…or maybe not – of course not; not this day! For this one gifted to us nearly a century ago, and more recently to have become a quiet but special celebration of literary reflection.
This year the weather plays its part as written (by Virginia Woolf, and today – in Germany anyway) and though bad tidings continue to whirl (wars and pandemics; in the here and now as once they haunted the streets of 1922 London), there is always some time to give to a Dalloway Day. At the Royal Society of Literature there are some links for this year and previous years, but the embedded clip below is something lighter and bit different.
This Lit Hub video is a good-humored discussion; presenting some transatlantic perspective through the person of Elif Batuman in conversation with the young, Black and British writer Yomi Adegoki. Though they divert quickly from talking specifically about Virginia Woolf, it was not before Batuman set the tone of the discussion by relating the peculiar atmosphere of unresolved grief, personal and societal, that pervades Mrs. Dalloway to her own method of working in these uncertain times. Specifically, the hazards of moving between writing as a journalist, concerned often with matters of the real world, and those of the novelist which can’t help but reach into an interior life for inspiration. Such so-called ‘life writing’ brings with it responsibilities – to one’s own self and to others. These were, of course, concerns that Virginia Woolf was aware of and attended to in her own way; this to be discerned in an informed reading of Mrs. Dalloway.
To be remembered: Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970). Born 15o years ago today; renowned mathematician and logician, a founder of analytic philosophy, a prolific (and accessible) writer and commentator of the 20th century, a Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, an influential public intellectual and a voice for peace – and as such one with particular resonance at this time.
Because birthdays, one’s own or that of another, always seem to inspire reflection on the passing years, Russell’s short essay contemplating (and so titled) “How to Grow Old” (from his 1956 collection Portraits from Memory and Other Essays at the Internet Archive) is a fitting read. It’s simple and entertaining and it’s message is timeless, and begins by restating its purpose as actually being concerned with how not to grow old. In a nutshell: genetic disposition is one thing, health issues another, but the greatest dangers lay in nostalgia and regret, and clinging to the past and to a world of youth that is no longer yours. Rather, one should look to the future and pursue a broad range of interests, the more impersonal the better. His essay nears its end with the difficult contemplation of death that faces us all, and described with the metaphorical river of life.
[…]Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.[…]
from the essay “How to Grow Old” by Bertrand Russell.
Sometimes referred to as Mr. Russell, with sly, good-humored respect one may presume, but for Virginia Woolf (and for our photographer above, Ottoline Morrell), more often than not, he was just plain Bertie – another of the brilliant, mercurial, imperfect figures that entered her sphere through family and acquaintance. So, as Woolf may well have proclaimed should she have encountered him on any 18th May: Happy Birthday, Bertie!
Whether over lunch, or in the midst of bedtime ritual, beginning tomorrow and for ten consecutive weekdays (Jan 24 – Feb 4), BBC Radio 4presents a reading of Mrs. Dalloway; embedded within what the BBC calls a “celebration of the birth of Modernism a hundred years ago”. Here, the reference is to literary Modernism and the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922 (and Eliot’s The Waste Land). Virginia Woolf’s ‘one day’ novel was published three years later, but fits very well in the modernist tradition – and may justifiably be considered (by the broadcaster) more readable (and listenable) than Joyce’s epic work; dense as it is in allusion and parody.
Start the Weektomorrow morning (with Kirsty Wark – the third presenter in three weeks – and I am still getting used to NOT starting the week with Andrew Marr!) starts the season with a discussion that broadens the scope of modernism beyond the literary – into the visual arts, music and the public space. One of the guests is Matthew Sweet whose ten part series 1922: The Birth of Now also begins tomorrow (through to Feb 4). [BBC is quite generous, and most of these links should remain live for some time.]
Presumably, there is more in store across the BBC but I can’t find the theme centrally organized (generally this is a problem with Sounds – and I know I’m not alone in this opinion!). I actually only became aware of an upcoming “Modernism” project through a passing reference on Feedback at the end of last year and was reminded with a programming note on Open Book last week. That episode, by the way, is all about Ulysses, and listening to the very interesting participants has motivated me to consider (and not for the first time, and as an important condition) diving in. Giventhis interest of mine in the modernists, and my interest in their interest in the ancients, I shouldn’t need to be pushed (one would think), and rather have been tempted to jump in long ago. Or do I have an insurmountable interest conflict?
