Showing posts with label Bloomsbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bloomsbury. Show all posts
Friday, 7 April 2017
Vaessa Bell - paintings - beautiful exhibition at Dulwich
I had to change my judgement of Vanessa Bell ans I had thought her a painter of ugly blobs in unfortunate colours, and an amateurish try hard. But I really loved many of the pictures in this exhibition and now I am full of respect for Mrs Bell for going on and on with her work and experimenting with, for example, Picasso's style or Matisse's style and continuing to plough her own furrow. I can see now that she did deserve the respect her sister gave her (I sort of feel that VW thought VB the true-er artist of the two.)
Wednesday, 6 April 2016
Gerald Brenan - South from Grenada
This is an extraordinary book which tells about the culture of southern Spain in the early 19th century, just after World War 1. The writer goes to live in Spain because it is cheap and he wants to be a writer. I think, after the horror of the war (he went through the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele) , he feels that the world owes him a living, and is quite frank about writing hopefully to various uncles and asking them for money. Sometimes he gets money, not always.
He plays host to Lytton Strachey and Carrington, and he narrates their visit amusingly - he was in love with Carrington for a very long time. Later Virginia and Leonard Woolf also pay a visit and are very struck with this part of Spain - which has a character like something from the Middle Ages. The Spanish are great at keeping their festivals and culture alive today but they are nothing like they were, simply because the belief in the efficacy of the rites has been lost. Here is an account of a village Easter.
This is from the introduction (by Chris Stewart) to the Penguin Modern Classic edition:
(I don't think I have ever met a brilliant and generous conversationalist.)
The extract below is translated by Google and copied from a webpage on Gerald Brenan Spanish course here- this is the kind of English I correct. Sometimes the misuse of words is quite funny. My Spanish students actually write better English than this so it is easy to tell when they try to cheat by using Google translate.
The April 23 was chosen by UNESCO as World Book Day, since it coincides with the death of Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare. On this day we remember Gerald Brenan, specialist writer on issues of Spain.
Gerald Brenan (1894) was the eldest son of a British soldier who was destined to continue the family tradition by desire of his father, when he began to have use of reason, he discovered he did not like the games in which he had to show his strength but he preferred the quiet of reading a book. Brenan studied up to 18 years in England to enter the military academy. At this age, he realized that he was being prepared for a profession that was not attractive way of life as to what he rebelled and fled with a friend. The First World War forced him to fight and was decorated. He got a pension with the help of his family, allowed him to find a place in Spain (Yegen) where he could devote himself to what he liked: study of literature, botany, philosophy, arts in general, etc .. since did not go to college like most of his friends (Circle Bloomsbory). his passion was poetry, but he knew he could not make a living as a poet. His father demanded to live a useful profession. For this reason, he decided to write novels and married an American novelist Gamel Woolsey; she corrected and typed his works. They had no children, Brenan adopted a daughter who was the result of a love affair with a young Spanish. Brenan realized that the dwelling place was idyllic but was held incommunicado to continue his career. They moved to a place of great beauty, strategically located. Churriana (Málaga), next to the airport and relatively close to Gibraltar This is where your dream comes true. Brenan is on site and at the right time when exploding Spanish civil war. England was very interested in this confrontation, he would report through their stories about what happened and later wrote a book about the causes of the Spanish war. Brenan that had gone unnoticed, began to be heard and recognized internationally, especially in Spain where his book "The Spanish Labyrinth" was banned, becoming a symbol of freedom for dissidents dictator Franco.Tras this book, wrote others about Spain: "the History of Spanish Literature" and "the Face of Spain", the result of a trip in 1950. the war had given him the epithet of specialist Spain writer but he was forced to leave his house with a lovely garden in Churriana, where he left the service staff (cook, gardener). on his return to Malaga (1953), he returned to his beloved Brenan lifestyle in which he wrote for the morning and walking in the evenings; he enjoyed the climate, diet and people. He wore an intense social life, made contact with writers like Hemingway or Caro Baroja, etc. Here wrote one of his most famous stories "South of Granada" A Life of one's Own (autobiography) and The Lighthouse Always Says Yes they came to light in 1962 and in 1966. in 1968, killed his wife and collaborator, though he was shocked, he joined his fate to a young woman (Linda Nicholson-Price) that helped to continue its vital objective: writing. They felt they had to start in a new place within the province so they decided to sell the house and fire service. At this stage he published Personal Memory, John of the Cross, The Best Moments: Poems; Thoughts in a Dry Season. Aphorisms In 1987, died at 92 years old. His body was donated to the Faculty of Medicine, some nerve cells were taken for the study of longevity. In 2001 he was cremated and buried in the English Cemetery in Malaga with his wife.
