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Pilgrimage #5
Pilgrimage: Interim
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
- GenresClassics
284 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1919
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About the author
Dorothy M. Richardson
72 books65 followersDorothy Miller Richardson
Richardson was born in Abingdon in 1873. Her family moved to Worthing, West Sussex in 1880 and then Putney, London in 1883. At seventeen, because of her father's financial difficulties she went to work as a governess and teacher, first in 1891 for six months at a finishing school in Germany. In 1895 Richardson gave up work as a governess to take care of her severely depressed mother, but her mother committed suicide the same year. Richardson's father had become bankrupt at the end of 1893.
Richardson subsequently moved in 1896 to Bloomsbury, London, where she worked as a receptionist/secretary/assistant in a Harley Street dental surgery. While in Bloomsbury in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Richardson associated with writers and radicals, including the Bloomsbury Group. H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was a friend and they had a brief affair which led to a pregnancy and then miscarriage, in 1907. While she had first published an article in 1902, Richardson's writing career, as a freelance journalist really began around 1906, with periodical articles on various topics, book reviews, short stories, and poems, as well as translation from German and French. During this period she became interested in the Quakers and published two books relating to them in 1914.
In 1915 Richardson published her first novel Pointed Roofs, the first complete stream of consciousness novel published in English. She married the artist Alan Odle (1888-1948) in 1917 – a distinctly bohemian figure, who was fifteen years younger than she. From 1917 until 1939 the couple spent their winters in Cornwall and their summers in London, and then stayed permanently in Cornwall until Odle’s death in 1948. She supported herself and her husband with freelance writing for periodicals for many years. In 1954, she had to move into a nursing home in the London suburb of Beckenham, Kent, where she died, forgotten, alone and ignored, in 1957.
Richardson was one of a select group of writers who changed the rules of prose fiction at the beginning of the twentieth century. With James Joyce in Ireland, Marcel Proust in France, William Faulkner in the United States and, in England, Virginia Woolf, Richardson invented a new form of writing. She can claim, with Proust and Joyce, to have been at the forefront of a revolution in literature. The first ‘chapter’ of her long work, Pilgrimage, was begun in 1912 - a year before the publication of the first volume of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, two years before the first appearance of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and seven years before Woolf’s first experimental novel Jacob’s Room.
Richardson also published short stories in a variety of periodicals (a collection was published by Virago in 1989) and a handful of poems. She was the author of numerous articles in periodicals such as Adelphi and Vanity Fair. She began her literary career reviewing for the vegetarian journal, Crank. Between 1912 and 1921, she wrote a regular column, ‘Comments by a Layman’, for the Dental Record. She translated eight books into English from French and German. Between 1927 and 1933 she published 23 articles on film in the avant-garde little magazine, Close Up.
Richardson’s aesthetic was influenced by diverse currents of thought. She was part of the alternative, bohemian culture at the turn of the century that embraced vegetarianism, feminism and socialism. Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman made an early impact on her work and one of her first reviews was of a book by the advocate for homosexual rights, utopian socialist, and Whitmanite poet, Edward Carpenter.
If you are interested, please join the Goodreads group on her that can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
Richardson was born in Abingdon in 1873. Her family moved to Worthing, West Sussex in 1880 and then Putney, London in 1883. At seventeen, because of her father's financial difficulties she went to work as a governess and teacher, first in 1891 for six months at a finishing school in Germany. In 1895 Richardson gave up work as a governess to take care of her severely depressed mother, but her mother committed suicide the same year. Richardson's father had become bankrupt at the end of 1893.
Richardson subsequently moved in 1896 to Bloomsbury, London, where she worked as a receptionist/secretary/assistant in a Harley Street dental surgery. While in Bloomsbury in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Richardson associated with writers and radicals, including the Bloomsbury Group. H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was a friend and they had a brief affair which led to a pregnancy and then miscarriage, in 1907. While she had first published an article in 1902, Richardson's writing career, as a freelance journalist really began around 1906, with periodical articles on various topics, book reviews, short stories, and poems, as well as translation from German and French. During this period she became interested in the Quakers and published two books relating to them in 1914.
In 1915 Richardson published her first novel Pointed Roofs, the first complete stream of consciousness novel published in English. She married the artist Alan Odle (1888-1948) in 1917 – a distinctly bohemian figure, who was fifteen years younger than she. From 1917 until 1939 the couple spent their winters in Cornwall and their summers in London, and then stayed permanently in Cornwall until Odle’s death in 1948. She supported herself and her husband with freelance writing for periodicals for many years. In 1954, she had to move into a nursing home in the London suburb of Beckenham, Kent, where she died, forgotten, alone and ignored, in 1957.
