[Vwoolf] "Jacob's Room": Crux #3

Tue May 12 20:13:22 EDT 2015

This is all so great, so interesting. But Andre’s post brings back the sensation I had when annotating Between the Acts for CUP: with Woolf, it can sometimes feel like you could go on forever, as if every word opens into caves and tunnels that lead to yet more caves and tunnels…

From: Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net at lists.osu.edu] On Behalf Of Andre Gerard
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 6:37 PM
To: Stuart N. Clarke
Cc: Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] "Jacob's Room": Crux #3

A number of loose, associative thoughts.  The passage about the three elderly men belongs to a section which contains many elements which also surface in Mrs. Dalloway.  For instance, there is the cathedral visit (both St Paul's and Westminster in Mrs. Dalloway), exhilarating bus rides, unknown lives brushing past each other, the consumption or nibbling of the day, and the old woman singing.  In Mrs. Dalloway spiders and spider thread recur several times, primarily as an image of tenuous linkage, although there is also, more mysteriously, Whitehall  "skated over by spiders."  Water spiders, perhaps?

Also, for Virginia, "three elderly men" had personal, almost mythic significance.  In Moments of Being she describes the "three old gentlemen" (Mr. Wolstenholme, C. B. Clarke, and Mr. Gibbs) as Dickensian figures, and in the same passage she describes Justine Nonon, an old woman who "walked like a spider," "sang in a hoarse cracked voice" and rode the "red omnibus."  Virginia remembers her "as if she were a completely real person, with nothing left out, like the three old men."  

 As mythic creatures the old gentlemen may be re-gendered versions of the Moirai, male versions of  Atropos, Lachesis and Clotho.  

On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 4:16 AM, Stuart N. Clarke <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com> wrote:

Near the beginning of ch. V:

“you will see that three elderly men at a little distance from each other run spiders along the pavement as if the street were their parlour”

This *very* mysterious.  

Vara Neverow suggests that the ‘men, who are spaced so that they will not compete with one another, are selling mechanical toys to passersby, probably windup penny toys manufactured in Germany.’ (JR 2008: 229)

Ado suggests “peut-être” (JR 2012: 329):

(1) Live spiders attached by threads

(2) penny toys

(3) bicycles

I think Ado’s #3 is unlikely: bikes on the pavement – disgraceful!  I think those types of bikes called spiders predate 1910 by some considerable time (altho’ I’d never heard of them before).

Ado’s #1 seems possible.  After all, in the Victorian period you could buy sparrows from street vendors, with strings attached to their legs, and you could fly them around.  Ugh!

I really like Vara’s and Ado’s #2.  Not something I would have thought of, but look here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ANTIQUE-WIND-UP-CLOCKWORK-TOY-SCHUCO-STYLE-SPRING-DEVIL-SPIDER-C1920S-30S-/391084080032

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/OLD-GERMAN-WIND-UP-TOY-SPIDER-/251940077598?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0 <http://www.ebay.ca/itm/OLD-GERMAN-WIND-UP-TOY-SPIDER-/251940077598?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3aa8cc801e> &hash=item3aa8cc801e

On the other hand, would a 1922 reader know what VW was referring to?  Would it be obvious to him/her that she was referring to toys?

Any answers gratefully received.

Stuart

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