I find liking Woolf (and women like Dorothy Parker) very easy. Sharp, witty, opinionated, different – women who lived in a time when they were supposed to be polite, compliant and almost voiceless.
Yes – ditto Patricia Highsmith or Leonora Carrington
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
“It would be easy to cancel Woolf today — parts of her, at least. Emre’s notes introduce critical debates about Woolf’s racism: the diaries are full of unacceptable remarks about Indian people.”
I hate it when people in the past fail to live up to modern ways.
Perhaps they didn’t get the irony. You were being ironic weren’t you?
It would indeed be easy to find reasons to cancel Woolf. Only last week I discovered the n-word in one of her early short stories…
Andrew D
2 years ago
Nothing new about the sneering metropolitan elite
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
The Bloomsbury lot had such a hard First World War doing ‘war work’ on a country estate.
Martin Smith
2 years ago
I am often guilty of generalising my faults as a means of excusing them. We don’t actually know how other people think, only how we think they think, which is really just us thinking. I know I can be very nasty. My problem is taking responsibility for that regardless of what other people do and to try somehow to be kinder.
Deborah B
2 years ago
What I recall about the private Virginia Woolf was her depression, her revulsion with her own body and her desire for her own space – A Room of One’s Own. It almost seems to me that she was a free spirited intellect, confined within a body she disliked and a life she felt trapped in. Or maybe I’ve been reading the wrong biography.
Mike Bell
2 years ago
Perhaps, because she was trying to consciously break free from the more submissive role she was brought up with. In trying to be more assertive, she became rude.
It reminds me of this: ‘Women can do the job as well as a man, but they cannot be a gentleman’ (or words to that effect)
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Would anyone ever have paid any attention at all to Virginia Woolf, had she not been a woman?
I find liking Woolf (and women like Dorothy Parker) very easy. Sharp, witty, opinionated, different – women who lived in a time when they were supposed to be polite, compliant and almost voiceless.
Yes – ditto Patricia Highsmith or Leonora Carrington
“It would be easy to cancel Woolf today — parts of her, at least. Emre’s notes introduce critical debates about Woolf’s racism: the diaries are full of unacceptable remarks about Indian people.”
I hate it when people in the past fail to live up to modern ways.
A down vote? Come on, that is why classic literature is being removed from mainstream education.
Perhaps they didn’t get the irony. You were being ironic weren’t you?
It would indeed be easy to find reasons to cancel Woolf. Only last week I discovered the n-word in one of her early short stories…
Nothing new about the sneering metropolitan elite
The Bloomsbury lot had such a hard First World War doing ‘war work’ on a country estate.
I am often guilty of generalising my faults as a means of excusing them. We don’t actually know how other people think, only how we think they think, which is really just us thinking. I know I can be very nasty. My problem is taking responsibility for that regardless of what other people do and to try somehow to be kinder.
What I recall about the private Virginia Woolf was her depression, her revulsion with her own body and her desire for her own space – A Room of One’s Own. It almost seems to me that she was a free spirited intellect, confined within a body she disliked and a life she felt trapped in. Or maybe I’ve been reading the wrong biography.
Perhaps, because she was trying to consciously break free from the more submissive role she was brought up with. In trying to be more assertive, she became rude.
It reminds me of this: ‘Women can do the job as well as a man, but they cannot be a gentleman’ (or words to that effect)
Would anyone ever have paid any attention at all to Virginia Woolf, had she not been a woman?
Mrs Dalloway is actually a very good novel indeed.
Yes it is.
No, Jane Austen and the Brontes were of course also heavily over promoted because they were women…