In Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, which the London Writers class is studying, the city of London is a character unto itself. Woolf’s human characters wander the city endlessly as their stream-of-consciousness thoughts spill out onto the page, leaving the reader their impressions of the city. One incredibly unique facet of the character of London in Mrs. Dalloway is Regent’s Park. All throughout the novel, as characters go to and fro in the streets, their impressions are overwhelmingly centered on how busy the city is, and especially on other people. For example, Peter Walsh, a character recently returned from India, spends some time following a woman that he sees on Trafalgar Square across the West End, making up a history and personality for her as he goes. Clarissa Dalloway, the titular character, walks along Bond Street noticing how every person is gossiping about the same recent car wreck. However, when characters are in Regent’s Park, things are different. Regent’s Park evokes thoughts quite contrary from the hustle and bustle of the city. This is from the mind of the character Septimus as he sits in the Park:
“The sparrows fluttering, rising, and falling in jagged fountains were part of the pattern; the white and blue, barred with black branches. Sounds made harmonies with premeditation; the spaces between them were as significant as the sounds. A child cried. Rightly far away, a horn sounded. All taken together meant the birth of a new religion.” (24)
The city of London is alive in a very human sort of way; people are living streams headed to work, a show, dinner – anywhere. You can feel the energy of everyone moving about the city as you become one of them, and it is a wonderful experience . . . but sometimes you need to escape that, and so you head to a park.
Other parks in London are beautiful, certainly. St. James Park is breathtaking. Hyde Park is majestic. However, you are always able to look beyond the confines of the little natural world around you and see the human world awaiting you just as you return. Regent’s Park, however, seems designed for the very purpose of escape.
Septimus, in thinking about Regent’s Park, didn’t notice people nearly as much as he noticed the natural setting of the park itself. Most park patrons are “rightly far away.” The first thing to know about Regent’s Park is that it is enormous. The second thing to know about Regent’s Park is that there are hundreds of different spaces there – small, enclosed pathways for lovers to walk in the evening, football fields spanning endlessly across a verdant field, gardens twisting and turning, assaulting you with new colors every step you take, and every other impression that the word park can possibly leave you with.
Five steps inside the gates, the city behind is utterly forgotten. The sounds of traffic die out, and the sounds of birds, far-off cries of children, and wind through the trees takes a strong precedence. Real effort is required to find the city from within the park. You need to search for a little hole through branches, look up to see the BT Tower, or find a plane overhead. The park swallows you.
One of the most remarkable things about it, however, is that once you are off the main large thoroughfares in the park – not a difficult task – you can spend hours without ever coming within twenty or fifty feet of another person. The park is certainly not deserted – it is merely generously apportioned to each of its patrons. You see people from a distance in Regent’s Park, or you pass them going your separate ways. You may wonder why they are here, what they are taking a break from, or what they are thinking about. However, it is hard to concentrate on such things; people are not your focus in the park. The overwhelming purpose you feel is truly to escape; to find a little spot to call your own; to watch the natural setting with a thankful breath after days plodding over concrete; to stare at the birds, as Septimus did, circling the sky, instead of watching planes.
That is Regent’s Park. It is London’s recharge button. It is where Londoners go to let go of the city, to let the space take their problems away. It is where each person can feel like a king, as though mile after mile of that blessed simplicity were there just for them.