Richardson was one of a select group of writers who changed the rules of prose fiction at the beginning of the twentieth century. With James Joyce in Ireland, Marcel Proust in France, William Faulkner in the United States and, in England, Virginia Woolf, Richardson invented a new form of writing. She can claim, with Proust and Joyce, to have been at the forefront of a revolution in literature. The first ‘chapter’ of her long work, Pilgrimage, was begun in 1912 - a year before the publication of the first volume of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, two years before the first appearance of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and seven years before Woolf’s first experimental novel Jacob’s Room.
Richardson also published short stories in a variety of periodicals (a collection was published by Virago in 1989) and a handful of poems. She was the author of numerous articles in periodicals such as Adelphi and Vanity Fair. She began her literary career reviewing for the vegetarian journal, Crank. Between 1912 and 1921, she wrote a regular column, ‘Comments by a Layman’, for the Dental Record. She translated eight books into English from French and German. Between 1927 and 1933 she published 23 articles on film in the avant-garde little magazine, Close Up.
Richardson’s aesthetic was influenced by diverse currents of thought. She was part of the alternative, bohemian culture at the turn of the century that embraced vegetarianism, feminism and socialism. Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman made an early impact on her work and one of her first reviews was of a book by the advocate for homosexual rights, utopian socialist, and Whitmanite poet, Edward Carpenter.
If you are interested, please join the Goodreads group on her that can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 13, 2015
4.5 stars rounded up.
Interim is the fifth novel in Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage series. Much of this instalment revolves around Miriam’s place of residence. Her landlady, Mrs Bailey has changed from running a lodgings to a boarding house. The difference being the provision of food for her boarders. This means social interaction and Miriam has to mix with her fellow inmates. They are a mixed bunch; several Canadian doctors in London to study for the summer, Mr Mendizabal (a Spaniard) and Miss Dear pops up again briefly. There is plenty of social interaction, but nothing really happens, which of course is one of the joys of Richardson. The author has time to explore relationships, interactions and Miriam’s interior life. Because movement is slow and the changes imperceptible, it is easy to miss how much Miriam has changed since the beginning of the series. Miriam is living an independent life and her challenging of the norms of society is a silent and gradual process.
The challenge of keeping going such a detailed and comprehensive analysis and study of one character over such a series of work is quite an achievement, which makes it all the more surprising that Richardson isn’t rated alongside Joyce, Proust and the like.
An interesting aside that is worth considering is the background setting of the novels. London was not just any city; it was the Imperial capital, the hub of Empire. It is easy to forget the impact of the empire on everyday life. Chyrssa Marinou’s article in the Richardson Journal looks at the traces of Imperial influence in her work using Edward Said’s notion of “unembarrassed cultural attention” to the empire. Metropolitan life contained all sorts of people who had travelled, been employed abroad or at home as a result of Empire. It pervaded much of metropolitan life at an almost subconscious level. Richardson uses Kipling three times in The Tunnel (Gunga Din, On the Road to Mandalay and the Ballad of East and West). We forget how much Kipling was part of the cultural landscape; Barrack Room Ballads was published in 1892 and reprinted over fifty times in the next thirty years. It isn’t immediately clear how Richardson/Miriam reacts to empire; the middle classes imbibed it from early childhood. In Interim Miriam has experience of meeting the Canadian doctors who stay at her boarding house. The descriptions of rooms and furniture also add extra weight to the imperceptible influence of empire (the picture of Queen Victoria with her Hindu servants).
Richardson has managed to maintain her very high standards, continuing to make the point that women’s experience and work has validity
Interim is the fifth novel in Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage series. Much of this instalment revolves around Miriam’s place of residence. Her landlady, Mrs Bailey has changed from running a lodgings to a boarding house. The difference being the provision of food for her boarders. This means social interaction and Miriam has to mix with her fellow inmates. They are a mixed bunch; several Canadian doctors in London to study for the summer, Mr Mendizabal (a Spaniard) and Miss Dear pops up again briefly. There is plenty of social interaction, but nothing really happens, which of course is one of the joys of Richardson. The author has time to explore relationships, interactions and Miriam’s interior life. Because movement is slow and the changes imperceptible, it is easy to miss how much Miriam has changed since the beginning of the series. Miriam is living an independent life and her challenging of the norms of society is a silent and gradual process.
The challenge of keeping going such a detailed and comprehensive analysis and study of one character over such a series of work is quite an achievement, which makes it all the more surprising that Richardson isn’t rated alongside Joyce, Proust and the like.