 |
| Carrington painted him |
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| Carrington painted him more than once. This should be in the NPG. |
He plays host to Lytton Strachey and Carrington, and he narrates their visit amusingly - he was in love with Carrington for a very long time. Later Virginia and Leonard Woolf also pay a visit and are very struck with this part of Spain - which has a character like something from the Middle Ages. The Spanish are great at keeping their festivals and culture alive today but they are nothing like they were, simply because the belief in the efficacy of the rites has been lost. Here is an account of a village Easter.
The Easter ceremonies had a peculiar vividness. From the morning of Palm Sunday a silence fell on the village and lasted till the end of the week. During this time no one shouted or sang, and the sound of the pestle and mortar, that gay prelude to every Andalusian meal, ceased to be heard. Then on the night of Holy Thursday the figure of the Crucified Christ was borne in slow procession with torches and candles as far as the stone Calvary that stands among the olive trees a little below the village. At every halt a low, sad copla was sung. On the following evening there was a yet more lugubrious procession, when his dead body was carried in silence in a glass coffin to the same place and then brought back to the church to be interred....
The fast was now ended, but the final scene of the drama had yet to be played. At daybreak on Easter Sunday the young men got the church key from the sacristan, took out the figure of the Risen Christ, and carried it to the square at the lower end of the village, He was represented as a young man in a green dress and, as if to associate him with Adonis and Osiris and all the man-gods who had died in order that the corn might spring again and the sap rise yet once more in the stems, he was crowned with leaves; a bunch of flowers was placed in his right hand and a sheaf of barley in his left. He was set up on a platform in the humble square with its low unplastered houses, and the villagers - especially the poorer families - collected round with cries of Viva, viva el Senor.
 |
| I have chosen a picture of Easter in a Colombian village because the pictures I can find of Easter in Spain are so stagey, grand and impressive and show people dressed up like the Ku Klux Klan, which Brenan never mentioned. |
.... at nine o'clock when the Virgin was carried out in her green, star-spangled dress they fell into line behind her and formed a procession. This was the dramatic moment of the Easter ceremonies, which even the simplest of the shepherd boys understood, for the Virgin had found the grave open and missed her son, and was sallying out to seek for him. ... As soon as the figure of the Virgin arrived in front of that of the Christ, she curtsied to him three times: the priest stepped forward to sprinkle him with holy water and incense him, and she was brought up tottering to the edge of the platform on which he stood. Then, when she was only a couple of feet away, his arms, which moved on strings, were raised in a jerky movement to touch her shoulders. This was the signal for the silence to break.
This is from the introduction (by Chris Stewart) to the Penguin Modern Classic edition:
"And it is precisely in this amateur and eclectic approach, embellished with meticulously crafted discourses on subjects as diverse as toxicology and Sufism, Mediterranean agriculture and prehistoric archaeology, that the pleasure of South from Granada lies."
"There are those who would criticise the book for a certain lack of organisation, and it is true that there is an element of rambling to it, but for me rambling is in the very nature of a discursive book; it is redeemed though, and its sometimes tangled threads given cohesion, by the illuminating and all-pervading presence of it author. This is achieved by the wit and warmth as well as the penetrating intelligence he brings to bear on any subject he approaches, and its couching in what seems like effortlessly graceful prose, although in fact he spared no pains in honing and polishing his writing - two and a half years in the case of this book."
