All Hallows' Eve

The novel follows a nightmarish sequence of events that reflect the author's admirable skills and remarkable capacity of creating strange and captivating themes.The confusing opening of the book sets the tone of the whole work. Like a spell, it binds the reader to the character of Lester Grantham/Furnival who is seen waiting on a bridge without knowing why or what she was waiting for. When memory creeps back, she realizes that she was waiting for her husband, and finds her way back to him almost mechanically, but Richard's ghostly shape and subsequent disappearance suggest to her mind the ghastly idea of his death. A moment later, Lester comprehends that death was truly at work, but instead of having Richard in its hold, it was herself that it clutched!In such an ingenious manner, Williams takes his readers beyond the ordinary stream-of-conscience technique, and immerses them in the secrets of the actual self and the spiritual world in a Post-Modernist masterpiece. Taking a cubist approach to literature, he paints the world from different angles: those of the dead, those of the living, as seen by the good, as perceived by the evil, sometimes from the eyes of a widower, at others from the viewpoint of the dead wife herself...The nonlinear approach of time is also used as a psychological construct alongside minimalism in the portrayal of the characters. Not many details are advanced in connection with their outward appearance, for the focus is given instead to their psychological states and inner conflicts.Life and its meaning or the lack of it form the center of the plot. War, chaos, alienation, woman's question... The amount of the issues addressed emphasizes the richness of its content, and demonstrates the Post-Modernist tendencies of both work and author. In refusing to distance art from life, and in insisting to take no guidelines in shaping literature, Williams had painted a realistic image of life upon canvas of extraordinary events! The result is an exquisite nightmarish novel that reflects even in the midst of its most marvelous episodes the boundless possibilities of daily life.The Postmodern literature, of which the book is an excellent specimen, came to describe certain characteristics of Post World War 2 like the sense of meaninglessness resulting from a seemingly purposeless struggle. Lester's death as the outcome of a crash was completely insignificant to the authorities, who had coldly apologized to her husband and merely advanced him a monetary compensation. This emphasizes the feeling of people's meaningless suffering during and after the war.The book makes use of symbolism as a means to illustrate the numerous psychological states and mental ailments that immerged as the end result of the war. Alienation is one such condition present in the estrangement of Lester from other characters. In an allegorical scene, she was entirely detached, in terms of emotional receptiveness, from the weeping Evelyn. Their friendship was mechanical, based on habit instead of real and mutual understanding. This state of alienation was the direct result of the psychological conflicts arising from the chaotic atmosphere that reigned at the time through the agency of oppressing anxieties like the fear of death. The latter is illustrated in the novel through Lester's fear of darkness and silence.In a broader context, Post War London is depicted as a dead city mimicking life. Evelyn's exclamation, "I have done nothing" for instance, reflects the empty shell of existence which people led at the time.In relation to woman's question, the novel emphasizes the individual identity of woman as a separate and independent being . In contrast with past traditions which identified women by means of their husbands' names like Mrs. Dalloway, Lester Furnival is sometimes referred to as Lester Grantham in spite of her marital state. What is more, she is recognized and evaluated on the basis of her personal merits, actions, and qualities instead of those of her husband's as was the case with Clarissa.In accordance with Nietzsche's prophecies about the spread of herd morality, the novel conveys the far-reaching echo of such doctrines during and after the war. The sense of meaninglessness arising from the armed struggle and the chaotic atmosphere of the war had led to the propagation of such ideologies. Father Simon's creed is one good illustration that explains the flight from nothingness into the realm of false security found in mass adherence to a given dogma.