Virginia Woolf

[Sybarite]

Virginia Woolf – what can you say?

Having just read Mrs Dalloway, I am in awe. And I haven't felt that kind of awe since 'discovering' Thomas Mann. But there you go – two writers who create 'novels of ideas'. Maybe that's what 'gets me off'.

She was an amazing figure ... like Joyce, she looked to create an idea of the internal dialogue. Arguably, she does it better. Her prose, though not 'easy', is very musical, once you find the ebb and flow – and she has so many themes that, to read her, is like experiencing a literary form of millefeuille.

One of the things that I find intriguing is that she seems to be sidelined into 'feminist' literature so much – yet she was writing for all people, male and female. And her 'feminism' was not of a reactionary variety that excluded men. She doesn't hate men, as Mrs Dalloway quite clearly shows. Perhaps that's her problem – that reactionary feminism wants to claim her and that the rest of the literary world therefore feel uncomfortable with her?

She was a feminist, without doubt. But perhaps not such a simplistic form of feminist as a strand of feminism would like. Or, to put another point on it – feminism is not a division from the rest of life.

Mrs Dalloway alone is a genuine work of art and, if that were her only novel, her reputation would be assured.

From a very personal perspective – I don't look for 'feminist' literature: arguably, I tend to avoid it. But after my first real experience of her work ... I am in awe. I feel affected by her work in a way that I haven't since reading Mann's Death in Venice. And from me, that's probably about the biggest compliment that I can give her.

Is she one of the greatest of English writers? Should she be rated more highly and lauded kore highly than she is?

Well there you go: read her and make up your own mind.

But one thing should be clear – don't be afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Her major works:

The Voyage Out (1915)

Night and Day (1919)

Jacob's Room (1922)

Mrs Dalloway (1925)

To the Lighthouse (1927)

Orlando (1928)

The Waves (1931)

The Years (1937)

Between the Acts (1941)

A few links:

Wikipedia article

Guardian piece

The Virginia Woolf Society

The International Virginia Woolf Society

BBC interview from 1937 – audio file (just over seven minutes utterly fascinating)

[Irene Wilde]

Originally Posted by Sybarite

I am in awe. I feel affected by her work in a way that I haven't since reading Mann's Death in Venice. And from me, that's probably about the biggest compliment that I can give her.

That is high praise indeed from you Ms. Syb.

I remember my first trip to London, on one of several occasions I got completely got lost, and found myself in Bloomsbury. Goosebumps, I tell you. I contemplated for the briefest moment licking the walls or rolling around on the sidewalk -- anything to ingest a small piece of the place, to have some tiny speck of the mystique of The Bloomsbury Group rub off on me. Alas, such things are not contagious.

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by Irene Wilde

That is high praise indeed from you Ms. Syb.

I remember my first trip to London, on one of several occasions I got completely got lost, and found myself in Bloomsbury. Goosebumps, I tell you. I contemplated for the briefest moment licking the walls or rolling around on the sidewalk -- anything to ingest a small piece of the place, to have some tiny speck of the mystique of The Bloomsbury Group rub off on me. Alas, such things are not contagious.

~~LOL~~

I work pretty much in Bloomsbury now and have lived there in the past. And it is just amazing. Anyone with even an inclination for literature will feel it.

Yes, it is praise ... but the greater the distance in terms of time since I put the book down, the more I find myself thinking of it and continuing to muse on the issues.

For me to put it on the same level as Death in Venice is, for me, a massive thing – and not something that I do lightly. But I really haven't felt such a literary impact since them. It really is a stunning book. It's everything that I aspire to myself. Amazing. And beautiful. And angry. And just extraordinary.

[Eric]

I read several of Woolf's works quite a long time ago, and remember few details. But I do remember that the few books of hers that I've read made an impression on me.

As far as I remember, I've read Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando and I started The Waves in Estonia a decade ago, but the book got lost during my move back to the Netherlands.

I think I was too young when I read the earlier ones, and would have to start again with her. But I always think of her as a sophisticated writer.

The style of the various books is quite different. The Waves is especially complex, in its poetical stream of consciousness narration. While Orlando is more of a romp.

[Eric]

I've not finished it yet, but as you can see from the regular corner message, I'm reading Jacob's Room. The style is very sophisticated and makes up for any banality or mundanity in the plot (or lack of it). I'm very attuned to this book. More, when I've read the whole thing. It isn't a long novel. First published in 1922.

