Suffrage Stories: Bloomsbury Links in Life And Literature

Reblogged from Woman and her Sphere:

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In Night and Day, set in 1910, Virginia Woolf writes explicitly of the  suffrage campaign. She places the office of her suffrage society, the 'S.G.S.', in the heart of Bloomsbury, in Russell Square. Mary Datchet works there ('From ten to six every day') in an office on the top-floor of a large house 'which had once been lived in by a great city merchant and his family'.

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A lovely combination: Virginia Woolf and suffrage. That means more than stuffing envelopes.

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Lawrence and the Machine … and Woolf

Jesse Blair is an editorial assistant for Killing the Angel, the new Woolf-inspired literary journal, so it’s no surprise that she inserts a dialogue about Woolf to introduce the characters in her novella, Lawrence and the Machine.

Lawrence responds to an ad for a room in a house near the New England university where he studies accounting and is taken into the living room to meet its eccentric inhabitants, self-professed intellectuals, in the midst of a discussion about Virginia Woolf:

“I don’t care what you say. The Voyage Out was Woolf’s most groundbreaking work.”

“Are you high?”

“Not anymore.”

“Every Virginia Woolf scholar worth her salt knows that Mrs. Dalloway is her epic success.”

“To the Lighthouse.”

“Oh, please. How clichéd. Your literary opinions embarrass you and your sweet little library degree.”

“The scholars agree! To the Lighthouse revolutionized the modern novel. The Voyage Out was by far Woolf’s least brilliant novel.”

“According to you. Have you ever had an original thought, or do you just read the criticism of others to develop your theories?”

And so it goes, until they notice Lawrence and someone asks his opinion of Woolf’s greatest masterpiece. Lawrence: “Woolf, Woolf … I strained to recall syllabi from my one or two undergraduate literature classes, to no avail. ‘Well…’ I finally improvised. ‘They were all pretty good, weren’t they?’

The story veers off from there into some pretty bizarre territory, well beyond talk, and while Woolf doesn’t make any more appearances, I think she would have approved of the proceedings.

Summer’s coming–here’s one to take to the beach and read in a single outing (but don’t forget the sunscreen).

Related articles

• “Mrs. Dalloway” At 88 (theawl.com)
• The Invisible Thread: the Anniversary of Mrs. Dallwoay (anniecardi.com)
• Happy Birthday, Mrs. Dalloway! (theparisreview.org)

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Day 20 Creative Challenge - A Space of Your Own

Reblogged from ~Musings of a restless mind & an inspired spirit~:

One of my favorite books is Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own". I read this book several years ago for the first time and it left quite an impression on me. The summary of it was that everyone needs their own space to create. I always have a creative space. I have found over the years that sometimes that can be challenging.

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Bloomsbury in Bloom

Reblogged from Shine On:

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The sun is out, the sky is blue: it’s time to pack a picnic and head out to Charleston, the home and country meeting place for the writers, painters and intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury group.  The interior of the house is uniquely decorated by artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell (sister of Virginia Woolf). The gardens are perfect for generally loafing about and if you’re quick about it, you may still be able to get tickets for the Charleston Festival. 

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A video tour of Monk’s House

This video tour of Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Monk’s House in Rodmell, Sussex was produced by the BBC and is hosted by Paul Martin.

If you haven’t walked in her steps through England — or even if you have — this is a great way to get an up-close look at the Woolfs’ longtime home.

Related articles

• Monk’s House and Berwick (bookssnob.wordpress.com)
• Hogarth House, home to Virginia and Leonard Woolf (conwaydavid0.wordpress.com)

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Handwritten Manuscript Pages From Classic Novels

Reblogged from Flavorwire:

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These days, almost all works of literature are written on computers -- from their first inklings, saved in a document called "notes," to their final, emailed-out drafts -- and even, increasingly, read on them. In such a climate, we are even more fascinated by the handwritten drafts and original manuscripts of classic literature, from which much can be inferred via handwriting, paper choice, and strength of pen marks.

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Including a page from Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway

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Toby’s Room: Better late than never

 I finally read Pat Barker’s Toby’s Room. My library’s reservation system is fantastic but does require some patience! Paula first mentioned it here last summer, noting the allusions—in more than the title—to Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, as did Hermione Lee, who reviewed it for The Guardian.

I read Barker’s Life Class around that time before I knew it was the prequel to Toby’s Room, and I posted on the “near sightings,” the Bloomsbury references when the protagonist, Slade art student Elinor Brooke, has tea at Ottoline Morrell’s.

Elinor’s brother Toby, like Jacob before him, dies serving in World War I, and like Jacob is revealed mostly through family and friends. Toby’s Room is still Elinor’s story, in which she seeks to unearth the mysterious details of his death. Woolf appears in entries from Elinor’s diary. She records her impressions from a weekend at Charleston Farmhouse, presumably at the invitation of Vanessa Bell:

“VB was in the drawing room when I arrived, with her sister, Mrs. Woolf. I’ve met her more than once, though I don’t think she remembered me and gave me a lukewarm welcome. Doesn’t like young women, I suspect. I thought the talk would be well above my head, but they were quite relaxed and gossipy and we chatted on easily enough. Or they did. I was too nervous to say much. It was like listening to an old married couple. They’ve got that habit of completing each other’s sentences…”

The other guests are “the conscientiously objecting young men” working at the farm, none of whom, she realizes, are going to be interested in her. There’s talk of the war at dinner, and Woolf talks about “how women are outside the political process and therefore the war’s got nothing to do with them.”

Elinor is struck by Woolf’s observation but finds it less convincing when she later tries to echo the sentiment herself. Barker has no such problem making her case. In both novels, she challenges readers to explore the role of art and artists in time of war, heightening the drama with real, fictional and hybrid characters as she did in her Regeneration trilogy.

Related articles

• Pat Barker’s Life Class (rereadproject.wordpress.com)

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Video lecture on Virginia Woolf and painting

If you are interested in Virginia Woolf and art, a 46-minute introductory talk on “Women Writers and the Avant-Garde: Virginia Woolf and Painting“ is a real find.

Dr. Manuela Palacios González

Dr. Manuela Palacios González, professor of English Literature at the University of Santiago at Compostela, is the lecturer.

Thanks to Manuela Palacios Gonzalez for the link.

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Student tells digital story of Mrs. Dalloway passage

Erin M Kingsley, Ph.D. candidate and digital pedagogy instructor in the English Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, assigns her students a creative project each semester. This term,  one student turned a famous passage from Mrs. Dalloway into what Kingsley describes as “a compelling piece of digital storytelling.”

Kingsley said she enjoyed the video, particularly its flower imagery, and asked Virginia Woolf Listserv readers to share their thoughts.

Comments from a few Listserv readers are posted below. I invite you to watch The Odes to Time and share your response to this powerful and thought-provoking video in the comments section at the end of this post.

A quote from a Virginia Woolf Listserv reader:

I thought this was great! Startling and in a good way so as to make me see, think and feel the words and their movement. What a great project!

And another:

The word “time” split its husk; poured its riches over him; and from his lips fell like shells, like shavings from a plane, without his making them, hard, white, imperishable words, and flew to attach themselves to their places in an ode to Time.

We saw the 2 types of shell; it would have been good to have seen 2 types of  plane, and shavings from a plane.  I can’t remember when I last saw shavings from a plane in real life.  It takes me back to my childhood. The images certainly made me *think* about this sentence, not just read it.

And yet another:

VW constantly surprises with the freshness and sharpness of her images; she forces the grey matter to stand up and dance.

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