After reflecting on today's discussion of Septimus' character I wanted to get some of my thoughts down on paper (er...blog?).
I said today that I found Septimus' inner dialogue mildly off-putting. His unique way of observing his surroundings made me see him as mildly deranged and unstable, especially when he described violent images of fire and destruction or violently snaps at Rezia. Although I still worry about the character sometimes, I feel like I've settled on a more nuanced opinion of Septimus' character.
What first got me thinking was Rosa's comment today about how his perspective seemed more poetic than violent. This got me thinking more about the character, and the newly understood back-story from yesterday's reading. The more that I reread his excerpts, the more I started to see them as the thoughts of a depressed artist rather than the ramblings of a madman.
Knowing about Septimus' background allowed me to see past my original assumptions, and I began to understand why I was so put out by his first few narrations. They are so different than any other character's that have come before him, causing me to react with much more apprehension than I likely would have if the book started with him. He has a strange ability to hijack the narration itself, as if there's a separate narrator that also observes his strange delusions. I suppose I was so surprised by this difference in style compared to other "normal" characters that it immediately caused me to feel weirded-out.
Well, now I feel like I have a different perspective on the character as a whole. Which makes me wonder whether "curing" Septimus will inadvertently doom the artistic mind I've just begun to notice. I'm impressed by Woolf's ability to make a character as complex and intricate as Septimus. I greatly look forward to reading more about him and how society reflects on his differences.
1 comment:
And some of the readers who find his voice or point of view "appealing" to read aren't necessarily saying he *isn't* also "deranged and unstable." I think the fact that he's deranged and unstable is irrefutable, with plenty of textual evidence to back you up. But for some readers, his voice is so *vivid* and strangely compelling for its radical dissociation, its strange poetry and logic; he's a kind of breath of fresh air after the relatively stuffy world of Clarissa and Richard. There's a kind of *freedom* reflected in an "insane" perspective--a freedom to say anything--that makes it appealing to read (but not to experience first-hand!).
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