Ms. Hen reviews A Haunted House and Other Stories

 

A Haunted House 

Virginia Woolf

1944

Harcourt, Inc.

Ms. Hen decided to read this collection, because she wanted to read a book by Virginia Woolf that she hadn't read. She wanted to read it while she was visiting Monk's House, Virginia Woolf's house in Lewes, England, but she did not end up doing that. She read it when she got back.

This collection of stories contains stories that have been published, and that have not. Leonard Woolf wrote in the introduction that some of these had not been edited by Virginia, and since the book was published posthumously, she did not have a say. He knew she wanted to publish a collection, even though she died before she did.

A lot of these stories are depressing, and of the time. Many of them have women who are unsatisfied with their lot in life. Ms. Hen thinks that Virginia might have felt like these characters.

The story "A New Dress," reminds Ms. Hen of a story called "Miss Brill," by Katherine Mansfield. The characters in Virginia's story is pleased with her new dress, but when she goes to a party, she realizes how ridiculous she looks. In "Miss Brill," the characters thinks she looks beautiful, but some young people laugh at her strange hat. Stories like this about women and fashion, and what they think of themselves were stylish at the time, since fashion was changing so much. If a woman thinks she looks good, she probably doesn't.

A few of the stories in this collection are about Clarissa Dalloway, the character in MRS. DALLOWAY, the novel by Virginia Woolf. Ms. Hen tried to do research about why she wrote these, but Ms. Hen thinks she was not finished with Clarissa Dalloway, and had more to say about people who surround her.

Ms. Hen found a few chickens in this book. In the story "An Unwritten Novel," the character describes herself as "while she spoke she fidgeted as though the skin on her back were as a plucked fowl's in a poulterer's shop window." Ms. Hen thinks this is a fascinating way to describe fidgeting. She has never seen a fowl move like that, though she believes it is possible.

Ms. Hen does not know if this is the best book that Virginia Woolf has ever written. She thinks the author would have preferred to have the last say, but she couldn't, because she was gone. When Ms. Hen went to Monk's House, she thought it was magical. She felt the spirit of Virginia and her work in the house. The day she went it rained, and she would have like to spend more time in the garden, but we can't always have what we want.

Virginia's writing shed - her room of her own