Between the Acts

It's not this book, it's me - probably.

This probably should not have been my entry point to Virginia Woolf's works, considering that this is her last novel. Reading this novella made me feel a little stupid because I had no idea what was going on from start to end. I'm also getting intimidated for my plan to read The Voyage Out by her later this month.

A pageant is being organised at Pointz Hall by its crowd of guests, largely upper-middle class folks. The pageant takes the audience through the history of England, from the Middle Ages up to the Victorian era, which wasn't that far away from when this novel was written and published in 1939.

The writing here was almost absurdist in the way it was so, so messy. It flits around from viewpoint to viewpoint, character to character, and then rests inexplicably on apparently random things and situations. The dialogue doesn't seem to make sense, or are always being cut off by other people. Nobody seems to talk straight to the point.

But in a way, I can't help feeling - is it just me? Am I just not approaching this in the right angle to appreciate what this novella is trying to say? I literally had to go search this book up on Sparknotes after I was done to get some help deciphering it. Even though it was a super short and quick read, it felt so dense, like it was a long enigmatic cipher that I couldn't crack.