Virginia Woolf
(2000) by Nigel Nicolson
Except
for Jacob's Room,
my only experiences with the novels of Virginia Woolf ocurred in
college. We read Mrs.
Dalloway, To the Lighthouse,
and several of her essays/talks, including "A Room of One's Own"
and "Modern Fiction."
Except
for "A Room," I found myself underwhelmed by what I read.
Most likely, it was because I didn't approach her unique and
experimental style with an open mind. I knew what I liked, and I
found her works too bewildering to enjoy. Perhaps now, when I'm more
seasoned,
I'll be able to appreciate them more.
Despite
all of my complicated feelings about Woolf the writer, I found myself
loving
Woolf the woman after listening to this account of her life by Nigel
Nicolson, son of Woolf's friend and sometime-lover Vita
Sackville-West (married to Harold Nicolson). While Nigel only saw Virginia
once in a while, and mostly when he was a child, he remembered her
vibrant personality, intense curiousity, and brilliant conversation.
Nicolson explores Woolf's early years and the rise and fall of the
Bloomsbury group, as well as Woolf's complicated relationship with
her sister, Vanessa, and her love for Vita.
Quoting
often from Woolf's letters, essays, and journals, Nicolson offers us
a glimpse into the troubled but also exhilirated mind that produced
works like To the
Lighthouse
and Orlando.
We learn about Woolf's frequent battles with depression and
hallucinations, and her determination to continue writing, working at
the Hogarth Press, and traveling with her husband Leonard. Her
painstaking work on each of her novels and her developing political
and social views, as expressed in her essays and talks, reveal a mind
intensely curious about the world around it, but also determined to
help shape it.
Nicolson
inserts himself only a few times into the narrative (which is
somewhat jarring), but his respect for and admiration of Woolf is
obvious. This may not be the definitive
and exhaustive biography of Virginia Woolf, but it's a great place to
start for anyone interested in learning more about her life.
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