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A review by thevampiremars
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.5
Strange book. It starts off as a bildungsroman but it’s also a bit of a manifesto, so I have to assess it from both angles. Stephen is a stand-in for the author, her mouthpiece. Around the midpoint of the book she gives an impassioned speech defending her queerness, arguing against her mother who deems it unnatural and wrong. It seemed almost like wish fulfilment on the part of the author, imagining a braver version of herself who has the guts to stand up to bigotry and fight back (though she does ultimately agree to leave her childhood home ). Later, these diatribes are delivered via narration rather than dialogue; they are suppressed to internal thoughts. This reflects Stephen falling into despair and becoming increasingly isolated and aware of the hostility which surrounds her, but it also seems as though Hall at this point wanted to make her declarations without having to convey them through a story.
There were a few elements that didn’t quite work for me as I was reading the book but, upon reflection, I can see what Hall was (maybe?) going for. An example: the First World War lasts only a couple dozen pages. Maybe Hall didn’t want to explore in-depth a recent real world horror. Understandable. But that short section does introduceStephen’s main love interest, Mary, and there’s that whole thing about war being an opportunity to prove one’s masculinity and worth, something which appeals to Stephen. There’s no time to delve into that, though. The war kind of just happens. It’s a blip. Maybe that’s how it felt to those who lived through it? But it was odd considering the first half of the novel had really taken its time to flesh out the characters and breathe life into the world – Mary is more of a plot device than a person and the quickening of the pace from this point forward gives the impression of a montage. As Stephen’s life falls apart, so too does the structure of the novel.
It’s an interesting artefact of queer history. For modern readers it blurs the line between lesbianism and transmasculinity; the prevailing concept at the time (or the one Hall subscribed to, at least) was inversion. It’s fascinating to see how concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality were (and to some degree still are) intertwined in the public consciousness – a woman who loves women must be on some level a man, and a woman who wants to be a man is and will always be a woman. And every invert has some physical sign of their disorder, like Brockett having feminine hands. It’s proof that queerness is true, that it’s more than an affectation or a behavioural choice. I think Hall was interested in exploring/explaining the origins of queerness. It is stated very clearly in this book to be a natural phenomenon. But the born this way narrative does in some way concede that queerness is undesirable, only we can’t help it. This entire novel is built on that foundation.
It is a sympathetic portrayal – sympathy really is the key word here. We are urged to understand Stephen and to pity her plight, because queerness is inseparable from tragedy.
Well.
CONTENT WARNINGS:war, injury, death (including animal death), terminal illness, suicide, grief/depression, anxiety/self-consciousness, toxic/abusive relationships, cheating, outing, dysphoria, sexism, lesbophobia (including internalised lesbophobia), racism, drugs and addiction (and prejudice against addicts)
There were a few elements that didn’t quite work for me as I was reading the book but, upon reflection, I can see what Hall was (maybe?) going for. An example: the First World War lasts only a couple dozen pages. Maybe Hall didn’t want to explore in-depth a recent real world horror. Understandable. But that short section does introduce
It’s an interesting artefact of queer history. For modern readers it blurs the line between lesbianism and transmasculinity; the prevailing concept at the time (or the one Hall subscribed to, at least) was inversion. It’s fascinating to see how concepts of gender, sex, and sexuality were (and to some degree still are) intertwined in the public consciousness – a woman who loves women must be on some level a man, and a woman who wants to be a man is and will always be a woman. And every invert has some physical sign of their disorder, like Brockett having feminine hands. It’s proof that queerness is true, that it’s more than an affectation or a behavioural choice. I think Hall was interested in exploring/explaining the origins of queerness. It is stated very clearly in this book to be a natural phenomenon. But the born this way narrative does in some way concede that queerness is undesirable, only we can’t help it. This entire novel is built on that foundation.
It is a sympathetic portrayal – sympathy really is the key word here. We are urged to understand Stephen and to pity her plight, because queerness is inseparable from tragedy.
Well.
CONTENT WARNINGS: