Book- the complete shorter fiction of Virginia Woolf (period 3)

Book- the complete shorter fiction of Virginia Woolf
Author: Virginia Woolf (and edited by Susan Dick)

Score: 7/10 (for this period)
Year:  1989 (my second edition) ; 1985 (first edition). Stories from 1906-1941. 

Publisher : Harvest ISBN : 0-15-621250-1
346 pages (this period : 215-292)

Language : English 

(note : my copy has a similar cover but with Virginia's name in green font). 


The third and final period in Woolf's shorter fiction covers the years 1926-1941 and comprised of 17 short stories. 

• Moments of being ; Slater's pins have no points was rather dull to me, with the repetition about the pins, but did present an interesting structure of thoughts, and actions, during that short instance where a rose falls out of Fanny Wilmot's dress, and the exchange she has with Miss Craye. Virginia tended to discuss such moments, and in-betweens as if these moments lasted a lot longer than they actually did, with many details, thoughts and/or emotions.

I much prefer the following stories, the lady in the looking-glass : a reflection ; the fascination of the pool, and three pictures. The first two of these stories share the theme of reflection, and whilst the three pictures don't discuss a reflection, all of these three short stories deal with the a common thread : that appearances can be quite deceiving. 

• the lady in the looking-glass presents a reflection that grows in detail as the lady's at first not even in the picture, and later comes into it, very gradually revealing more and more details of her reflection as she comes closer into the room. There is a description of objects also reflected from the room itself, that I loved, and I find quite an interesting social comment for the context of that period, where appearances meant so much in high society. 
• the fascination of the pool is another such a story, representing reflections in the pool's waters, but in a very original way : through the thoughts that had permeated it throughout history, and the impressions they can leave on spectators who are tuned to them, so to speak.
• three pictures builds up three scenes which at first glance are totally disjointed, but ties them into one whole story at its conclusion, in a very clever way.
• Slightly less related, but can still be seen as part of a series on the topic of appearances, Scenes from the life of a British Naval Officier merges the Naval officer, one Captain Brace, with his surroundings - the boat, his quarters, going to eat alone, and then, to use the telescope. I found this story less compelling in composition than the previous 3, probably because of contrasting quality.

Miss Pryme, at this point, is the least interesting story for me, even though it had started in a promising way, only to be cut far too short at a page and 3 quarters. 

I then skipped Ode written partly in prose... due to the rest of the title that made me cringe at the risk of triggering my carnophobia. 

Portraits are very short descriptive scenes of various characters, in what seem to me as notes for later fictional pieces. There are 8 of them, the first two are named waiting for Déjeuner, and the Frenchwoman in the train, the others are numbered portrait 3, through portrait 8. I preferred 5 to 7th, but overall, they all sounded as unfinished material and far too disjointed in this first read. 

Found Uncle Vanya too short, and again, didn't make too much sense on first read.

I enjoyed The Duchess and the Jeweller, first presenting the Jeweller, Oliver Bacon, and placing him at his work place, where the Duchess shows up to sell him, evidently, jewels, which may or may not be fake, and Oliver may be manipulated into the sale, unless he'd listen to his mother's portrait on the wall... I'll let you find out which is which. The construction and word choices in this piece were much more thought through that jotted ideas of the previous Vanya & Portrait series.

Just like Ode written... I skipped The Shooting party, out of concern about the hunting scenes in this story, and read about half of Lappin and Lapinova, before it became clear that there were such scenes and images described in this particular story. Before that occurred, however, I had enjoyed the cute way that this couple - Rosalind and Ernest Thorburn - named one another Lappin and Lapinova, as word-plays of rabbit, in French. 

The searchlight is a cutter story, wherein Mrs Ivimey recalls how her great-grandparents had met a 100 years earlier, and tells the circumstances to her guests as they all wait to go to a play.

Gipsy, the mongrel, was at times difficult to read. Indeed, in this 7 & half pages long story, Lucy and Top Bagot recall and tell stories of their dogs to their two guests, Dick and Mary Bridger, and there are several mentions of how one of their dog escaped death, with the key phrase of "you can't drown a puppy who grins in the face of death". Despite the few difficult moments, the story is well written, with many funny moments of how the couple gets carried away telling their stories, and its ending isn't easily guessed. 

I really loved The legacy, in which Gilbert Clandon, a politician, discovers the true legacy that his deceased wife left him. 

The Symbol tells of an un-named character writing a letter to another un-named character, discussing events that occurred at the mountains she can see from her a balcony - and highly implied that this happens during the person's vacation there. I liked this story but less then the Legacy, the duchesses... and the reflected stories mentioned above. 

The watering place tells of a restaurant which serves fish, not a veg-friendly story but it doesn't focus on that. Instead, it discusses the talks 3 employees at this restaurant exchange, but only in portions which can be heard between the noisy waves that ebb and flow.
I also liked that instead of taking of restroom (WC) and kitchens, Woolf describes them as follows "The room was separated by a door only into two compartments. On the one side of the door the claims of nature were gratified ; and on the other, at the washing table, at the looking-glass, nature was disciplined by art."

Thus ends the last period of Virginia Woolf's sorter fiction.