An interesting aside that is worth considering is the background setting of the novels. London was not just any city; it was the Imperial capital, the hub of Empire. It is easy to forget the impact of the empire on everyday life. Chyrssa Marinou’s article in the Richardson Journal looks at the traces of Imperial influence in her work using Edward Said’s notion of “unembarrassed cultural attention” to the empire. Metropolitan life contained all sorts of people who had travelled, been employed abroad or at home as a result of Empire. It pervaded much of metropolitan life at an almost subconscious level. Richardson uses Kipling three times in The Tunnel (Gunga Din, On the Road to Mandalay and the Ballad of East and West). We forget how much Kipling was part of the cultural landscape; Barrack Room Ballads was published in 1892 and reprinted over fifty times in the next thirty years. It isn’t immediately clear how Richardson/Miriam reacts to empire; the middle classes imbibed it from early childhood. In Interim Miriam has experience of meeting the Canadian doctors who stay at her boarding house. The descriptions of rooms and furniture also add extra weight to the imperceptible influence of empire (the picture of Queen Victoria with her Hindu servants).
Richardson has managed to maintain her very high standards, continuing to make the point that women’s experience and work has validity
April 27, 2016
When I started to read this, the fifth of the thirteen volume series of novels that Dorothy Richardson titled ‘Pilgrimage’, I found myself swept straight back into the consciousness of Miriam Henderson.
It seems that early in every book there will be a new home.
This new home was a happy home, the women there were comfortable in each others company. They talked about anything and everything, and as they celebrated Christmas together they happily recalled Christmases past.
“Did you have a Noah’s ark she asked smiling at the fire. Yes ; Florrie had one. Uncle George gave it to her. They began describing. Didn’t you love it ? broke in Miriam presently. Do you remember? She recalled the Noak’s ark as it had looked on the nursery floor, the offended stiffness of the rescued family, the look of the elephants and giraffes and the green and yellow grasshoppers and the red lady bird, all standing about alive amongst the little stiff bright green trees. We had a farm-yard too, pigs ; and ducks and geese and hens with feathers. We used to stand them all out together on the floor, and the grocer’s shop and all our dolls sitting round against the nursery wall. It used to make me perfectly happy. It would still. Everyone laughed. It would. It does only to think of it ….”
It took me a while to realise that Miriam was not in a new home of her own, that she was staying with friends for a while. There were small details that told me that, and when Miriam went out by herself to walk through the streets of London it became clear. It was clear that she was still walking alone through life.
“She wandered along the little roads turning and turning until she came to a broad open thoroughfare lined with high grey houses standing back behind colourless railed-in gardens. Trams jingled up and down the centre of the road bearing the names of unfamiliar parts of London. People were standing about on the terminal islands and getting in and out of the trams. She had come too far. Here was the wilderness, the undissembling soul of north London, its harsh unvarying all-embracing oblivion Innumerable impressions gathered on walks with the school- girls or in lonely wanderings ; the unveiled motives and feelings of people she had passed in the streets, the expression of noses and shoulders, the indefinable uniformity, of bearing and purpose and vision, crowded in on her, oppressing and darkening the crisp light air. She fought against them, rallying to the sense of the day. It was Christmas Day for them all. They were keeping Christmas in their homes, carrying it out into the streets, going about with parcels, greeting each other in their harsh ironic voices. Long ago she had passed out of their world for ever, carrying it forward, a wound in her consciousness unhealed.”
The writing was lovely and it caught such a range of emotions. Though she didn’t address the point herself, I realised that the lives that Miriam saw were the kind of lives that she and her sisters had been raised to live, that they would have lived had their father’s business not have failed, had their mother’s heath not broken down.
Home is very much the focus of this book.
Miriam’s home is still in the same place, but it has changed. Her landlady has carried out her plan of changing from a lodging house to a boarding house, providing meals in a shared dining room and opening up other rooms of her house so that those who live there are much more in each others company. Miriam is both curious to see and know more of the people around her and anxious about dealing with this new situation.
She is used to being single and independent, but that makes her intriguing to the new boarders: the French Mr Bowdoin, the Spanish Mr Mendizabal, and three Canadian doctors who have come to London for the summer to study. She returns their interest, fascinated by their different and diverse backgrounds.
Miriam is unprepared for this. She has learned to do her job at the dental surgery, and now that she has had time to settle in it has become a routine; she continues to read avidly and she has learned much by regularly attending lectures; but she lacks experience of simply socialising in mixed company; it doesn’t help that she has no family around her, that she has no mother to guide her.
