BY DR KAUSTAV BHATTACHARYYA
Celebrating centenary year of Mrs Dalloway the novel & the 1997 film – a literary evening at the Hotel Den in Bengaluru
Recently the literary Bibliophiles and lovers of English Literature gathered on a nice cold pleasant Friday Afternoon at the Hotel Den in Bengaluru to celebrate the centenary year of Mrs Dalloway the Virginia Woolf novel. The celebrations included a Panel discussion between Yumna Harisingh, Head of Art Mantram and Samhit Arni, writer and poet along with an introductory exposition by Kaustav(Kris) Bhattacharyya about the literary plot. Kaustav/Kris focused on the 1997 movie and showed snippets from the film for the audience to discuss the broad literary plot and the context of the setting of the novel. The Literary evening was marked by gaiety and the audience and all present enjoyed the conversation along with being soaked in the Christmas festive spirit. Please find below my exposition delivered at the event.
Good Evening!! Ladies and Gentlemen!! Namaskara!! Suswagatham!! A very warm welcome to this very special edition of Literary Evening celebrating the centenary year of Mrs Dalloway, a 1925 novel written by the distinguished and formidable Virginia Woolf. I look forward to a very resplendent evening with remarkable speakers in Samhita and Yumna, charming host in Vinesh Gupta, the General Manager along with his very efficient MarComm team with Poonam leading the charge and wonderful guests whom I wish to thank for coming over taking the time on a Friday afternoon braving the city traffic.
Now I would speak here about the film and not the novel living up to my characteristic Shakespearean court jester or caricature role, which usually has been my remit in these Literary evenings!! Basically, making a fool of myself!! I am leaving the more cerebral elements for my cerebral intellectual panel.
Personally, my encounter with the venerable Mrs Dalloway was through the 1997 film and then subsequently read the book. Why is the movie significant here??
Since I feel this is one of those rare cinematic productions where the movie produced corroborates very closely and succinctly with the literary plot; a truly elegant adaptation!!
According to Janet Maslin whose movie review in the New York Times provided powerful insights and understanding for my current exposition the movie production Mrs Dalloway ‘simply have no cinematic equivalent’ in terms of capturing the occurrences in the life of a Socialite London lady on a single day. The real illuminating experience of watching the movie would be incomplete sans the reading of the novel.
Janet Maslin in her review mentions ‘a trip to the library makes for an invaluable part of the experience’ with which I concur having read the novel after watching the movie.
The novel or the movie deploys the idea of stream of consciousness popularized by James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Directed by Marleen Gorris; screenplay by Eileen Atkins.
Let’s Start with the basic plot:
Set on a Single June day in 1923, where the London Society lady Mrs Clarissa Dalloway acted by Vanessa Redgrave is hosting an elegant party for the posh ‘Set’; the glamorous and powerful with the London residence and the London salubrious summer evening being a perfect setting for such a Party!! The Party will be attended by the prominent ‘Who’s Who of London Society’ who all have been invited including the Prime Minister and members of the exalted House of Lords.
The opening sequence is a morning walk by Mrs Clarissa Dalloway through the genteel streets of London with the errand of buying flowers for the Party in mind.
While buying flowers Mrs Dalloway encounters the grim realities of war-devastated Britain in a shell-shocked veteran soldier Septimus Warren Smith (Rupert Graves) whose mental instability reflects in his conduct and Septimus finally commits suicide. And at some point, Clarissa ponders over this very profound stirring question in the hearts and minds of most Britishers at that point in time about the spirit of resilience amidst the carnage of Great War and what keeps us going??
This shell-shocked veteran is the haunted specter or ghost of this banquet who dies on the very day of the Party.
The first scenes of the film are from the horrific battlefields of the Great War being conducted in Europe with the sound of guns, bombs and shells being fired away and the sight of soldiers dying. Hence the specter of the horrible gruesome War is always omnipresent with news of death of near and dear and this shell-shocked soldier!!
