“A Bizarre Story: Virginia Woolf’s 'Solid Objects' as a Lesson in Language Arts and Human Empathy” by E.R. Zarevich

Virginia Woolf

It is such a bizarre story. Not bizarre in the typical modernist fashion. There’s no James Joyce circus monkey dance trying to distract the reader with baffling made-up language and clever mythological references. Structurally, Virginia Woolf’s “Solid Objects” does make sense. It has a beginning and an end. 

What makes it so strange is that it doesn’t seem to decide whether it’s a dark comedy or tragedy. Woolf is usually crystal clear on that point. Mrs. Dalloway is a tragedy. To the Lighthouse is also a tragedy. Orlando is a bittersweet reflection of the passage of time. 

“Solid Objects” has no distinguishable flavor. It’s so unlike Woolf and so subversive of the standard public prejudices against her work that I concluded it was the perfect piece of writing of hers to teach my students. This is something they haven’t seen or heard of before. This is Woolf undissected. Unobstructed. Unfractured. Solid.

“Solid Objects” is an obscure, lesser-known short story by Woolf, first published in The Athenaeum in 1920. I read it in a second-hand copy of The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf. It tells the story of John, an eccentric—naturally—English diplomat who, disillusioned with his life and work, becomes fascinated with collecting odd but beautiful objects he finds on the ground. Fascination soon evolves to obsession, and John’s hobby quickly takes over his life, sabotaging not only his career prospects and social life but also his relationship with his best friend Charles. This is the predominant relationship of John’s life, as he has no wife or children.

Unlike her other works, Woolf strays from hinting at a homoerotic attraction or attachment between the two men. Nor does she utilize stream of consciousness to explain John’s thought process when his attention is wholly seized by some new object of desire, which is never a person, but always a thing. In fact, she barely brushes the surface of John’s mindset. It’s only hinted at that there may be some childhood emotional disorder at play here:

His eyes lost their intensity, or rather the background of thought and experience which gives an inscrutable depth to the eyes of grown people disappeared, leaving only the clear transparent surface, expressing nothing but wonder, which the eyes of young children display. No doubt the act of burrowing in the sand had something to do with it.

I have used this quote to open a class discussion. I have asked my students, should collecting objects be strictly a childhood activity? Should an adult like John who collects objects be considered childlike? Is he stunted? Is he immature? Did he never properly grow up?

Opinions from my students vary. Some do believe collecting is something you’re meant to enjoy only as a child. It’s something you’re meant to grow out of, when the things you collect no longer have a use, if they ever had one at all. There are countless examples. Pokémon cards, Funko POP figurines, Legos, toy race cars. Seashells, buttons, feathers, shiny rocks. Bookshelf and shoebox things. Or, in John’s case, mantlepiece decorations or potential paperweights. 

The second half of my students speculate that John’s collecting would have been a perfectly harmless pastime, if it hadn’t started interfering with his adult responsibilities.

Both sides are fair. It’s a fictional story, after all. John is a character meant to represent human abnormality, and everything about him is open to interpretation. But what everyone, including myself, seems to agree on is that John is not well. Collectively, we recognize his lonely soul, seeking happiness and relief in objects that stay put and won’t ever leave him. Together, we can peer into his mostly likely future, which is that of a hoarder with no friends or family to support him, and a home overflowing with the story’s title.

This recognition is reassuring. I find the younger generation is capable to attuning to mental health issues in a way that outshines every generation before them. Beyond just awareness, there is empathy. And in my classroom, there is empathy for John. But was this Virginia Woolf’s intention? Were we the readers meant to relate to John, or just feel pity for him from a safe, disconnected distance? If only we could ask her ourselves.

Nowadays John couldn’t hold a candle to what is considered an unusual and pitiful human being. The standards are higher, and it’s harder to shock and revolt. What were once quiet, private hobbies are now the basis of popular influencers’ blogs and Instagram posts and tweets. Celebrities like Marie Kondo can build a career around advising people how to organize their household objects.

John would be nothing, in the positive sense of the word. His collection of oddities pilfered from the beach and city streets would raise no eyebrows. People would probably even be impressed by the contraption he puts together to snatch up objects languishing in hard-to-reach corners. A real DIY project, they would call it now. But back then? John was an outcast.

The homework question I like to assign my students after we read this story is a straightforward one: “Have you ever been attached to an object?” My students will sometimes take me back to their childhoods for show-and-tell. Sometimes they’ll confess to loving an object now. Some electronic, or some relic of happier times. But everyone has something. I imagine when Woolf lifted her pen and regarded this story, complete and concrete, she knew by instinct she’d just written something painfully universal.

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Emily R. Zarevich is an English teacher and writer from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. She has been published previously in Understorey Magazine, Living Education Journal, Wild Roof Journal, Dreamers Creative Writing, Prepare for Canada, Women in Higher Education, and Shrapnel Magazine.  

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