Brain Crush

V. Woolf’s my home girl. No, seriously, I am completely and intellectually infatuated with Virginia Woolf thanks to the course I’ve taken on her this semester. I love her so much that I’m writing this blog entry out of sync. I’d previously planned an entry about my weekend trip to Paris. Paris can wait, but V. Woolf can’t. However, my affection didn’t start out quite as rosy. Actually, I had planned on taking a creative writing class and felt slightly perturbed that I was, as far as I could tell, arbitrarily placed in some course about Virginia Woolf. Before this semester I’d never read anything by Woolf and hadn’t really intended to ever look into any of her works. Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t have anything against her. Rather I felt overwhelmingly and apathetically unaware since at that point I had only a vague and shaky sense of her literary career and infamous suicide. Once the semester got underway I can safely say that all of my initial ill-informed biases quickly changed.



It probably didn’t hurt that my V. Woolf class is my smallest, clocking in at eight people, and that’s including my tutor and myself. At first the size intimidated the other students and me because with a class that small there’s essentially no leeway for slacking. You do your reading all the time. Or ELSE. Avoiding eye contact and bullshitting don’t really work in tiny classes. (Not that I intentionally avoid reading, but in the event of paper week pile-up or a weekend trip to Paris reading inevitably becomes second priority when you’ve got four essays to churn out or a plane to catch.) But we swiftly surpassed our preliminary trepidation and learned to embrace the intimacy a small class affords. Plus, my tutor, Claire, who is most definitely one of the nicest and most understanding teachers I’ve ever encountered, considerately structured the class to minimize paper week stress and to introduce us the style of Woolf’s writing in the most efficient and rewarding way possible through a perfect synthesis of biographical lecture, group work and class discussion. But anyway, back to Woolf. Her writing isn’t really something you can automatically jump straight into and reasonably expect to understand or appreciate. Woolf has a radical and idiosyncratic rhythm that can seem alternatively mind-bogglingly enlightening or infuriatingly abstract. She’s a writer worth sticking out the difficulties for because the eventual reward feels immensely gratifying. So, while I enjoyed Jacob’s Room, I don’t think I quite hit my stride until about halfway through A Room of One’s Own.



I started writing this entry droning on about all the facts I learned about Virginia Woolf and her writing style and I had a good three paragraphs before I stopped and realized two things: first, I remembered I’m writing a travel/culture blog and not an analytical paper; second, and most importantly, endless —read: pointless— facts violate the very core of Woolf’s essential purpose and style. One of the key things we learned about Woolf was her disdain for ceaselessly layering on details under the guise of realism. She sharply criticized such traditional conceptions of realism because she insisted that the external, material facts and physicalities of a person can’t adequately convey the depth and richness of inner reality. Consequently, Woolf intended through her writing to break down the self-imposed walls of Edwardian literature to strip away and expose the previously abandoned psychological self. She stood for and embraced innovation and modernity as a means to re-work character and form. Or, as she prophetically urged in her own words, for the “smashing and crashing” to begin*. And she succeeds in her novels, to varying degrees, all of which are lyrically and immaculately written experiments ranging from the abstract to the even more abstract-- from a musically composed ‘playpoem’ (The Waves) to an irreverent romp of a mock biography (Orlando). Woolf admitted that she couldn’t offer any clear and easy solution to the problem of accurately expressing reality and the essence of a person, but her attempts are groundbreaking exercises that undoubtedly expand and elevate writing and thinking.



One thing that surprised me most was her exceptionally timed and subtly honed wit. Sure, the underlying message in some, but not all, of her works appears dishearteningly bleak, yet instances of her lively, marvelous mind are indisputably present. It seems the unfortunate fact of her suicide has her painted, at least in my previously ignorant mind, as a dreary figure of literary significance. She’s no Debbie Downer. Actually, Woolf is frequently and cunningly funny. Yeah, she had patchy mental health, but that wasn’t necessarily all or even the lynchpin of her personality. Hence my retrospective hesitation in summing her up in three paragraphs. Additionally, Woolf has many more complex and intriguing ideas I haven’t even addressed, specifically on the topics of feminism and androgyny, I might add. Ultimately, though, reading her own words provides a more fruitful expression of Woolf than any unjust summary I could try to offer. These may not be solid, satisfying facts to wrap your hands about or sink your teeth into, but they’re why I love Virginia Woolf.



As a part of ASE, my class had a study trip where we journeyed around Sussex to see Charleston Farmhouse (her sister Vanessa’s home), Berwick church (a church painted by Vanessa and Duncan Grant), Monk’s House (Virginia’s home and grave site) and the River Ouse (on a slightly morbid note…). Not every class has an accompanying study trip, but lucky me had one for each of my classes—that’s what four lit courses gets you. Each of the previous study trips had proved to be educational and enjoyable outings, but none of them measure up to the Woolf study trip. I adored every single minute and infinitesimal aspect of the trip, although Charleston Farmhouse remains my absolute favorite. By my favorite, I’m not just talking in terms of the study trip; it’s assuredly my favorite thing I’ve seen on the entire program and quite possibly one of the most phenomenal places I’ve ever been. Charleston may appear like a regular old country house, but the detail and the history behind it astounds me. Many museums feel icily removed with stark, detached displays and impersonal exhibits, but Charleston thankfully evades a clinical atmosphere. Instead, it is alive in the fullest sense of the word. A real sense of life, a life that breathes art, inhaling and exhaling a constant stream of beauty long after the owners departed and the preservationists arrived. A round dinner table selected for egalitarian purposes to ensure no one person dominated the room; lively patterned walls, hand painted by Vanessa and full of affectionately slapdash patterning errors and accidental paint drips; a lavishly decorated door whose missing panel took forty years to replace after a war reenactment by Vanessa’s sons. Charleston feels so refreshingly animated that you half-expect to turn around and see V.Woolf sitting in an armchair talking, reading or perhaps writing. Gloriously tactile and begging to be touched, personally designed textiles, paintings and ceramics sumptuously adorn every last surface of the house, remnants of the artistic and intellectual lives that resided there permanently, and others that transiently moved in and out. A loveable bohemian cacophony full of headspinningly interconnected relationships and associations, Charleston embodies an inviting blend of creative domesticity. Visiting Charleston, and the other locations, provided an eerie context to imagine and forge the fragments of Woolf’s doubtlessly complex and nuanced life.

Side Note: Here's a link to the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice. She has, according to Claire, the "plummiest" accent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8czs8v6PuI

*From Woolf's essay, "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown"
** Sadly I have no pictures of the interior of Charleston since photography is prohibited. I picked up a few postcards with interior shots, but I won't have access to a scanner until I get back to the States...