Though she had come such a long way there were still traces of the Miriam who didn’t quite know what to do in social situations, who couldn’t see what lay behind the things that people said and did; the Miriam I recalled from the earliest books in this series.
Her response to the sight of Mr Bowdoin’s room, when he held a musical soiree there, was amusing:
“This was Bohemia! She glanced about. It was the explanation of the room. But it was impossible to imagine Trilby’s milk-call sounding at the door It was Bohemia; the table and chairs were Bohemian. Perhaps a big room like this would be even cheaper than a garret in St. Pancras. The neighbourhood did not matter. A bohemian room could hold its own anywhere. No furniture but chairs and a table, saying when you brought people in, “I am a Bohemian,” and having no one but Bohemians for friends.”
She spends a good deal of time with Mr Mendizabal simply because he was expansive and she found him interesting. She was unsettled though when she wanted to go for a walk alone, when he insisted that he would accompany her and she didn’t know how to pull away. She didn’t understand how that would appear to others, and she was upset when the Canadian doctors left without saying goodbye.
She had been interested in Dr von Heber, and he had seem interested in her.
“Once more she was part of a novel; it was right, true like a book, for Dr. Heber to come in in defiance of everyone, bringing his studies into the public room in order to sit down quietly opposite this fair young English girl. He saw her apparently gravely studious and felt he could * pursue his own studies ‘ all the better for her presence. She began writing at random, assuming as far as possible the characteristics he was reading ‘into her appearance. If only it were true ; but there was not in the whole world the thing he thought he saw. Perhaps if he remained steadily like that in her life she could grow into some semblance of his steady reverent observation. He did not miss any movement or change of expression. Perhaps you need to be treated as an object of romantic veneration before you can become one. Perhaps in Canada there were old-fashioned women who were objects of romantic veneration all their lives, living all the time as if they were Maud or some other woman from Tennyson. It was glorious to have a real, simple homage coming from a man who was no simpleton, coming simple, strong and kindly from Canada to put you in a shrine….”
Her landlady, who probably only realised how naïve Miriam was when she saw her distress, took it upon herself to tactfully explain one or two things. That sent Miriam spiralling into a lovely but rather dense stream of consciousness that touched upon to many things: the passing of time, the changing of the seasons, the lesson of life, the inevitability of ageing ….
I wish that the book had ended there, but it went on a little longer, with Miriam being caught up in the troubles of a friend of a friend for a second time. That pulled the book out of shape, undermining what little structure there was.
I knew that Dorothy Richardson’s writing was impressionistic, I knew that there were gaps in the narrative, I knew that I had to accept that and live in the moment, appreciating how brilliantly Dorothy Richardson created Miriam’s consciousness on the printed page.
I did and I do, but I found that more difficult in this book. There were times, I thought, when she could have made things a little clearer for her reader without any diminution of what she wanted to achieve with her writing.
I am still finding much to love, but there have been times when I wondered of the author was making things difficult for her readers on purpose.
I still want to carry on though this series of books until I reach the end, but I am more apprehensive about the road ahead than I was.
It seems that early in every book there will be a new home.
This new home was a happy home, the women there were comfortable in each others company. They talked about anything and everything, and as they celebrated Christmas together they happily recalled Christmases past.
“Did you have a Noah’s ark she asked smiling at the fire. Yes ; Florrie had one. Uncle George gave it to her. They began describing. Didn’t you love it ? broke in Miriam presently. Do you remember? She recalled the Noak’s ark as it had looked on the nursery floor, the offended stiffness of the rescued family, the look of the elephants and giraffes and the green and yellow grasshoppers and the red lady bird, all standing about alive amongst the little stiff bright green trees. We had a farm-yard too, pigs ; and ducks and geese and hens with feathers. We used to stand them all out together on the floor, and the grocer’s shop and all our dolls sitting round against the nursery wall. It used to make me perfectly happy. It would still. Everyone laughed. It would. It does only to think of it ….”
It took me a while to realise that Miriam was not in a new home of her own, that she was staying with friends for a while. There were small details that told me that, and when Miriam went out by herself to walk through the streets of London it became clear. It was clear that she was still walking alone through life.
“She wandered along the little roads turning and turning until she came to a broad open thoroughfare lined with high grey houses standing back behind colourless railed-in gardens. Trams jingled up and down the centre of the road bearing the names of unfamiliar parts of London. People were standing about on the terminal islands and getting in and out of the trams. She had come too far. Here was the wilderness, the undissembling soul of north London, its harsh unvarying all-embracing oblivion Innumerable impressions gathered on walks with the school- girls or in lonely wanderings ; the unveiled motives and feelings of people she had passed in the streets, the expression of noses and shoulders, the indefinable uniformity, of bearing and purpose and vision, crowded in on her, oppressing and darkening the crisp light air. She fought against them, rallying to the sense of the day. It was Christmas Day for them all. They were keeping Christmas in their homes, carrying it out into the streets, going about with parcels, greeting each other in their harsh ironic voices. Long ago she had passed out of their world for ever, carrying it forward, a wound in her consciousness unhealed.”