[spooooool]

She is remarkable, althouh she hasn't liberated herself from her Edwardian roots in quite the way she imagined, i'll always read Woolf over and again. I'd also recommend "Between the Acts" and "To the lighthouse" in particular. Erich Auerbach writing about Woolf is still as good as any of the secondary literature is likely to bring forth

[Eric]

I'm rather glad she hasn't liberated herself from her Edwardian roots. People who have roots and innovate without going in for permanent revolution get the balance just about right.

[nnyhav]

Eric, you should pick up The Waves again (and that goes for the rest of ya too); it's the favorite book bar none of one of the more brilliant analysts I've had the pleasure of working with.

[spooooool]

It's not a matter of innovation versus, but imaginivite sympathies.

[Eric]

I'll read The Waves again, when I find the time. But first things first. I'm reading Jacob's Room now, and when I've finished that there are many books on my list.

Spooooool, could you explain what you mean by "imaginative sympathies"?

[spooooool]

I'll have a go, Eric. I mean that for all the justly celebrated sympathies highlighted, delineated by her fans, and i'm one of them..the interiority, free association, internal dialogue etc etc..these affinities didn't extend nearly as far as you might be led to believe by her more uncritical acolytes. Woolf was a snob, she whined and lacked empathy even as her sensitivies are widely proclaimed. She has one of the most remarkable minds set to work in fiction, but to the extent that she didn't free herself from her the prejudices of her background, she wasn't quitee the revolutionary that might be supposed. I've had too many albeit very friendly discussions with people saying she wasn't or trying to contextualize etc etc, which is fair dos, but it doesn't i think detract from my point, since i'm in no way denying her faults or interested in demonstrating that Woolf as a perfect human being, just saying that those things for which she's celebrated oftenntimes arrive with very strict boundaries

[Eric]

I'm glad that Woolf wasn't a revolutionary. All revolutions come to grief. Few people can escape their social background. Personally, I can see that her books are set in a rather privileged, upper middle-class background which I have rarely experienced. However, the interiority, free association, etc. is what I concentrate on. I'm not looking for empathy in her writing, but for style. I think her style is very interesting. I'm not so interested in the Bloomsbury set, her bisexuality, her ultimate suicide, Lytton Strachey, etc. It's all there at the back of your mind, of course, but I'm reading Jacob's Room as a novel.

I haven't read any other Woolf for years, barring Orlando, when I translated an Estonian story that was published three years before that novel but also involved a sex change and was set in a similar commedia dell'arte way. But that novel isn't typical. It's more of a sophisticated spoof. Every few years, when I decide to give Woolf another try, I am pleasantly surprised. Jacob's Room does actually move forward as a book, despite the rather static, claustrophobic title. Appreciation and adulation are two different things.

I'm afraid you've used another word I don't understand: "contextualize". What does that mean?

[Sybarite]

Originally Posted by Eric

... I'm afraid you've used another word I don't understand: "contextualize". What does that mean?

Put into context. In the case of literature, consider in the context of the time in which it was written, the author's life, experiences etc.

[spooooool]

Thanks Sybarite!

[Eric]

Thanks, Sybarite, as Spooooool says.

I thought it might be as straightforward as that, but literary theorists have a habit of having Humpty Dumpty meanings for words, i.e. they mean what the theorists want them to mean, disregarding common usage. My stylistics dictionary has two whole pages on the word "context" and its derivatives, but when you've waded through all the mentions of semantics, anaphoric and cataphoric reference, context-of-utterance, macro-content and the rest, I suppose you end up with what Sybarite suggests.

I imagine there are bigger and bigger contexts, spreading out like rings in a pond, such as the mind, the person, the room, the house, the street, the town, the country; and for time, various epochs and centuries. Which is why I always say that if you read a novel set in, say, Russia, it very often makes the book significantly more comprehensible if you know something about the Russia in which the book was written and is set.

I do know all sorts of anecdotal bits 'n bobs about Virginia Woolf's life, and subconsciously take them into account when reading Jacob's Room. Maybe I should take a closer look at the context of this specific novel when I've finished it. But for now, I want to immerse myself in the novel as a novel. I do have the Quentin Bell biography, so I can check up when I want to.

[Sybarite]

It can become a little trying if, every time you read a novel, you try to find out about and then bear in mind the context in which it was written, but I'd say there are times when it can be a positive boon.

In terms of Virginia Woolf, I mentioned in my review of Mrs Dalloway that her attitude to suicide, as implied by the book itself, is particularly interesting in terms of her own suicide. Her knowledge of shellshock was almost certainly increased by her friendship with Siegfried Sassoon.

For me, Thomas Mann's novels are improved as a reading experience by knowing more of the author and his times.

