Review: Honeycomb

Honeycomb by Dorothy M. Richardson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The third installment of DMR’s Volume 1 installment begins on a high note. That distinct inward monologue is so reticent bearing in mind the story is told in the third person.

I think it is a brilliant way to write an autobiography and the inward reflection is a way of the author wanting you to find out what she was going through in her life. Not to mistake it with writing a life story, it is well known that she intended for this to be read when she was not alive. The art involved in painting this picture through Miriam is on a very high level of conception.

Being conscious to Miriam was sort of an experience in itself, let alone the interactions with people and with open spaces. I have not even mentioned how she describes rooms and everything inside the room. There is also music, religion, art, intelligent conversations that sort of prime us to what kind of life the author lived. It is not hard to see Miriam’s life as a sort of a reflection to Dorothy M. Richardson's (DMR’s) life. This makes you want to read the book to find out more about the author than Miriam.

Look how a Villa is described and left to self interpretation.... “In a dull cheap villa there might be a bunch of violets in a bowl on a whatnot.”

There is a way stars were used as a figure of speech in one intelligent conversation that was going on between Melie, Mrs. Craven and Mrs. Corrie; Julia opines that one is not to be married if one is not under the stars and that you will only marry if you are under the star. I think that was such a blanket statement. This breaks off to a long conversation as to why men need not be handsome...concluding that " A handsome man's much handsomer than a pretty woman," and that "I think a handsome man's generally so weak." I will just leave this one here....

In her writing, Dorothy seemed to lay a huge emphasis on how Germans were better at music and poetry when compared to the English. If for a moment we pause and reflect the period at which she was writing this.... it must have been at a time those two nations were at war. Funny how she objectively looked at it although being English... “ No English person would quite understand—the need, that the Germans understood so well—the need to admit the beauty of things . . . the need of the strange expression of music, making the beautiful things more beautiful and of words when they were together in the beauty of the poems.” Something about England – Something hard.

About men, it seemed throughout the book that men were on the receiving end..at some point I thought that there was a feminist theme going on in the book. Sure without doubt, I would not blame the narrator given the environment she was in. There was nothing like equality back then. At a table look at how it is described... “Miriam's first sense of dining and when she found herself seated at Mr. Corrie's left hand opposite Mrs. Craven, with Joey away on her left, facing Mr. Craven and Mrs. Corrie now far away from her at the door end of the table, it seemed as if these things had been got together only for the use of the men.”
Here is another passage talking about men... “If a man doesn't understand or doesn't agree he's just a blank bony conceitedly thinking, absolutely condemning forehead, a face below, going on eating—and going off somewhere. Men are all hard angry bones ; always thinking something, only one thing at a time and unless that is agreed to, they murder.“
And another still about men ... “men's minds, staring at things, ignorantly, knowing everything in an irritating way and yet ignorant.”
More slime for men... “the sort of man who would look after a woman properly, but would never know anything about her.”
Look at this... “I expect that most men are the average manly man with the average manly faults."
A most vitriolic attack... “Adam had not faced the devil. He was stupid first, and afterwards a coward and a cad . . ."the divine curiosity of Eve. . . ." Some person had said that. . . . Perhaps men would turn round one day and see, what they were like. Eve had not been unkind to the devil ; only Adam and God. All the men in the world, and their God, ought to apologise to women. . . .”

On books, I noticed that one particular book kept appearing “A human Document” For some strange reason; I was drawn to how after having read the book...some reflection took place... it means that that book must have surely had an impact upon reading. There are examples upon examples of how reading can become addictive in “honeycomb”....here is an example...
“reading passages here and there ; feeling them come nearer to her than anything she had read before. She knew at once that she did not want to read the book through ; that it was what people called a tragedy, that the author had deliberately made it a tragedy”
It gets to a point that a book reader is biased to the kind of books she reads and how she reads them.. “She felt that she could look at the end, and read here and there a little and know ; know something, something they did not know. People thought it was silly, almost wrong to look at the end of a book. But if it spoilt a book, there was something wrong about the book. If it was finished and the interest gone when you know who married who, what was the good of reading at all ? It was a sort of trick, a sell.” In summary a book should be like a puzzle... and that if you found it out before reading the book, something was wrong about the book. This is deep! The “stronger” the author was, the more came..
It is interesting to read books as a psychological study of the author . . . It means never being able to agree with people about books, allowing things coming to you out of books...knowing absolutely everything about the author. Look at books as people? To read books such that... ”you felt the writing, felt the sentences as if you were writing them yourself?”
Moral writers were put on the threshing floor... ”A moral writer only sees the mote in his brother's eye. And you see him seeing it.” That letter to Eve was deep.

A lot was said about masculine and feminine worldliness.

What is the meaning of a man playing cards on his death bed?

The love of God defined – “The love of God was like the love of a mother ; always forgiving you, ready to die for you, always waiting for you to be good. Why ? It was mean.”

