Before I (or you) begin, please read this. I will reference it often.
That poem you hopefully just read, "The Circus of the City" by Colleen J. McElroy, was one of the first things that came to mind when I was trying to title my next blog post. When Mr. Mitchell tossed up the idea the other day of Virginia Woolf as an orchestral conductor, revelations sprung up all over the place. Suddenly, Woolf's uses of repitition and head-jumping made perfect sense!
Eh, enthusiasm passes.
Just kidding.
Instead, here I am, dedicating two-thirds of my title to a poem from the beginning of first semester last year. But why?
1. Because while Crazy Mary orchestrates traffic, Virginia Woolf orchestrates people. She bounces from mind to mind, creating perfect scenarios, such as the motor-car montage and the sky-writing incident, in order to show several perspectives on a single idea. (In other words, we hear different variations of the same melody.)
2. Because Crazy Mary reminds me of Septimus in her semi-unrecognized knowledge. (Hmm. Interesting. But severely tangential. Perhaps even more so than the next point . . . . Let's move on.)
3. Because Crazy Mary is like that singer on the street whose full role I still can't figure out, other than to provide a transition from Peter to Rezia. (see p. 79 of Mrs. Dalloway.) But this woman shares Crazy Mary's bold, unsettling, ancient-seeming personality. Even the language used to describe the women is similar in everlasting nature-y themes. Woolf frames her woman with phrases repeating ancient-ness and eternity, such as "the voice of an ancient spring," "the ancient song bubbled up," "the passage of the ages had blurred the clarity of that ancient May day," and "that eternal spring." McElroy says, "she keeps defining eternity, telling us we're in it" and she "beats the air into obedience." Woolf's crazy woman, described first as a sound rather than a person ("A sound
interrupted him; a frail, quivering sound, a voice . . . with an absense
of all human meaning"), conducts "the passage of ages." Yet we don't know her name. Although McElroy does provide the label "Crazy Mary," she's still more of an idea than a person. She's a woman "who will sing at top lung in public places," "stashing clouds in her shopping bags" while she "vanishes into traffic." The resemblance is uncanny. But then, I guess even London is allowed to worry a crazy into existence.
4. Because Woolf and Crazy Mary both present the "pageant of the universe," if you will, "performing dreams while the city dreams itself awake." They each create their mini-worlds while the players in their worlds become alive as almost separate entities. One of the most important connections drawing Woolf to the role of the conductor is that none of the characters really goes away while we are in the head of another. Each instrument's entrance may differ, and the moods and melodies morph through the characters, but there are always minds still reeling and weaving in the background.
Now I can't just write a post like this and not follow up with an orchestral representation of Mrs. Dalloway. I honestly don't think my brain would let me. Stay tuned.
Sneak Peek: The Hours soundtrack freak-out over polyrhythmic mood setting + Septimus Warren Smith's big oboe cadence!
When we discussed Crazy Mary in class last year, I was totally thinking of Septimus--that combination of visionary urgency and easily dismissed "public crazy person" touches on a lot of the same territory. They both perceive themselves to be at the center of something much bigger, that no one else is able to understand (and they can't quite explain, either).
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