"He read French, German and Spanish, as well as Latin and Greek, and during the writing of The Literature of the Spanish People read no fewer than two hundred and fifty books in two and a half years... He was as happy, or perhaps happier, striding high in the mountains with shepherds as he was in earnest discussion with the luminaries of Bloomsbury. He was also a brilliant and generous conversationalist."
(I don't think I have ever met a brilliant and generous conversationalist.)
The extract below is translated by Google and copied from a webpage on Gerald Brenan Spanish course here- this is the kind of English I correct. Sometimes the misuse of words is quite funny. My Spanish students actually write better English than this so it is easy to tell when they try to cheat by using Google translate.
The April 23 was chosen by UNESCO as World Book Day, since it coincides with the death of Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare. On this day we remember Gerald Brenan, specialist writer on issues of Spain.
Gerald Brenan (1894) was the eldest son of a British soldier who was destined to continue the family tradition by desire of his father, when he began to have use of reason, he discovered he did not like the games in which he had to show his strength but he preferred the quiet of reading a book. Brenan studied up to 18 years in England to enter the military academy. At this age, he realized that he was being prepared for a profession that was not attractive way of life as to what he rebelled and fled with a friend. The First World War forced him to fight and was decorated. He got a pension with the help of his family, allowed him to find a place in Spain (Yegen) where he could devote himself to what he liked: study of literature, botany, philosophy, arts in general, etc .. since did not go to college like most of his friends (Circle Bloomsbory). his passion was poetry, but he knew he could not make a living as a poet. His father demanded to live a useful profession. For this reason, he decided to write novels and married an American novelist Gamel Woolsey; she corrected and typed his works. They had no children, Brenan adopted a daughter who was the result of a love affair with a young Spanish. Brenan realized that the dwelling place was idyllic but was held incommunicado to continue his career. They moved to a place of great beauty, strategically located. Churriana (Málaga), next to the airport and relatively close to Gibraltar This is where your dream comes true. Brenan is on site and at the right time when exploding Spanish civil war. England was very interested in this confrontation, he would report through their stories about what happened and later wrote a book about the causes of the Spanish war. Brenan that had gone unnoticed, began to be heard and recognized internationally, especially in Spain where his book "The Spanish Labyrinth" was banned, becoming a symbol of freedom for dissidents dictator Franco.Tras this book, wrote others about Spain: "the History of Spanish Literature" and "the Face of Spain", the result of a trip in 1950. the war had given him the epithet of specialist Spain writer but he was forced to leave his house with a lovely garden in Churriana, where he left the service staff (cook, gardener). on his return to Malaga (1953), he returned to his beloved Brenan lifestyle in which he wrote for the morning and walking in the evenings; he enjoyed the climate, diet and people. He wore an intense social life, made contact with writers like Hemingway or Caro Baroja, etc. Here wrote one of his most famous stories "South of Granada" A Life of one's Own (autobiography) and The Lighthouse Always Says Yes they came to light in 1962 and in 1966. in 1968, killed his wife and collaborator, though he was shocked, he joined his fate to a young woman (Linda Nicholson-Price) that helped to continue its vital objective: writing. They felt they had to start in a new place within the province so they decided to sell the house and fire service. At this stage he published Personal Memory, John of the Cross, The Best Moments: Poems; Thoughts in a Dry Season. Aphorisms In 1987, died at 92 years old. His body was donated to the Faculty of Medicine, some nerve cells were taken for the study of longevity. In 2001 he was cremated and buried in the English Cemetery in Malaga with his wife.