Phrase
“Surprise had kept her thoughtless and rapt.”
“swift flountering “
“I'm deadly keen.”
" You look a duck,"
“a fussy emphatic handshake”
“ritual of the feast.”
“of unnaturally even teeth.”
“a little air of deference”
" She doesn't care a rap about him”
“vexed incredulity.”
“the astonishingness of everything.”
" The vagaries of the Fair”
..." the unaccountability of women '
“Strange harmonising radiance. “
“frontage of fawning and flattery.”
“mocking, obsequious, patronising manner.”
“just sneery and silly.”
" Will you people leave off squabbling and just see if this is all right before I nail it up?"
“impudently patronising”
“woolly pungency of new felting.”
“Rascality of the Genus Homo .”
“a great deal of stiff politeness.”
“The flump-wash of the waves”
“the uselessness of attendants.”

Stream of consciousness
“For a moment she was conscious of nothing but the soft-toned, softly lit interior, the softness at her back, the warmth under her feet and her happy smile ; then she felt a sudden strength ; the smile coming straight up so unexpectedly from some deep where it had been waiting,”
“the bright teeth of a grand piano running along the edge of its darkness, a cataract of light pouring down its raised lid ; forests of hats ; dresses, shining against darkness, bright headless crumpling stalks ; sly, silky, ominous furs ; metals, cold and clanging, brandishing the light; close prickling fire of jewels”
“They were so dreadful; the gospels full of social incidents and reproachfulness. They seemed to reproach everyone and to hint at a secret that no one possessed . . . the epistles did nothing but nag and threaten and probe. St. Paul rhapsodised sometimes. . . . but in a superior way . . . patronising ; as if no one but himself knew anything. . . .”

Art
“strange pictures hung low, on a level with your eyes, strange soft tones”
“. . . two things about soup besides taking it from the side of your spoon, which everybody knows—you eat soup, and you tilt your plate away, not towards you (chum along, chum along and eat your nice hot soup).”
“The soles of her new patent leather shoes felt pleasantly smooth against the thick carpet. “

Descriptive
“She found a bulging copper hot-water jug, brilliantly polished, with a wicker-covered handle.”
“a door opened upon warm brilliance.”
“and cold in the morning light pouring through an undraped window.”
“Miriam glanced at the solicitous droop of her long figure.”
“Sybil could sing without the piano with an extraordinary flourishing rapidity, pirouetting as she sang,”
“Sinking into the second arm-chair she crossed her knees and beamed into the fire.”
“The wind snored round the house like a flame and bellowed in the chimneys.“
“His figure had a curious crooked jaunty appearance, the shoulders a little crooked and the little legs slightly bent.”
“. . . the quiet grass, the scattered deer, the kindly trees, the gentlemen with triumphant faces, running after him;”
“ the one who gets last into a hansom by slipping into the near corner.”
“in a mauve and white drawing-room, reclining on a mauve and white striped settee in a pale mauve tea gown.”
“the gentle angular explosion of pieces into a new relation and the breaking of the varying triangle as a ball rolled to its hidden destination held by all the eyes in the room until its rumbling pilgrimage ended out of sight in a soft thud.”
“Everything was airy and transparent.”

Quotable
“people being together is awful ; like the creaking of furniture.”
“Nan Babington said no one need mind being twenty-one if they were engaged, but if not it was a frantic age to be.”
" A handsome man's much handsomer than a pretty woman,"
"I think a handsome man's generally so weak."
"I can read all your thoughts. None of you can disturb my enjoyment of this excellent dinner ; none of you can enhance it"
“We’re not descended from monkeys at all. It's not natural,"
" The great thing Darwin did," said Miriam abruptly, " was to point out the power of environment in evolving the different species—selecting."
" The great man's always at work, always at work,"
“ I don't read books for the story, but as a psychological study of the author . . .”
“I prefer books to people " ..." I know now why I prefer books to people."
“the chanciness of everything.”
"ideals," the sense of modern reforms,”
"you can only really see the country when you are not moving yourself."
“Men ought not to be told. They must find it out for themselves. To dress up and try to make it something to attract somebody.”
“Men's ideas were devilish; clever and mean. . . . Was God a woman? Was God really irritating?”
The deepest thing I read in the book..... “He knew, in some strange way men knew there were gardens everywhere, not always visible. Women did not seem to know. . . .”
..." Superior women don't marry,"
"It's so awfully silly not to have a plan.”
“Genius . . . genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. Capacity.”
“ a woman never knows her own mind.”
“Families ought to laugh together whenever there was any excuse.”
"Lawyers can get people to admit anything,"
"Lawyers are the most ignorant, awful people."
..." the tragedy of beauty ; woman's greatest curse."

Simile
“Mrs. Craven gazed up . . . like a distressed fish”
“ Mrs. Corrie was alone, like an aspen shaking its leaves in windless air.”

Contrast
“A candle-lit room in the midst of bright day . . . wonderful, like a shrine.”
Fishing and poetry - "It's only the fisherman who knows anything, anything whatever about the silver stream. Necessarily. Necessarily. It is the—the concentration, the—the absorption of the passion that enables him to see. Er, the fisherman, the poet tantamount; exchangeable terms. Fishing is, indeed one might say"

No doubt a worthy read!


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