Mrs. Dalloway: the Anti Miss Bennet

Yesterday I finished reading one of Virgina Woolf's most acclaimed novels, Mrs. Dalloway. I'm still not sure if I really like it or if it's just "eh". The language is very beautiful, and the perspectives flow into one another really nicely, but it was very difficult to focus sometimes and to find a place to pause. I blame that on the whole stream-of-consciousness fad that was modernism. She, like Joyce and Faulkner, just loves her long-winded sentences way too much. And it was jarring to have so many characters be so abruptly introduced.

However, Mrs. Dalloway was certainly superior to the snorefest that was Pride and Prejudice, the only Jane Austen novel I have read. There were a lot of similarities between these two novels though they were written about a century apart: they both take place in England and center around the activities of high society. Mrs. Dalloway's backstory even resembled Pride and Prejudice somewhat, with two suitors vying for her heart. But Woolf's novel has such a dark outlook on it: all of the characters suffer from some sort of inner pain or regret that they seem to dwell on constantly but cannot change, whether it be a lost opportunity or thoughts of how things might have been of of selling out. Pride and Prejudice may feature a strong heroine and good writing, but everyone's happy at the end. Plus, it's all about a romance: hardly any grand existential musings can be found here!

Perhaps it's just my bias against romance novels. I've never really considered them to be particularly important or interesting. To be fair, I find the likes of Charles Dickens equally dull. I also much prefer the more "literary" work that's been published in the last century. Aside from Shakespeare and Homer (and other exceptions), I haven't liked very much of what literature has had to offer before the 1900s.

Woolf was certainly not anti-Austen: as a self-described feminist, how could she be? And Austen is certainly a valuable example of 19th century fiction, just as Woolf is of 20th century literature. All women's voices are important when examining history. But Woolf definitely broke more rules than Austen and really challenged our idea of what is literature: I mean, Mrs. Dalloway takes place in the space of a day, and most of it's spent in the nostalgic characters' heads! But would Austen have done the same if she lived in the same era? Perhaps Woolf is not the Anti-Austen, but Austen incarnate...

And this, my friends, is why we can't compare people who lived in completely different eras.

What's so girly about reading?

Welcome to the first relevant post.

The other day I came across this article on Salon.com, asking the question, "why men don't read books". While it makes an interesting point about the publishing industry, like how lately, it's been female-dominated, the article fails at answering the question it asked in the first place. And the question worth asking is more like, "Why are fewer men reading books?" But that doesn't make a very catchy headline.

As a writing student, I've noticed that the vast majority of my classmates are female. Most of my male peers aren't exactly big readers. I find it strange that there's been such a gender gap (which is about 20 percent) in reading and writing, especially since that even into the twenty-first century, many of the most important and influential writers have been male: Kurt Vonnegut, Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Palahniuk, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace...I could go on and on. A shortage of male writers or male-oriented literature is not the issue. And if anything, the overall decline of reading is much more troubling.
So, why this gap?

Like a lot of formerly male-dominated fields (psychology and art, for example), reading and writing are increasingly seen as a "girl's activity". The problem with that is that anything that's "for girls/women" tends to be de-valued and considered to be not as "important" as what is "for men". Just look at the women's movement: women have only gotten the rights they deserve by fitting themselves into "man's world", and that's a big reason why there's still so much more left to do. Men who pursue these "girly" activities, like dance, housework, fashion, and now reading, can be perceived as effeminate by their (sexist, closed-minded, ignorant) peers. And being "effeminate" is much worse than being perceived as "boyish" or "masculine" in our society.

Then there's the whole myth of film and TV being more lucrative creative professions. This may be true to an extent, but like all other creative endeavors, chances are that you won't get hugely rich or famous, especially if you're a writer. Most of us are in it for the love of storytelling, not to make mad moolah.

So why are fewer men reading books - and especially fiction books? Possibly because they think that fewer men are reading (and writing) books. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hello, who are you?

Hello and welcome. Also, happy Mother's Day.
I'm calling myself "the obsoletist" for a lot of reasons: not least of which because I am a little late when it comes to catching on to trends. I've only just gotten into this whole blogging thing. I also love books, handwritten letters, and other such printed material that is rapidly in the process of becoming archaic and obsolete. As an avid reader and writer, I will probably be commenting on the so-called "death of print" a lot.
Throughout the life of this blog you can expect a whole lot of my opinions on just about everything under the sun: current events, hot topics, movies, music, books, etc., etc. Feel free to disagree. But I'll also work in some analysis on news events and the news media, and I hope that this will bring in a fresh perspective on these stories.

Now here's an old music video for mothers everywhere.
">


Come back soon for the first "real" post!