Between the acts

I think the funniest line in this book that I've read so far is on page 63 (we actually discussed the bit before it in class). Woolf writes: Don't bother about the plot: the plot's nothing. It's not funny in the "ha-ha" way, but since I'm a sucker for meta-fictional conceits, I couldn't help but be amused by what amounts as Woolf literally and directly speaking to the reader, telling them what to do, in fact. Now, ostensibly it's the thought of one of the characters, but, c'mon: it's in an entirely different paragraph, it's an imperative, and it's by Woolf, who is one of the least plot-based writers I've ever read. I guess I find it funny because it reminds me of something that happened in the comic "Final Crisis," which had a lead-in series of comics called "Countdown," which are considered some of the worst trash ever published in the industry, so bad that the author of Final Crisis, which was the comic Countdown was created to, well, countdown to, included prominently on a chalkboard in one panel the sentence "Don't Worry About Countdown." Now honestly that has really nothing to do with what I'm talking about here. It's not like Woolf had some disastrous lead-in to her novels that necessitated her writing that. But, still, it gives me a chuckle because it's the exact same kind of thing, which is Woolf anticipating reader concerns and addressing them rather pointedly.

I mean, lets face it, the entire context of the quote is in a spot in the novel where things get as close to nonsensical as they do in The Waves or Jacob's Room. Which is even more jarring considering, as we talking about in class, that Between the Acts is a lot less stylized/experimental for the most part than her other works. If she was indeed reaching out for the common reader in this novel, then it would make plenty of sense for this to be, quite literally, a purely meta-fictional moment where Woolf is gently telling the common reader not to be creeped out/confused/put off or generally overwhelmed by what's going on in this stream-of-conciousness/festival play framing narrative cluster, but to just ride it out and it would all make sense in time.

On a meta-fictional note, I've always found it a little...strange to read a work of an author that has died before it was completed. Not strange in a bad way mind you, but strange like you're caught in a time warp or something. Maybe it's the idea that you're reading something that the author was working on when he died.a That can be kind of creepy, in a way; like you're reading his last thoughts? And I'm not talking about reading stuff by writers who are dead mind you, just those who died in the process of finishing a work. It also begs the question of just how done is it. It always hangs around, like an elephant in the room, no matter what stage the book was in when printed. Like, I know the foreword note says that the MS had been completed and just not formally revised, but in the end Leonard couldn't know where Virginia was going to make changes, if she was going to make changes, or how drastic they would be. Now, if anyone was in the best position to guess how close she was to being done with the thing entirely, it would be Leonard, so I give his words I bit more credence than I would, say, a publishers, but still, even he didn't know his wife's mind's inner-workings...none of us truly knows each others' minds' inner workings...which, after much circling, leads us back to the main point, which is there is always the question of accuracy in these sort of post-mortem works. Exactly how much would have been changed if the author had had the chance to see it through? I think it's an interesting question.