Wednesday, 7 October 2015
The Diary of Virginia Woolf Vol II 1920-24
This diary is that of a very fulfilled woman. She is still at work on the printing press in the afternoons, but has time to read and write - fewer reviews and better paid - and write her novels. She is happily preparing and writing "the Hours" which became "Mrs Dalloway" during this period. Katherine Mansfield dies, and although VW knew that she was always jealous of her, she misses her. she finds that most of her group have turned out to be successful, and she feels she wants to reward herself by leaving Hogarth House in Richmond and returning to London, which she and Leonard eventually do. They find themselves a Bloomsbury house with a basement in which they can install the press, and take the flat on the second floor. They have started to employ a succession of helpers at the printing press, and one, Ralph Partridge, marries Carrington and is unfaithful to her ("the village Don Juan") making the whole circle very unstable for a while, for Lytton loves Ralph and Carrington loves Lytton. then there are two further printing press employees in this volume alone.
Crossword Clue: (from The Week): Virginia's partner into endless marijuana? That's serious.
It's a classic clue. Virginia's partner is Vita and endless marijuana is gras. Together = gravitas. But could you get it if you didn't know VW had a love affair with a person called Vita?
Anyway, in this book Vita comes on the scene and at first VW is not impressed. "We had a surprise visit from the Nicolsons. She is a pronounced Sapphist, & may, thinks Ethel Sands, have an eye on me, old though I am. Nature might have sharpened her faculties. [whose?] Snob as I am, I trace her passions 500 years back, & they become romantic to me, like old yellow wine."
At one point I'm sure she says that Vita has a perfect body, but can't find that bit now. Ah yes. "All these ancestors and centuries, & silver & gold, have bred a perfect body. She is stag like, or race horse like, save for the face, which pouts, & has no very sharp brain."
Not very impressed then. But Vita pursues L & V determinedly! "Vita was here for Sunday, [Rodmell] gliding down the village in her large new blue Austin car, which she manages consummately. She was dressed in ringed yellow jersey, & a large hat, & had dressing case all full of silver and night gowns wrapped in tissue. ... But I like her being honourable, & she is it; a perfect lady, with all the dash & courage of the aristocracy, & less of its childishness than I expected. ...
"Vita,...is like an over ripe grape in features [no, me neither], moustached, pouting, will be a little heavy; meanswhile, she strides on fine legs, in a well cut skirt, & though embarrassing at breakfast, [oh do tell how!] has a manly good sense & simplicity about her which both L & I find satisfactory. Oh yes, I like her; could tack her on to my equipage for all time, & suppose if life allowed, this might be a friendship of a sort."
The real hero of this volume is Leonard. The artistic types are always asking his advice about money and practical matters. He takes Virginia to Spain for an adventurous holiday. He writes his own, serious books about Africa and India and he is the editor of a magazine called the Nation. He lectures working men and others about aspects of socialism and is always politically active and committed. He is the foundation of Virginia's happiness. Now she is getting taken up with titled people and the rich, seems to love it all, and what happened to socialism, Virginia?
Crossword Clue: (from The Week): Virginia's partner into endless marijuana? That's serious.
It's a classic clue. Virginia's partner is Vita and endless marijuana is gras. Together = gravitas. But could you get it if you didn't know VW had a love affair with a person called Vita?
Anyway, in this book Vita comes on the scene and at first VW is not impressed. "We had a surprise visit from the Nicolsons. She is a pronounced Sapphist, & may, thinks Ethel Sands, have an eye on me, old though I am. Nature might have sharpened her faculties. [whose?] Snob as I am, I trace her passions 500 years back, & they become romantic to me, like old yellow wine."
At one point I'm sure she says that Vita has a perfect body, but can't find that bit now. Ah yes. "All these ancestors and centuries, & silver & gold, have bred a perfect body. She is stag like, or race horse like, save for the face, which pouts, & has no very sharp brain."
Not very impressed then. But Vita pursues L & V determinedly! "Vita was here for Sunday, [Rodmell] gliding down the village in her large new blue Austin car, which she manages consummately. She was dressed in ringed yellow jersey, & a large hat, & had dressing case all full of silver and night gowns wrapped in tissue. ... But I like her being honourable, & she is it; a perfect lady, with all the dash & courage of the aristocracy, & less of its childishness than I expected. ...