The writing was lovely and it caught such a range of emotions. Though she didn’t address the point herself, I realised that the lives that Miriam saw were the kind of lives that she and her sisters had been raised to live, that they would have lived had their father’s business not have failed, had their mother’s heath not broken down.
Home is very much the focus of this book.
Miriam’s home is still in the same place, but it has changed. Her landlady has carried out her plan of changing from a lodging house to a boarding house, providing meals in a shared dining room and opening up other rooms of her house so that those who live there are much more in each others company. Miriam is both curious to see and know more of the people around her and anxious about dealing with this new situation.
She is used to being single and independent, but that makes her intriguing to the new boarders: the French Mr Bowdoin, the Spanish Mr Mendizabal, and three Canadian doctors who have come to London for the summer to study. She returns their interest, fascinated by their different and diverse backgrounds.
Miriam is unprepared for this. She has learned to do her job at the dental surgery, and now that she has had time to settle in it has become a routine; she continues to read avidly and she has learned much by regularly attending lectures; but she lacks experience of simply socialising in mixed company; it doesn’t help that she has no family around her, that she has no mother to guide her.
Though she had come such a long way there were still traces of the Miriam who didn’t quite know what to do in social situations, who couldn’t see what lay behind the things that people said and did; the Miriam I recalled from the earliest books in this series.
Her response to the sight of Mr Bowdoin’s room, when he held a musical soiree there, was amusing:
“This was Bohemia! She glanced about. It was the explanation of the room. But it was impossible to imagine Trilby’s milk-call sounding at the door It was Bohemia; the table and chairs were Bohemian. Perhaps a big room like this would be even cheaper than a garret in St. Pancras. The neighbourhood did not matter. A bohemian room could hold its own anywhere. No furniture but chairs and a table, saying when you brought people in, “I am a Bohemian,” and having no one but Bohemians for friends.”
She spends a good deal of time with Mr Mendizabal simply because he was expansive and she found him interesting. She was unsettled though when she wanted to go for a walk alone, when he insisted that he would accompany her and she didn’t know how to pull away. She didn’t understand how that would appear to others, and she was upset when the Canadian doctors left without saying goodbye.
She had been interested in Dr von Heber, and he had seem interested in her.
“Once more she was part of a novel; it was right, true like a book, for Dr. Heber to come in in defiance of everyone, bringing his studies into the public room in order to sit down quietly opposite this fair young English girl. He saw her apparently gravely studious and felt he could * pursue his own studies ‘ all the better for her presence. She began writing at random, assuming as far as possible the characteristics he was reading ‘into her appearance. If only it were true ; but there was not in the whole world the thing he thought he saw. Perhaps if he remained steadily like that in her life she could grow into some semblance of his steady reverent observation. He did not miss any movement or change of expression. Perhaps you need to be treated as an object of romantic veneration before you can become one. Perhaps in Canada there were old-fashioned women who were objects of romantic veneration all their lives, living all the time as if they were Maud or some other woman from Tennyson. It was glorious to have a real, simple homage coming from a man who was no simpleton, coming simple, strong and kindly from Canada to put you in a shrine….”
Her landlady, who probably only realised how naïve Miriam was when she saw her distress, took it upon herself to tactfully explain one or two things. That sent Miriam spiralling into a lovely but rather dense stream of consciousness that touched upon to many things: the passing of time, the changing of the seasons, the lesson of life, the inevitability of ageing ….
I wish that the book had ended there, but it went on a little longer, with Miriam being caught up in the troubles of a friend of a friend for a second time. That pulled the book out of shape, undermining what little structure there was.
I knew that Dorothy Richardson’s writing was impressionistic, I knew that there were gaps in the narrative, I knew that I had to accept that and live in the moment, appreciating how brilliantly Dorothy Richardson created Miriam’s consciousness on the printed page.
I did and I do, but I found that more difficult in this book. There were times, I thought, when she could have made things a little clearer for her reader without any diminution of what she wanted to achieve with her writing.
I am still finding much to love, but there have been times when I wondered of the author was making things difficult for her readers on purpose.
I still want to carry on though this series of books until I reach the end, but I am more apprehensive about the road ahead than I was.
