Virginia Woolf – The Voyage Out

I do not know much about mothering a newborn, but I am fairly certain that tiny people + Virginia Woolf do not mix. Virginia needs silence and contemplation and time to think deep thoughts. Tiny people need feeding. I hear they are not much with the silence either. So. If I want my yearly Virginia fix, I’d better get it now.

What I wanted to read was Mrs Dalloway, but the library did not have it. So I chose The Voyage Out, because Mrs Dalloway appears in it. This was not a success. It was a bit like finding The Empire Strikes Back is out of stock at the video shop and so renting The Phantom Menance instead, just because Anakin Skywalker is in it.

Ok, it is not really like that. But if you and I were characters in a Virginia Woolf novel, that is probably the sort of non-sequiter I would come out with. We would be having tea, and talking about the nature of truth and I would say something completely random, and you would be like, that is absolutely not what we were discussing, but ok, because we are characters layered with meaning and through this disconnected conversation we will convey to the reader how people constantly fail to understand one another.

Though perhaps we Woolf people would find it easier to understand one another if we made an effort to actually listen to what the other person is saying, instead of just coming out with whatever is in our heads? Example. Mrs Thornbury says to Mr Hirst “I’m sure you read everything” and he says “The worst of coming from the upper classes is that one’s friends are never killed in railway accidents.” Or Mr Hewett asks Rachel if the vote will do her any good – and she replies, “Not to me – but I play the piano”. Rachel, what? These are not mutually exclusive things. You can put an x in the box and still tinkle away to your heart’s content.

Right, so the story. Rachel Vinrace has been raised in almost total ignorance, reaching the age of 24 without knowing how babies are born. On The Voyage Out to South America, she becomes enchanted with Mr and Mrs Dalloway; even though Mr Dalloway is the King of Smug. He gives her a massive snog and she is all, MEN KISS WOMEN, what? Her Aunt Helen decides to rescue her from this ridiculous innocence by showing her some Real Life. Real Life means living in a very nice villa in Unidentified South American country, where they hang out with the Brits from the local hotel. Every man that Rachel meets also wants to rescue her from the ridiculous innocence, though their idea of doing so is to force-feed her their favourite books. Rachel spends most of her time wondering what love is. She may or may not find it. She cannot decide because it does not feel like Wuthering Heights or Man and Superman. So they go on another voyage instead.

There are obviously Woolfy type ideas in early form here – especially the differences between men and women, and the tensions between art and life. ‘Think of the human beings first and let the abstract ideas take care of themselves’ says the rather clunky Evelyn. But they are not as subtle or as well-expressed as in other Woolfs. The men were so overbearing and self-important as to be caricatures, and say patronising things like ‘It’s awfully difficult to tell about women, how much, I mean, is due to lack of training and how much is native incapacity’. Which I suppose is the sort of thing that they might have said in Edwardian days, but I found it surprising that none of the women offer so much as a squeak in response.

Mostly, though, I didn’t like The Voyage Out because Rachel is so unbelievably blank. The men find this exciting; they see her as full of possibilities, just waiting to be uncovered. I just find her baffling. Mr Hirst asks ‘Does she reason, does she feel, or is she merely a kind of footstool?’ I say, footstool. Her Aunt Helen is far more interesting. In her own way, she is just as vague as Rachel, but Helen’s vagueness is borne out of the confidence of not caring what people think and sailing on serenely through life. Rachel’s vagueness is plain vagueness.

Also, you should not take advice on child-rearing from Rachel. ‘Their daughter should be required from infancy to gaze at a large square of cardboard, painted blue, to suggest thoughts of infinity, for women were grown too practical’. Again, what?