[Vwoolf] Talking of "Mr Dalloway" . . .

[Stuart N. Clarke]

which I was . . . one of the things that annoyed me was that when Richard exits the florist’s shop in Bond Street he hears the bells of Big Ben (p. 20).  You can’t hear Big Ben from Bond Street.  Indeed, I defy you to hear Big Ben – assuming that we’re ever allowed to wander the streets of London again – flânerie anyone? (don’t get me started on that nonsense!) – and assuming they ever finish repairing the Elizabeth Tower (as it’s now called) – even if you concentrate every quarter of an hour – much further than Westminster itself.

And yet the Ward, Lock guide to London for 1934 says: “in calm weather its resonant note may be heard over the greater part of London” (p. 98).  Have times really changed that much?  The traffic sounded different then, but it was just as bad as now (well not *now* of course).  We have a lot of tall buildings which must deflect the sound, I suppose.  I am suspicious of the statement, “over the greater part of London”.  How big was this London?  The LCC (London County Council) was much smaller than the present GLC (Greater London Council, from 1965), but I don’t think people thought the LCC was coterminous with London.  I presume Ward, Lock is thinking of central London, the part that tourists would frequent.  Marble Arch, for example – could you imagine hearing Big Ben from Marble Arch?  I can’t.  Also “in calm weather” – and on a Sunday perhaps, with less traffic?  I remain to be convinced.

I don’t know if this is relevant, but at the beginning of ch. 2 of “The [Bloomsbury] Boarding-house in “Sketches by Boz”:  “The clock of New Saint Pancras Church [Euston Road] struck twelve, and the Foundling [between Brunswick and Mecklenburg Squares], with laudable politeness, did the same ten minutes afterwards, Saint something else struck the quarter . . .”  No mention of Big Ben.

On the other hand, *that* reminds me of 

“Remember my party, remember my party, said Peter Walsh as he stepped down the street, speaking to himself rhythmically, in time with the flow of the sound, the direct downright sound of Big Ben striking the half-hour. . . . Still the last tremors of the great booming voice shook the air round him; the half-hour; still early; only half-past eleven still. . . . Ah, said St. Margaret's, like a hostess who comes into her drawing-room on the very stroke of the hour and finds her guests there already. I am not late. No, it is precisely half-past eleven, she says. Yet, though she is perfectly right, her voice, being the voice of the hostess, is reluctant to inflict its individuality. Some grief for the past holds it back; some concern for the present. It is half-past eleven, she says, and the sound of St. Margaret's glides into the recesses of the heart and buries itself in ring after ring of sound . . .”

Stuart
(Day 341)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/vwoolf/attachments/20210221/e2d31cfc/attachment.html>