It wasn't long before Woolf's Kew Gardens brought me to Paris, specifically Paris of 1966 and Jacques Dutronc's song Et moi, et moi, et moi from his self-titled debut album. The song is a response to the self-important windbaggery of mid early 60s lyrics wherein the fate of the universe seems to hang on the outcome of the singer's relationship (or the kind of hubris that would make Simon think the Dragonfly had anything to do with him). Dutronc challenges such an egocentric outlook by putting his problems squarely in the context of the life on the planet as a whole, as in the song's first verse:
Sept cent millions de chinois
Et moi, et moi, et moi
Avec ma vie, mon petit chez moi
Mon mal de tête, mon psi
J'y pense et puis j'oublie
C'est la vie, c'est la vie"
In English:
Seven hundred million Chinese
And me, and me, and me
With my life, my little home
My headache, my Persian cat
I think about it and then I forget
That’s life, that’s life
Dutronc and Woolf seem to share an idea about how the troubles of individuals fit into the context of the gigantic struggles between major world forces. Dutronc sees how greatly the pains of his headache and the comforts of his cat pale in comparison to the experiences of the "seven hundred million" Chinese. Likewise, Kew Gardens is a story of being dwarfed. The snail and the obstructions in its path are dwarfed by the Garden visitors, who are themselves dwarfed by the "murmur" of the city in which their voices are lost. And, let's not forget, everything in London, the greatest city of the world at the time, was dwarfed by the number of men and women fighting and dying in the Great War; no one in the story seems to realize how small they are as compared to the goings on in the world about them.
Yet, regardless of how small their subjects are, both the short story and the song exist; though minor as compared to the fate of nations, Simon still thinks about the dragonfly and the two elderly women still wonder about Williams and his companion. Jacques Dutronc has a home that shelters him and a life that he has to live. Despite the murmur and the 700 million Chinese, the voices of the individuals, small though they may be, are still worthy of attention and documentation.
Both Dutronc and Woolf feature an ambiguous "it". We're not sure what the "it" is that Dutronc thinks about, nor what the young woman's "it" is that's worth sixpence. And I think the ambiguity and the universality of that humble pronoun is terribly important: no matter what it is, it's worth the time of writer to document, the reader to read, and the person to live. No matter how small the snail's quest may be, it is important to the snail; no matter how intensely private Simon's recollections are, they are worth thinking. The smallness of life leads neither reader to reject its value; for Dutronc, "c'est la vie"; that's just how it goes, and for Woolf, the voices and lives are not subsumed into the din of the city, but rather they find themselves atop the cacophony and "cried aloud [as] the petals of myriads of flowers flashed their colours into the air".
Showing posts with label kew gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kew gardens. Show all posts
Sunday, January 18, 2009
"Lucky it isn't Friday."
While reading “Kew Gardens,” I could not help but envision The New York Botanical Gardens on the first beautiful Sunday in the late spring that heralds the start of summer. That day of the long-awaited and much-craved balmy temperature marks the time of year when I, like the flowers, come back to life. Like a Lazarus who suffered from January chill, I’m happy (for once) to dust the cobwebs off of my Asics and run across Southern Boulevard to take advantage of the free admission to the garden for exercising Fordham students. Because I hate running with an iPod, I usually evade the tedium and defer the pain of a long run by imaginatively eavesdropping on the other people enjoying the weather by trading the cement stress of the city for the soft, earthen trails of the Botanical Garden. Jogging past them, I am privy to snippets of their discourse; I can hear a word or two of the argument between the old couple, the mother chastising her small child, the lovers making plans. I can synthesize their history and their present from these fragmented syllabic over-hearings.
Exactly what Virginia Woolf meant by “Kew Gardens,” I do not know. By the end of the short work of fiction, which reads more like a painting or a dream, it seems that she means to portray the garden as an isolated oasis, an island whose visitors are allowed melancholy musings of regret and reminiscence amidst the swirling violence of a World War ocean. In a London where residents are forced to constantly face their present plight and look forward to a frightening and uncertain future, Kew Gardens acts as a momentary reprieve. “Voices,” muses Woolf. “Yes voices, wordless voices, breaking the silence suddenly with such depth of contentment, such passion of desire, or, in the voices of children, such freshness of surprise; breaking the silence? But there was no silence; all the time the motor omnibuses were turning their wheels and changing their gear” (89). Despite the serenity offered to Londoners by strolls in Kew Gardens, they must ultimately, like Woolf’s laboring snail emerges from his shell, leave behind the safety of the garden walls and face whatever uncertainty the reality of the city presents them.
