, whose essay and book version were first-published between 1927-30, or before Muddock’s death, and after most others in that Ghostwriting Workshop were dead.
“‘The hour should be evening and the season winter, for in winter the champagne brightness of the air and the sociability of the streets are grateful’. In such conditions, Virginia Woolf takes to London’s streets in search of a pencil. The account of her journey—the people, the places, the pleasure—soon becomes one of the great paeans to city life. This collection also includes other wonderful essays, such as ‘How Should One Read a Book?’ and ‘The Sun and the Fish’.”
“Woolf’s” A Room of One’s Own is one of my favorite essays. The ideas in it drove many of my life-decisions, including my current semi-retirement in a tiny house of my own. So, I am curious to take a look at these essays that I haven’t read before. “Street Haunting: A London Adventure” opens with a typical for Muddock philosophizing. The problem is the lack of a pencil, so “Woolf” sets out in search for one. This simple act is turned into an adventure, and a moment for deeper reflection. What follows is seemingly a bunch of unrelated memories. A shopkeeper unwillingly selling something, an innkeeper fighting with his wife, and then a trip to Italy, and the sound of a kettle going off. Unlike other writers, here these ideas are connected, as the bowl that was being sold reappears. And all these thoughts are about the philosophical topic raised of why the speaker wants to take on the tedious task of walking about these shouting people in London’s streets, as opposed to remaining home in peace and warmth. This is indeed poetic language. For example, nothing is simple: “high among the bare trees are hung oblong frames of reddish yellow light—windows”. The speaker makes windows strange by describing their shape and color before naming what they are. This is how a painter, or a lifelong observer, used to describing things precisely sees a window, or as its shape and texture, instead of merely as a simple term in the vocabulary. This is a fragment from a very long sentence, but these ideas belong together in a string, and so this is the correct punctuation (134-5). As the story concludes, it is apparent that this is an example of how a professional writer finds a topic to write about when no grand ideas are apparent. It is possible to write a novel about the adventure of searching for a pencil through a city. There is an obstacle to overcome. When it is found, there is resolution. And in between something can be deduced or learned about life.
Another story, “Oxford Street Tide”, is an example of when this stream-of-thought manner of writing gets too wound-up in details to be easily understood, even by academics. It takes a couple of readings to understand a line like: “At one corner seedy magicians are making slips of coloured paper expand in magic tumblers into bristling forests of splendidly tinted flora—a subaqueous flower garden.” When I re-read it, I pictured origami makers. But when trying to briskly read this line, it blurred into strange and confusing concepts. Pages go by without a paragraph break. I tend to write long paragraphs too… probably because I’ve spent most of my life studying 19th century British literature.
“On Being Ill” in discussing verse, points to the fact that it uses what is indeed poetic language. For example, there is a meter to, “a sound, a colour, here a stress, there a pause…” The first two phrases are around 2 syllables, the next two have 3 syllables with an exact metric structure: unstress, stress/ stress, unstress, stress”. Then, there is a questioning about “Shakespeare’s” greatness: “his overweening power and our overweening arrogance…” The next paragraph hints that the author is not that fond of “Shakespeare”, as one has had “enough of” him. Then, the author reflects that “even illness does not warrant these transitions” or the turn rapidly between “Shakespeare” and Augustus Hare. Even a mistake is here corrected by reflecting on the rule, instead of hoping readers won’t notice it.
I would be perfectly happy to read this book cover-to-cover. It is just delightful. But the job is to get on with these reviews.
—Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Fall 2024: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-fall-2024