Firstly, I must say that I loved “As Time Passes” so much, I finally remembered why I actually liked Virginia Woolf in high school. But before I get to that, I have to talk about the part of the novel I find so hilarious, which is actually found as the main focal point in the second part: silence.
These characters of ours don’t talk, even though they speak outloud often about mundane things. The first great irony is that it seems like they never shut up, as Woolf writes long, broken, incoherent thoughts that lead to other thoughts that don’t have anything to do with the before thoughts but somehow bring us to another character that is busy thinking themselves about everything and nothing, no one and every one. The point? Every one is obviously very self involved, but most of them also seemed to be convinced that they hold an immensely strong inuitive power. Lily thinks she knows Mr. Ramsay’s suffering, and she also thinks she knows why and how wrong Mrs. Ramsay is as a person. Mr. Ramsey connects to his wife in silence, and she with him samely. Bank’s ponders Mrs. Ramsay’s thoughts and Lily’s Mr. Banks regarding same topic, but nothing is ever said.
As Time Passes:
Lights out, darkness, silence, light, air, night. [Mrs. Ramsay's dies.] Empty house. Mrs. McNab. Air. Light. Shadow. Loveliness and Stillness. Silence. Light. Mrs. McNab. Mortality. Spring. [Prue weds] Nature and order. Rain. [Prue's dead] Summer. Light. Silence. Night. [Andrew's dead] Nature. Beauty. Nature. Beauty. [Carmichael makes popular poetry] (VII, repeat all the obove, excepting of human deaths, over long period of summers and winters). Mrs. McNabb, possessions, the aging of house and woman, death contemplation, flowers, abandonment. Decrepidation of house/man’s possession overtaken by nature. Then redoing or undoing (depending on personal outlook) of house for the preparation of the owner’s return. (Lily returns) People return: guests. House has a being? End.
The silence of life without humans can make appreciative sounds. Following air as though following a child that aims to tuoch everything. Everything that had to do with our main characters was bracketed and swiftly thrown at us in intervals between long descriptions of either darkness, light, nature, the physicality of the house and time. Maybe I’m not explaining why I think this is so cool, but I think it speaks for itself: The language Woolf uses is familiar and still mindboggling.