Anyway, I have at least tracked down a very good digital version of Ulysses, and there is no shortage of study material, so I will collate what I have in a separate post for future reference. For the moment, may I just refer to Virginia Woolf’s struggle with Joyce (which she never really resolved – personally, I’m not totally convinced she read Ulysses in its entirety nor any of his other works) in particular and, more generally, Volume 2 of her diary which includes this year; one which for her was just another, and was to become for us (and maybe posterity), and unbeknownst to her, much more.
With the end of year two of the pandemic, I note with pleasure – whereby, in these complicated days, that a relative state of being – where it was that one of our literary flights of fancy led. And, that was back to the London of a century ago, and all that could happen on just one day traversing the topography between Westminster and Bond Street – on the ground, in the heart and in the head.
Penguin ed. 2021
A particular literary journey inspired, at least to some extent it seems, by the publication of two new editions of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway – one from Penguin Random House (with a forward by Jenny Offill and introduction and notes by Elaine Showalter) and an annotated edition from Merve Emre published by Liveright (w.w. norton). Or was it the other way round, and these publications came with an awareness of renewed interest and the potential of a new readership amongst younger generations?
Whichever, as a matter of ‘housekeeping’, and before they go astray amongst my chaotic collection of bookmarks and the like, following are links to just three of the articles that I have collected during the year. (Some other good pieces, unfortunately, require subscriptions.)
Mrs. Woolf & the Servants by Alison Light, pub. Penguin 2007
Alison Light’s 2007 book Mrs. Woolf and the Servants – referred to by me here – is indeed a wonderful read, and for many reasons. Significantly, it goes some way in satisfying my curiosity about the complicated relationship of the said Mrs. Woolf with her servants, and, more generally, in offering through this particular example an engrossing and informative account of the domestic power structures of the middle and upper class households (in Britain), and as a microcosm of the hierarchical distribution of power in greater society, from the end of the Victorian era through to the post-war twentieth century. The gap in my own knowledge was quickly apparent – and gaping! – and Light’s book has gone some considerable way towards remedying my ignorance.
Even from the prologue, I was heartened to read that Alison Light’s motivation for writing the book came from her reading of Virginia Woolf’s diaries and her discomfort, on one hand, and fascination on the other, with Woolf’s language concerning her domestic help over the years, and like me especially with respect to Nellie Boxall. (And I must add: it was just as heartening to hear a British scholar of such standing – and to the Left! – admit to her previous ignorance of the historical importance of domestic service in Britain, and especially for women.)
Broadly chronological, the book traces the history of domestic servitude parallel to that of Virginia Woolf’s life. But ‘parallel’ is a misplaced word here (when thinking about time it may always be!); more precisely, these lives and histories are intertwined in ways obvious and not so; imbued with a public presence that abides by social norms, and a behind closed doors intimacy that is mutually dependent (and, as Light says, unequal); in both spheres easily sentimentalized – then and now.
Woolf is not necessarily the star of this narrative, but rather the accompaniment for the lives of others: of Sophie Farrell, the treasure of the Stephan household in late-Victorian Hyde Park Gate, of Nellie and Lottie Hope, inseparable, in service and out, almost a life long, and of the Batholomews and Annie Thompsett and the Haskins and Louie Everest all who made Monks House the “home” Woolf had needed for her emotional well-being and creative and professional development as a writer. Would she have been generous in accepting this supporting role? I think so, I hope so.
And, as employers, the Woolfs are hardly set decorations – it is important what Light has to say about their role as representative of an intellectual class in the first half of the twentieth century: the disparity that existed between the political and societal agenda that was being propagated and the actuality of a way of life that contributed to the cementing of rigid class structures. I think it is fair to say that it was the highly political Leonard who spoke and wrote loudest on the rights of the working class, but maintained an imperious attitude to those employed in his own home.
