“I foresee, to return to The Hours, that this is going to be the devil of a struggle. The design is so queer & so masterful. I’m always having to wrench my substance to fit it. The design is certainly original, & interests me hugely.” VW, diary, 19 Jun 1923, p. 249.
Since the first time I noted this quotation, I finished reading Mrs. Dalloway. No sooner finished than I knew I’d have to read it again. I found an entire scholarly essay about an episode in the novel of which I had no memory, an that got me going. I’ve also watched the film adaptation, and when you remember that “the design is certainly original” you have to wonder how anyone could produce such a banal treatment of it. But then you have to wonder, too, how one could produce an excellent treatment. Is it mandatory to meet the unconventional with the unconventional? Art with art? And who was the intended audience?