Journey To Paradise

Journey to Paradise / Dorothy Richardson
London: Virago, 1989
192 p.

This is an older Virago book that I've had on my shelves for quite a long time. I've always been interested in Dorothy Richardson, for her 13 volume novel Pilgrimage, and her role in originating the term 'stream of consciousness'. But when you only have one or two volumes in the large work, you put off beginning -- not until they are all handy at least! 

So this was a great way to be introduced to her style and some of her themes, both in fiction and in self-definition. This book is a collection of short stories plus a few bits of autobiographical writing she put together for publishers. And it's a really interesting read. 

Her style is a bit opaque in a way; the long sentences, or the brief fragmentary ones, the changing between subject and object in narrative voice, the abrupt endings to some of the stories - it all makes it a bit of a challenge to read. But I found that if you just relax into it and understand it as real stream of consciousness, it really is like someone thinking and starts to feel natural. Plus I don't mind feeling a bit at sea when I'm reading something, I like the feeling of not quite knowing exactly what's going on at all times. 

I appreciated that these short stories are about women's lives, from women's viewpoints, both young and very old. There are many families explored here and the characters interact in individual ways. I found the characters realistic and intriguing, from an old woman on the point of dying musing on how to live to a very young girl experiencing her first realizations of the world being its own thing outside of her. 

It was a seasonal read as well, to my surprise, as there are two stories set at Christmas. In one, a young woman struggles to find the perfect Christmas card to send to all her friends and relations. It's relatable in that she finds some too sentimental, too garish, too bland etc. but finally settles on a hand-painted style that she has to order. The story is brief but captures that search and desire for perfection perfectly. The other is about another young woman on her own in a boarding house at Christmas. The girls are friendly but nobody is really celebrating, except for a German girl who insists on going out and getting a tree for her room on Christmas Eve. The blasé and modern young women in the rest of the house are surprised by this, and also by the sudden swell of  tradition and peace it brings to them all. It's a lovely story, and I'll share an excerpt here on Christmas Eve. 

I enjoyed this one and think it would definitely be one you could get more out of through rereading. I'm going to make more of an effort to collect the volumes of Pilgrimage so I can start on that journey, too.