November 23, 2016
Interim is the fifth volume of Pilgrimage, and was surprisingly seasonally fitting, taking place as it does around Christmastime. The novel is engaging from the first, and as a construct, Miriam becomes even more spectacular; she is realised in such detail that she could step to life from the page and absorb herself into modern life without lacking anything. There is a real dreamlike quality to her here, which I absolutely adored.
Richardson's writing, as ever, is beautiful throughout; more so, I feel, than in The Tunnel. Scenes are evoked down to the smallest detail; like Miriam, they are almost achingly realistic. It feels, in Interim, as though there is a change of direction; Miriam is still our protagonist, but the comparably large cast of secondary characters are focused upon far more than are the secondary characters in the previous novels of the sequence. There is less emphasis placed upon Miriam at points, and whilst she does spring to life as she always does, it does not feel as though much development of her character and mindset has been provided overall. Still, Interim is undoubtedly enjoyable and well rounded. My only qualm is that the penultimate chapter felt a little anticlimactic, and the ending was a little underwhelming.
Richardson's writing, as ever, is beautiful throughout; more so, I feel, than in The Tunnel. Scenes are evoked down to the smallest detail; like Miriam, they are almost achingly realistic. It feels, in Interim, as though there is a change of direction; Miriam is still our protagonist, but the comparably large cast of secondary characters are focused upon far more than are the secondary characters in the previous novels of the sequence. There is less emphasis placed upon Miriam at points, and whilst she does spring to life as she always does, it does not feel as though much development of her character and mindset has been provided overall. Still, Interim is undoubtedly enjoyable and well rounded. My only qualm is that the penultimate chapter felt a little anticlimactic, and the ending was a little underwhelming.
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June 21, 2020I am still in that sense of believing Richardson has achieved what she set out to do, but wondering all the while whether or not it was worth doing.
October 2, 2024
3.5 stars. The fifth novel in the 13 book ‘Pilgrimage’ series is mainly about Miriam staying at Mrs Bailey’s boarding house which used to be a place of lodging. The provision of food leads to more social interaction with fellow residents. This leads to an increase in gossip and jealousy between the residents. There are several Canadian doctors in London to study for the summer. There is a Spaniard called Mendigdal who is talked about. Residents gossip that Mendigdal is behaving inappropriately in relation to Miriam Henderson. Miss Dear’s situation is commented on.
Miriam continues to preserve her identity as a separate and independent person.
This novel is of a similar standard to the previous four novels in the ‘Pilgrimage’ series.
This book was first published in 1919.
Miriam continues to preserve her identity as a separate and independent person.
This novel is of a similar standard to the previous four novels in the ‘Pilgrimage’ series.
This book was first published in 1919.
February 15, 2017
I enjoyed Interim, though perhaps not as much as the other volumes so far. This felt much more like reading someone's diary, rather than a stream of consciousness novel. Still, I quite like reading old diaries and letters - there is so much left unsaid - uncertainties leave you guessing the whos, whats, wheres and hows. And it's fascinating reading about a young woman about London in the late Victorian period, and her small triumphs of independence - the scandals of going out with men friends (even though chaste) to Italian cafe bars;odd bohemian musicians; the steeling yourself going to cafes on your own in the evening to have a bread roll and hot chocolate...
but she goes in, despite being tense, nervous, afraid...
I found it surprisingly moving, in part I suppose because its largely autobiographical. And it reminded me some of my shy forays into foreign bars and cafes... And then there's riding bicycles!: this comes up a lot in these Victorian novels I'm reading; I hadn't appreciated just how revolutionary they were - why (gasp!) women could get about on their own! And there are many Europeans, and Canadians too, that she meets. She finds them all easier to be with, less condescending than the English... Its a really interesting insight into living in London in the fin de siècle.
It would be worse at night. Perhaps they would even refuse to serve her. Perhaps it was impossible to go into a restaurant late at night alone. She was coming back. There was nothing to be seen behind the steamy panes on either side of the door but plants standing on oil cloth mats. [...] Why were they so secret ?
but she goes in, despite being tense, nervous, afraid...
Her bill was sixpence and he took the coin with a bow and waited while she extricated herself from the clinging velvet, and held the door wide for her to pass out. Good evening thank you very much she murmured hoping that he heard, in response to his polite farewell. She wandered slowly home through the drizzling rain warmed and fed and with a glow at her heart. Inside those frightful frosted doors was a home, a bit of her own London home.