Reading (and looking at: some terrific photos!) in this delightful NYT magazine piece about Olivia Laing’s country home in Suffolk, I find myself reminded of many things. Firstly, it prompted a childhood reminiscence of what a wonderful gardener my father was and how much I loved helping him, and how a long ago birthday gift of a simple plastic yellow watering-can is still before my inner eye, and how life then got complicated and time did its own thing with little regard for me, and it came to be that I’ve never had the opportunity to have a garden that I could call my own. And that makes me sad. And, and, and … Secondly, the Derek Jarman journal, Modern Nature, that Laing refers to has been asking to be read by me for a long time – in the UK at least it has a sort of legendary status. And, thirdly (but not really lastly), Laing’s own 2011 book – and her first – To the River, as a “rumination”, inspired by Virginia Woolf and which has her wandering the length of the River Ouse. What that rumination entails I could guess at – but need to know. Two more books.
But this is all a bit by the bye, what really diverted me – as so often happens – was an internal link to the NYT “By the Book” segment from earlier this year in which Olivia Laing was guest and her mention there of Alison Light’s 2007 book Mrs. Woolf and the Servants that she had read while writing her latest book Everybody (2021), saying: “[…it] is astonishing on the complex interrelations between bodies and class, bodies and gender…”. Light’s original work has come to my attention previously, and Virginia Woolf’s erratic behaviour towards her domestics is well known, and has often been a topic in academia and beyond. And something I have often contemplated.
But my interest at this moment has added intensity because, while reflecting on the mutual dependencies and alternating dynamics at play between Myriam and Louise in the Leïla Slimani novel just read, I was immediately struck by similarities with what I had discerned previously about Woolf’s fraught relationship with her servants, especially Nellie with whom she was in constant struggle; and perhaps encouraged in my thinking having shortly before read an “address as essay” by Slimani in which she quotes from a Woolf essay contrasting the status of the Victorian woman of a certain class – the so-called “Angel in the House” – with the (then) modern woman; the possibilities now open to her, but also the obstacles, sometimes invisible, that remain in her search for fulfillment, and especially when that reach is beyond the sacred bounds of home and garden, of family and servants.
I have downloaded Light’s book (Kindle link below), and have to say the prologue and the early pages – here, the “angel in the house” is Julia Stephen and the cook, Sophie Farrell, the “family treasure”- are a knockout. Already I can say, obviously a labor of love; written with verve and with respect for the subjects and their successes – large or small, celebrated or rarely noted – and an understanding for their failures and the prevailing circumstances – personal or societal or both.
I am, then, as I write, feeling madly indebted to Olivia Laing – and it is hardly to be wondered; to the question of what was the best book she has received as a gift comes the response:
[…] For my 40th birthday my mother gave me first editions of Woolf’s diaries. That was a magical present. I remember being entranced by the bindings as a child — the pale pink and duck egg blue spines with Bloomsbury crosshatching. Those would be my desert island books: the best possible mind to be accompanied by.
Mine are not nearly so fine, but Olivia Laing would surely with me agree: it’s all there to be found in the mind – and Virginia Woolf would add: words, words, words.
From my last post, The New York Times has now published an article on Christie’s forthcoming auction that will include three works from Vincent van Gogh; one of which is the Meules de Blé of which I wrote, stolen by the Nazis and only now returning to the public arena.
Fortuitously, the NYT linked to The Art Newspaper and the Van Gogh expert, Martin Bailey’s blog piece which provides relevant and well-informed background to the van Gogh works being offered. My interest is now ignited by Jeune Homme au Bleuet (1890) – The “Young Man with a Cornflower”, has its own particular narrative through place and time, that had “him” as a “her” – Jeune fille au bluet (the mad girl in Zola’s ‘Germinal’) – when it all began …
And when did it begin? Well, according to Virginia Woolf“… on or about December 1910 […is when human character changed]“. And, Van Gogh’s girl/boy was right there at the legendary Autumn 1910 exhibition at the Grafton Gallery in London, Manet and the Post-Impressionists, curated by Roger Fry, about which Woolf spoke – where more than a word was created that defined a direction, but the visual artistic representation displayed that signaled an end and a beginning. And by the bye inflamed the establishment to various degrees of rage! In 2010, The Burlington Magazine celebrating the centenary of the show, included an interesting piece about the original exhibition catalogue.