And then during the course of the day Clarissa has an unexpected visitor, her former embittered suitor, Peter Walsh acted by Michael Kitchen recovering from a failed military career and marriage in India.
The movie has these periodic flashbacks of her halcyon or cherished idyllic past of being a young girl in a British Countryside residence, a Victorian country paradise!! Constantly the scenes or the cinematic shots take us back and forth between the present and the charming innocent past in Clarissa’s life. Flashback, interplay swinging back and forth between a charming youthful carefree life where ‘experimental ideas about society flouting conventions and norms’ like having a child without being married. This adventurous spirited past and the mundane bourgeoisie present yet posh and chic Society lady forms a picture of contradictions. It’s a lot about the theme of what we are currently and what we were in the past and often the sharp contrast.
Andrew Sarris in his review writes that the Virginia Woolf novel manifests itself on the screen as a melody of half-notes on the eternal subject of the way we are in contrast to the way we were.
The younger Clarissa or Clarissa Parry played by Natascha McElhone and the fundamental essence of these flashbacks from a cinematic plot is her conundrum of choosing among 3 suitors young Peter Walsh (Alan Cox), young Hugh Whitbread (Hal Cruttenden) and young Richard Dalloway (Robert Portal). These interactions form an integral part of the cinematic plot. Finally, she selected the successful smart intelligent or what Vikram Seth would have termed ‘A Suitable Boy’ in Richard Dalloway who currently is a Parliamentarian. And her endearing friendship with the young Sally played by Lena Headey who is now respectably married Lady Rossiter is part of that flashback story.
Here matured and older Peter Walsh played by Michael Kitchen and Richard Dalloway in a similar state of maturity played by John Standing attempt to reconnect and recapture their shared past but it’s way too distant. As a French writer Benoit Grout wrote in her novel ‘Salt on my skin’ that ‘one doesn’t age but hope ages’.
Once the Politician Mr Richard Dalloway once called “He’s a fool, an unimaginative, dull fool” by young Peter Walsh.
Old romantic impulses and feeling arise here in the evening Party where Peter and Sally find a quiet corner of the party, and he tells her of Clarissa, “I loved her once, and it stayed with me all my life, and colored every day.” Sally today is very different from the dreamy-eyed youthful lady who would have romanticized such interludes or encounters and now is Lady Rossiter hence she maintained a chilling silence.
Now for a funny bit, Janet Maslin mentions in her review that the men have grown pompous, boring and paunchy, while Clarissa herself muses on the idea of being Mrs. Dalloway.
I have heard this refrain often in Indian Reunions of academic institutions and Colleges.
Clarissa notes during the course of the day that she is well past the point of being thought of by her first name.
As I draw close to my presentation I reflect upon the characters and how I can personally relate to them and in many ways, Peter Walsh is much closer to my heart since I am someone who isn’t very ambitious nor entrepreneurial going on a start-ups spree. I can imagine myself amidst my old youth or childhood friends who have turned highly successful living in the land of the plenty pursuing serious professional careers in technology, medicine and that glorious shrine of Silicon Valley for bright minds in a reunion party, leaving feeling awkward but not forlorn since I knew this would be my fate.
In our younger days we contemplated the question that If the ones who are professionally successful and have chart the course of their lives according to well-defined notions of achievements and accomplishments like Richard incapable of such rich innocent emotions and lost their soul. We sort of celebrated the Peter Walshes during our British Council/Koshys days and Andy my old friend is there to reaffirm it. We saw something heroic and authentic in being intelligent, sharp and yet being the ‘outlier’ or not joining the Club. Hence kind of being in the margins of the Establishment but not entirely downtrodden; a newspaper celebrated columnist but not the Editor who refused to comply with the norms of the media house. Or a diplomat who didn’t receive plum postings owing to his rectitude and fierce independence of spirit. We felt that Richard Dalloways of the world are devoid of passion, spunk and originality.
I wish to leave these questions for the audience to ponder and reflect here.
Enjoy and have a Splendid Evening!!
Thanks a lot for your attention!!
COUNTRY SQUIRE INDIA 