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'Transformation is one thing. Conversion is another. With its Latin roots con (with or together) and vertere (to turn or bend), conversion is haunted by a sense of coercion, the imposition of one will over another. In Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, conversion comes in the form of Clarissa Dalloway’s daughter’s evangelistic tutor, Doris Kilman, the violence of colonialism, and brutish attempts by psychologist Sir William Bradshaw to instil ‘a sense of proportion’ into his vulnerable patients. Sir William gets what he wants. He ‘shuts people up’ under the auspices of ‘the twin goddesses of conversion and proportion’. Converting, for Woolf, means ‘to override opposition’.' (Introduction)
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Last amended 8 Nov 2023 09:47:54
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https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2023/995-november-2023-no-459/11367-felicity-plunkett-reviews-the-conversion-by-amanda-lohrey
Jolts and Dislocation : Amanda Lohrey’s Bravura New Novel
Australian Book Review
Australian Book Review
