Olivia's Reviews > Night and Day

** PETITION FOR EVERYONE TO LEAVE MARY DATCHET THE $@#! ALONE **

I have a pretty high tolerance for "parlor politics," and this was a stretch even for me.

Virginia Woolf may or may not own my soul at this specific point in time, but this is not her best work. I don't automatically object to the concept of love triangles, on principle -- but this was a nearly four hundred and fifty page novel solely dedicated to a love pentagon. And there are Limits, my dears. There are Limits.

"Okay, yeah, the premise doesn't sound good," you may say, "but are the characters at least compelling?"

. . . No.

In descending order of ickiness, we have:

- Ralph: Narcissistic jerk who uses Mary whilst pining after Katharine, a woman who apparently and inexplicably satisfies "his Ideals (TM)" until she doesn't. [What exactly "his Ideals (TM)" are is never explained, but the reader is given to understand that they are Elevated.]

- Rodney: Needy but sensitive literati wannabe who is also apparently and inexplicably in love with Katharine. She is Beauty, she is Grace -- oh, wait, she has a cousin with a nice Face.

- Katharine: Turn-of-the-century woman who also uses Mary, but whose hunger for independence and a career in mathematics/astronomy could have been immensely compelling had Woolf not decided, midway through the novel, to make a not-so-legal U-turn and suddenly give her . . . feelings?? Droopy, sentimental, wishy-washy feelings of a romantical nature for . . . wait, does she love Rodney after all? Or is she suddenly in love with Ralph? Or both?? WHICH IS IT, WOMAN?!?

- Mary: The only really Good (TM) person in the novel, whose happiness must of course be sacrificed on the altar of Narrative Pathos. Yeah, maybe she'll be alone and lonely forever but at least she has the suffrage to keep her busy -- because, Empowerment.

- Cassandra: I can't actually think of anything that this poor kid did wrong except for essentially being what would happen if Emma Woodhouse and Harriet Smith were smooshed together into one person.

Morbid introspection is a hallmark of Woolf's work, and it's a characteristic of her writing that I've always enjoyed because I am, myself, morbidly introspective. But, once again, there are Limits, and this story transgresses all of them.

In my experience so far, Woolf's oeuvre is marked by an attitude of intellectual speculation and creative experimentation as rational and productive as it is gorgeous and visionary. With a few notable exceptions, however, the philosophizing in this book is merely fatuous and self-indulgent, often bordering on insufferable.

Finally, after four hundred pages of painfully indecisive characters stringing along their profoundly unimpressive companions, the story settles its focus on one pairing. The almost laughable attempt at romance that results is maudlin and unconvincing at its best, and devolves into a reenactment of the "I Love You As Much As Someone Like Me Can Love Anyone" scene from Galavant at its worst.

In the end, the only real satisfaction that could be gained from it was that they all finally made up their minds and stuck to them long enough for the curtain to fall, giving us the chance to escape the theater before it could rise again on another ridiculous crisis of indecision.