janiedanger

For two reasons, I had wanted to read this novel for a long time. First off, one of my profs had mentioned it as a book he had wanted to study in class, but it was in between printings, and then also because my brother bought me the sequel to it, Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace, a few years ago for Christmas.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Richard has an amazing talent for detail, and his characters were so thoroughly developed that I felt like I knew them. Or that he knew them very well. Or that he based them on real people he knew well. Regardless, I was very impressed. So impressed, in fact, that I immediately launched into the sequel, which I enjoyed equally as much. It explores the lives of some of the lesser known characters, in just as much depth as the first.

Both novels are award-winning, and I would highly recommend them to anyone interested in excellent fiction, or who is interested in Canadian fiction.

Unfortunately, as of tonight I have given up this goal. I have been working toward it for a year now. It had always been that my iron was too low, but tonight I finally defeated that problem. Then came the task of actually giving blood.

As soon as the needle went in, I felt nauseated and light-headed. The nurse took it out immediately, and for the next hour I worked on feeling normal again.

I guess I’m a little faint of heart, though it’s taken me a couple of years to accept that.

The nurses offered a few possible reasons—that I’m too tiny (I’m above 110 lbs, the required weight, but a lot of that is muscle. I don’t know if that matters), that I mightn’t have eaten enough. I figure that I just felt shock. This happens to me occasionally when something unexpected happens (how the needle felt going in, how big it was).

Anyhow, the nurses told me that perhaps I wasn’t a good candidate right now, at least not until I’m more comfortable. It was traumatic enough that I have no desire to try again until I can forget tonight.

I finally finished this novel… it took me much longer than I had anticipated.

I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I thought I would. The book consists of a single chapter; of a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway. I had been interested in reading this book since I saw the movie The Hours. However, I found it difficult to read. There were few natural breaks and extremely long paragraphs, but perhaps what lessened my enjoyment most was its descriptions of high society in England. I’m not always interested in such things, although I must admit that I’m a huge fan of Jane Austen novels.

All that being said, I can definitely see the novel’s merits for study. I’m sure that were I to delve deeper into its themes and underlying messages, I would appreciate the novel even more. Woolf offers a lot of commentary on society, on post-traumatic stress disorder, and there’s that underlying lesbianism that literary types love to disseminate. For these reasons, I cannot dismiss the novel. It is interesting because of its literary value, even if I found it a long read for a relatively short book.