I found it surprisingly moving, in part I suppose because its largely autobiographical. And it reminded me some of my shy forays into foreign bars and cafes... And then there's riding bicycles!: this comes up a lot in these Victorian novels I'm reading; I hadn't appreciated just how revolutionary they were - why (gasp!) women could get about on their own! And there are many Europeans, and Canadians too, that she meets. She finds them all easier to be with, less condescending than the English... Its a really interesting insight into living in London in the fin de siècle.
June 25, 2010
This is a relatively short entry in the string of novels (or, as they later became, chapters) in Richardson's Pilgrimage. In it, the chief source of interest is the fact that Miriam's landlady, Mrs. Bailey, changes from providing lodgings to running a boarding house. This means that the residents eat and socialize together, so it is an opportunity for characterization. Some characters drift in and out, but the principals are a Spaniard named Mr. Mendizabal, with whom Miriam spends evenings socializing, and a small group of Canadian doctors studying for the summer. There is much rumination on the Canadianness of these men, particularly of one Dr. Von Heber, to whom Miriam is attracted, although in what respect they have this Canadian quality seems to vary from moment to moment. There is, however, no overt disdain for the colonials. In a chapter near the end, Miriam discovers from her landlady that there has been gossip about her relationship with Mr. Mendizabal (who has made things worse with a little Mediterranean boastfulness), and that the gossip has scared Dr. Von Heber off. In another development, Miss Eleanor Dear, she who took advantage of Miriam's good nature at the close of "The Tunnel", appears and persuades Miriam to stand surety for her when she moves on. However, Miss Dear is firmly evicted when it's discovered that's she's been attempting to perpetrate some sort of fraud on the parents of one of the Canadians, Dr. Hurd. I am getting used (again) to Richardson's habit of advancing her plot by avoiding any depiction of the actual events, but having them surface gradually through Miriam's memories, usually at the beginning of a chapter. So each chapter becomes a bit of a jigsaw puzzle.
October 22, 2017
The fifth of the 13 volume series revolves around Miriam’s place of residence. If you ever wanted rooms aptly described and or spaces….that is precisely what stream of consciousness has achieved in this book. Not only that, the projection of the author through Miriam is just award winning.
I like to read authors who reflect on what they have been reading and ruminating upon, this is something that Dorothy M. Richardson (DMR) does so well. Up to this point I have not gone through any instalment she did not hasten the depth of other writers that she had been reading or maybe infer a learnt lesson. Interesting enough, most of the authors she seems to mention are not necessarily mainstream…. E.g. Ouida and why I raise this here is because I personally feel that in Interim Dickens (A man) gets a positive review in a conversation between Dr. von Heber, Dr Winchester and Mr. Leyton's goes like this….
“Some people think Dickens is sentimental. “Those who think so are hyper-critical. Besides being sentimental don't prevent him being one of your very greatest men. You should appreciate him highly. If ever there was any man revealed abuses. . . . You ought to read our Holmes' Elsie Venner — we call it his medicated novel over at home”
Actually two (authors) men Oliver Wendell Holmes and Dickens get a positive rave…..that is quite something for those familiar with DMR literature.
Given this setting was around Christmas (1896)…..and how Miriam loved classical music… I looked forward to a Christmas concert with all her favorites performing….. Chopin and Beethoven get major mentions in this instalment. Of course I would not forget Wagner who is introduced by someone playing his music in bad notes. Who plays Wagner the wrong way?
Make no mistake that Miriam is used to being single and independent. In as much as Miriam’s landlady changed the plan of where she lived from a lodging to a boarding room (providing meals in a shared dining room and so that everyone living there is in each other’s company) she is keen to talk about anything and everything and make friends….but her true solace is in solitude….and silence. Silence is not the absence of noise.
It is easy to see how Miriam struggles with a social situation in that her opinion to most approaches in most conversation was outlandish. She did not necessarily agree with everything that people around her said and had an ear for music.
Was there an attraction for Dr. Von Heber? Bringing his study to a public room seated quietly opposite a fair young English girl is the sort of thing that breeds attraction. Miriam discovers from her land lady gossip) about her relationship with Mendizabal and that the gossip scared off Dr. von Heber she was the object of considerable curiosity by all the male boarders in short…Antoine Bowdoin, Bernaard Mendizabal, and the trio of Canadian doctors.
The themes captured are varied… the lesson of life, age, music, culture, her themes are not tackled directly, only mentioning as if glossing over them at the beginning of chapters and layering throughout the read by allusion.
I have not figured out why there seems to gaps in her narrative. Art. Form. It seems intentional and this leaves you scrapping for information…. I mean as a reader it is hard to know the introduction, body and conclusion of this work….runs like a diary.