Young Man with Cornflower June 1890
Though I am not adverse to haystacks, nor to cypress and olive trees, this figure I do find captivating. Unlike the stolen haystacks, an image of Jeune Homme au bleuet is in Wikipedia. It’s not at all a good reproduction so I post it here reluctantly – the colors quite wrong; the cornflower is blue, as is the blouse, the hair copper-red, the face pink and lips paler as if masked, the eyes emerald – so I refer you again to the very good Christie’s site; for both the much better visual reproduction and, again, an excellent lot essay.
The gender ambiguity is one aspect, but in these days of fluidity (making ambiguity somewhat obsolete!) I am more taken by the almost carnivalesque nature of the portraiture; reminding me of Pippi Longstocking illustrations and depictions elsewhere – the essay description of “mischievous ragamuffin” seems more than apt.
With Berlin’s International Literature Festival, another cultural event made tentative steps back to normality last month. I read with great interest Leïla Slimani’s opening speech in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and fortunately it has made its way into the wide world with an English translation in pdf format available here. Also, I suppose in the interest of the “International …” bit, Slimani delivers her address in English so I have embedded the YouTube video (54:00) below. (I have to say, with opening passages that invites her listeners to join her in a thought experiment, Slimini immediately outs herself as a Virginia Woolf acolyte; for such is a technique not dissimilar to that which Woolf often used in her speeches (including those that were to form the basis of “A Room of One’s Own”). Sure enough Woolf is quickly catapulted to center stage; the direct quotes come from a wonderful 931 essay called “Professions for Women” – to be read here, and found in many anthologies of her work.)
Opening 21st International Literature Festival, Berlin, September 2021
A star of the literary scene in Europe and beyond, Leïla Slimani carefully constructs an argument that is concerned with some of the contemporary tendencies; ones that stifle constructive discourse and shy at the complexities of literature. Having encouraged us to (do a Virginia Woolf) and brutally kill off the angels within; she reminds us of the fates of the famous, the notorious, the literary heroines of yore; how little girls are molded to fit an ideal and come of age conditioned to please and in fear of transgression; how our voices are so often curtailed or silenced. And it is here, and with her own experiences, she connects with the fashionable preoccupation of renegotiating the past, of speaking at one’s own peril! For, she maintains, we must speak up, and without trepidation, without fear of reprisal (yes, of being cancelled.) Writers and artists (but we all really) must have the freedom to break down walls and resist categorizations and assumptions – and this can only be achieved when we are in command of our voice. There is more, so whether watched or read or both, Ms. Slimani’s words are well worthy of our time and thought.
Having now done so, and following the recent talk surrounding Slimani’s new book, In the Country of Others, the first of a trilogy and this one set mostly in post-World War II Morocco, and with very much familial biographical elements, I surprise myself by the realization that I have not read any of her work (slender though it is; to date only three novels) – even successfully “not reading” Lullaby (The Perfect Nanny in the US) her controversial, prize-winning and best-selling novel of a children-murdering nanny (well, that’s the short version, presumably there is much more to it than that). Why I deemed this a success on my part I couldn’t say. Subject matter? Aversion to hype? The first would imply an over-sensitivity that I would be quick to deny; the second, an affliction that I have often overcome. Whatever the reason, its status suggested it as an appropriate literary starter. But alas, at least here in Germany, it remains so popular that I must wait my turn at the local library.
However, the German translation of her 2015 first novel Dans le jardin de l’ogres, which was published outside France in 2019 after the success of Lullaby, was available. All das zu verlieren, meaning literally in English “everything to lose” and which was published as Adèle in English, was certainly a difficult introduction to this lauded writer. Normally, perhaps, I would have read the dust-jacket blurb and thought: well, rather not. (I swear I am of an age where I struggle with contemporary twenty-somethings or thirty-somethings with husbands or wives and/or lovers, kids, parents – none of whom understand them – doing what they sincerely believe to be radical!) What could this Adèle, for that is the thirty-something (with husband and child, et cetera) subject’s name, have to say to me?