Even while running through the deepest and thickest part of the Botanical Garden, I can still hear reverie-breaking sirens.
Exactly what Virginia Woolf meant by “Kew Gardens,” I do not know. By the end of the short work of fiction, which reads more like a painting or a dream, it seems that she means to portray the garden as an isolated oasis, an island whose visitors are allowed melancholy musings of regret and reminiscence amidst the swirling violence of a World War ocean. In a London where residents are forced to constantly face their present plight and look forward to a frightening and uncertain future, Kew Gardens acts as a momentary reprieve. “Voices,” muses Woolf. “Yes voices, wordless voices, breaking the silence suddenly with such depth of contentment, such passion of desire, or, in the voices of children, such freshness of surprise; breaking the silence? But there was no silence; all the time the motor omnibuses were turning their wheels and changing their gear” (89). Despite the serenity offered to Londoners by strolls in Kew Gardens, they must ultimately, like Woolf’s laboring snail emerges from his shell, leave behind the safety of the garden walls and face whatever uncertainty the reality of the city presents them.
Even while running through the deepest and thickest part of the Botanical Garden, I can still hear reverie-breaking sirens.
What's with the Snails?
One particular aspect of Kew Gardens that I was curious about was the distinction made between two very different worlds: namely, the world of the snail versus the world of the people wandering about the flower bed.
Woolf used a snail as the catalyst for her story in The Mark on the Wall, and once again, a snail plays a role in her prose. In Kew Gardens, Woolf leads the reader through the conversations and behaviors of various couples passing the flower bed as well as the progress of a snail within that same flower bed. While the people pass by with the same, “irregular and aimless movement,” (89) the snail appears to, “have a definite goal in front of it... objects lay across the snail’s progress between one stalk and another to his goal.” (86) In fact, it seems like the only character in the story who has any direction is the snail itself, plodding along in a flower bed surrounded by couples who are caught up by past memories and pointless conversations.
I was left to ponder the purpose behind telling the story from these two different perspectives, and I cannot say that I’ve reached a definite conclusion. By the end of the story, Woolf has brought together the two worlds of nature and people into a churning, swirling mixture of voices and colors and sounds. In the end, the two worlds are not separate entities, but a single—rather chaotic—mass. I am not really sure what to make of the story’s finish, and I was particularly stunned by the fact that my first reaction to the ending was, “But what happened to the snail?!” when obviously, I should be more concerned about the fact that the people in the story are lead astray by their own banalities and their struggle to sort out the implications of past decisions and present absurdities. I suppose the only contribution I have to offer are a few meager questions: What does it say about people if a snail in a flower bed seems to have more purpose and determination in a story than the humans? Was Woolf even considering that point, or have I missed an essential part of her message? Why does she seem to have such an affinity for snails?
Conclusively, all I can say is that whether it was Woolf’s intention or not, Kew Gardens made me wonder about the human condition to revel in the past, to say things that don’t really say anything at all, and to put great stake in things that are not worth much more than sixpence anyway.
Woolf used a snail as the catalyst for her story in The Mark on the Wall, and once again, a snail plays a role in her prose. In Kew Gardens, Woolf leads the reader through the conversations and behaviors of various couples passing the flower bed as well as the progress of a snail within that same flower bed. While the people pass by with the same, “irregular and aimless movement,” (89) the snail appears to, “have a definite goal in front of it... objects lay across the snail’s progress between one stalk and another to his goal.” (86) In fact, it seems like the only character in the story who has any direction is the snail itself, plodding along in a flower bed surrounded by couples who are caught up by past memories and pointless conversations.
I was left to ponder the purpose behind telling the story from these two different perspectives, and I cannot say that I’ve reached a definite conclusion. By the end of the story, Woolf has brought together the two worlds of nature and people into a churning, swirling mixture of voices and colors and sounds. In the end, the two worlds are not separate entities, but a single—rather chaotic—mass. I am not really sure what to make of the story’s finish, and I was particularly stunned by the fact that my first reaction to the ending was, “But what happened to the snail?!” when obviously, I should be more concerned about the fact that the people in the story are lead astray by their own banalities and their struggle to sort out the implications of past decisions and present absurdities. I suppose the only contribution I have to offer are a few meager questions: What does it say about people if a snail in a flower bed seems to have more purpose and determination in a story than the humans? Was Woolf even considering that point, or have I missed an essential part of her message? Why does she seem to have such an affinity for snails?
Conclusively, all I can say is that whether it was Woolf’s intention or not, Kew Gardens made me wonder about the human condition to revel in the past, to say things that don’t really say anything at all, and to put great stake in things that are not worth much more than sixpence anyway.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