Attending those Dante lectures was a way to show us Miriam trying to fit in the social jigsaw puzzle…to try see how people reasoned around Dante. To try to touch Dante is to plunge down to misinterpretation and misunderstandings….. this means there had to be very deep conversations about Dante at those lectures. She seems impressed by the other women who attended that lecture and how attentive they were; commenting negatively on their ugly clothes. Such conversations had to go on about Dante..
“Purgatory. The waters of Lethe and Eunoe 'forgetfulness and sweet memory’; and then Heaven. The Catholics are right about expiation. If you are happy in the present something is being expiated. If life contains moments of paradise you must be in purgatory looking across the vale of Asphodel. You can't be in hell. . . . . . Yet hell would not be hell without a knowledge of heaven. If once you've been in heaven you can never escape. Yet Dante believed in everlasting punishment.”
I will not touch Dante at this point…. I have done all the Cantos and know for a fact that he was blind. He also taught poetry and how you perceive him is heavily dependent which translation you read. I wish he could be read in the original archaic Italian dialect…
A good read.
I like to read authors who reflect on what they have been reading and ruminating upon, this is something that Dorothy M. Richardson (DMR) does so well. Up to this point I have not gone through any instalment she did not hasten the depth of other writers that she had been reading or maybe infer a learnt lesson. Interesting enough, most of the authors she seems to mention are not necessarily mainstream…. E.g. Ouida and why I raise this here is because I personally feel that in Interim Dickens (A man) gets a positive review in a conversation between Dr. von Heber, Dr Winchester and Mr. Leyton's goes like this….
“Some people think Dickens is sentimental. “Those who think so are hyper-critical. Besides being sentimental don't prevent him being one of your very greatest men. You should appreciate him highly. If ever there was any man revealed abuses. . . . You ought to read our Holmes' Elsie Venner — we call it his medicated novel over at home”
Actually two (authors) men Oliver Wendell Holmes and Dickens get a positive rave…..that is quite something for those familiar with DMR literature.
Given this setting was around Christmas (1896)…..and how Miriam loved classical music… I looked forward to a Christmas concert with all her favorites performing….. Chopin and Beethoven get major mentions in this instalment. Of course I would not forget Wagner who is introduced by someone playing his music in bad notes. Who plays Wagner the wrong way?
Make no mistake that Miriam is used to being single and independent. In as much as Miriam’s landlady changed the plan of where she lived from a lodging to a boarding room (providing meals in a shared dining room and so that everyone living there is in each other’s company) she is keen to talk about anything and everything and make friends….but her true solace is in solitude….and silence. Silence is not the absence of noise.
It is easy to see how Miriam struggles with a social situation in that her opinion to most approaches in most conversation was outlandish. She did not necessarily agree with everything that people around her said and had an ear for music.
Was there an attraction for Dr. Von Heber? Bringing his study to a public room seated quietly opposite a fair young English girl is the sort of thing that breeds attraction. Miriam discovers from her land lady gossip) about her relationship with Mendizabal and that the gossip scared off Dr. von Heber she was the object of considerable curiosity by all the male boarders in short…Antoine Bowdoin, Bernaard Mendizabal, and the trio of Canadian doctors.
The themes captured are varied… the lesson of life, age, music, culture, her themes are not tackled directly, only mentioning as if glossing over them at the beginning of chapters and layering throughout the read by allusion.
I have not figured out why there seems to gaps in her narrative. Art. Form. It seems intentional and this leaves you scrapping for information…. I mean as a reader it is hard to know the introduction, body and conclusion of this work….runs like a diary.
Attending those Dante lectures was a way to show us Miriam trying to fit in the social jigsaw puzzle…to try see how people reasoned around Dante. To try to touch Dante is to plunge down to misinterpretation and misunderstandings….. this means there had to be very deep conversations about Dante at those lectures. She seems impressed by the other women who attended that lecture and how attentive they were; commenting negatively on their ugly clothes. Such conversations had to go on about Dante..
“Purgatory. The waters of Lethe and Eunoe 'forgetfulness and sweet memory’; and then Heaven. The Catholics are right about expiation. If you are happy in the present something is being expiated. If life contains moments of paradise you must be in purgatory looking across the vale of Asphodel. You can't be in hell. . . . . . Yet hell would not be hell without a knowledge of heaven. If once you've been in heaven you can never escape. Yet Dante believed in everlasting punishment.”
I will not touch Dante at this point…. I have done all the Cantos and know for a fact that he was blind. He also taught poetry and how you perceive him is heavily dependent which translation you read. I wish he could be read in the original archaic Italian dialect…
A good read.
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