And sometimes it really can help form a judgment on a text.

Take Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, which has been seen, particularly in recent years, as an anti-semitic play. Yet the text can suggest otherwise – there are no 'nice' characters in the play; Shylock is not the worst behaved. His speech on common human experience – "If you prick me do I not bleed ... if you tickle me, do I not laugh" – is an essentially humane one. But still the idea sticks because it's easy.

However, the play was written in 1596, against a background of race riots that had been orchestrated by the Earl of Essex, who was trying to usurp Elizabeth I. Her private physician was a man called Ricardo Lopez, a Portuguese Jew who had converted to Christianity. Essex used the anti-semitism of the times to orchestrate the anti-semitic riots, with the claim that Lopez was attempting to assassinate the queen. Eventually, Elizabeth had little option but to give in. Lopez was summarily tried and executed. It's clear that Elizabeth didn't believe anything of the story – she returned all Lopez's confiscated lands and property to his widow after his death; almost unheard of. And then, of course, she got rid of Essex.

But this was the immediate historic background to Shakespeare's play. Seen in that light, it suggests that Shakespeare was far from being anti-semitic, but was carefully attempting to create a more sensitive character – to provoke a view of all races being the same.

It's worth noting too that Shakespeare's own father was found guilty of usury – so usury in Shakespeare's plays (it also occurs as a subject in Timon of Athens) is not something that the writer saw as a 'sinful' behaviour that was unique to Jews.

So, the point is that while context is most certainly not everything, it can help to give us a more thorough reading of a text – and in some cases, one that challenges popular perception.

The question is which texts to give that treatment to and which to read at 'face value', so to speak.

[Eric]

I think that knowing something about the context always adds to your reading of a text.

The internet and Google mean you can find a specific two-page article about the mind-set, country or epoch that forms the background of a novel, without having to wade through huge encyclopædia articles or read whole non-fiction books. Because even though a novel with a simple story of divorce and murder will have universal traits, it will be subtly different if set in Bloomsbury, the mining district of Wallonia, or Russia during the NEP.

With Mann, there is probably a link between, for instance, Tadzio, Tonio Kröger and Klaus Mann's suicide, which can be deduced from knowing Mann's biography.

I'm not so well up on The Merchant of Venice, a play I have never read or seen, but I'll take Sybarite's word for it that Shakespeare may have seen Jews in the light of current events.

Once I'd started reading a novel such as Jacob's Room, given the things I already knew about Woolf and had in the back of my head, I felt that I knew enough of the background, didn't need to read any more just at present. On the other hand, when translating the novel Treading Air, I felt it essential that I, as translator, knew as much as I could about the epochs in which the book is set, and the country, and the author. A translator has an even greater duty to know than a reader. The fulfilment of that duty to the reader was expressed in this case by a ten-page introduction plus notes at the back of the book.

[Eric]

Did you know that Virginia Woolf was brought up only a few doors away from the Estonian Embassy?

Well, actually, she wasn't. She was brought up at 22 Hyde Park Gate and the present Estonian Embassy is number 16. The Estonian Embassy in London from 1919 until 1989, was at 167 Queen's Gate.

The observant ones among you will wonder why, when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union from 1944-1991, the Estonians had an embassy in London until 1989. Simple. Britain never de iure recognised the Soviet occupation of Estonia. It's a shame that the continuity was broken just two years before independence was regained, as the Estonians could no longer afford their old embassy.

But it did bring them nearer to Virginia Woolf's childhood home. Which may explain why "Orlando", "To the Lighthouse" her essays, and "The Waves" have appeared in Estonian translation.

If you buy the Thames and Hudson book in the Literary Lives series on Virginia Woolf (Page 8), you will see that the present Estonian Embassy bears a remarkable similarity to the house in which Woolf was brought up, in the same way that Alatskivi Manor in eastern Estonia is a copy of Balmoral.

[Eric]

The concise Thames & Hudson biography of Virginia Woolf is rather good. I bought it yesterday for 5 euros in a second-hand bookshop.

It is written by John Lehmann and first published in 1975, and is only 125 pages long, with some interesting phtographs. It certainly puts Virginia Woolf and her family and friends into a clear context. I have the 1987 edition, but I'm sure it's been reprinted several times since, though Amazon reveals nothing more. But you can buy in for a song, nowadays.

[kpjayan]

Here is an article in NYtimes ( 9th Nov) on the adaptation of 'the waves' ( in case you have missed it).

A British adaptation turns “The Waves,” Woolf’s 300-page modernist novel, into a commensurate theater piece.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/th...=5070&emc=eta1