"Vita,...is like an over ripe grape in features [no, me neither], moustached, pouting, will be a little heavy; meanswhile, she strides on fine legs, in a well cut skirt, & though embarrassing at breakfast, [oh do tell how!] has a manly good sense & simplicity about her which both L & I find satisfactory. Oh yes, I like her; could tack her on to my equipage for all time, & suppose if life allowed, this might be a friendship of a sort."
 |
| Vita was "embarrassing at breakfast". I chose this pic in which she is not wearing a hat, so we we may judge whether or not she looks like an over-ripe grape. (And Molesworth 2 have a face like a squished tomato) |
The real hero of this volume is Leonard. The artistic types are always asking his advice about money and practical matters. He takes Virginia to Spain for an adventurous holiday. He writes his own, serious books about Africa and India and he is the editor of a magazine called the Nation. He lectures working men and others about aspects of socialism and is always politically active and committed. He is the foundation of Virginia's happiness. Now she is getting taken up with titled people and the rich, seems to love it all, and what happened to socialism, Virginia?
 |
| Leonard seems to have been short and small, very narrow-chested, with a disproportionately large head. |
Thursday, 24 September 2015
New Term
I am taking it easy this term and teaching very little. My evening class last night was a bit of a trial as I now have Level 1s instead of Level 2s and some of them have never learned grammar before; have no idea that there are the present simple and present continuous and have always muddled along with some approximation of the two. I feel sad that I have to break the news that they have so much to learn. Those who have come from Entry 3 of course, at least know the names of some of the tenses, and know what a noun is; what a verb is and what an adjective is. I wrote definitions of these on the board last night. I had not planned to but I realised that this was needed. Actually, I am not a bad teacher, but have to hurry around the class too much .
I miss my old class!
Last night I couldn't sleep - probably woken by hunger and the acorns falling on the roof - I was very hungry as I didn't eat properly in the evening - but I want to lose weight anyway. So I went to F's room and read a lot more of Virginia Woolf's diary Vol 2 - same old cheap edition; the cover has fallen off but I can use it as a bookmark. I am enjoying all the Bloomsbury gossip. She has started to report conversations for the sheer fun of it; it's lovely to read. She is very funny sometimes. She gets very down in the dumps about certain things - feels such intense rivalry with Katherine Mansfield - they all think J.M. Murry is a terrible man but they think he's bound for glory, which galls them, The Woolfs heard that their view at Rodmell was about to be destroyed by a new house being built right next to their garden, you can almost feel Virginia's angst and anger - that didn't happen, (thank God, because it's so lovely now), and Leonard and V. bought the land themselves and extended their garden, so they finally could relax about that. VW has started to be comfortable around Tom Eliot "Eliot's visit passed off successfully, & yet I am disappointed to find that I am no longer afraid of him." - He is rather proud of some poems he wants the Hogarth to print - called "The Waste Land". Then she is still up against her servants Lottie and Nelly. "Refer back to some other scene of the kind if you wish to know how many hours have been wasted; how many reflections upon the lower classes formulated; & how often L[eonard] has approached me before I order dinner with a pained, solicitous appearance, begging me on no account to say this or that, strongly advising me at all costs to make something else plain."
I went to the dentist this morning and now I have another gold tooth - hope it will be comfortable like the others. I have a most expensive mouth. It has been a terribly expensive month, and this comes on top of Australia, which cost I don't like to say how much. We had to spend a lot on F - buy stethoscope, memberships, warm coat, food, towels, all sorts of things. Then my dentistry. The dentist, Catherine, says I huff and sigh in the chair and she is quite sarcastic about it, finds it irritating although I don't know I'm doing it; I don't feel like a bad patient.
Went to the happiest shop I know - Waitrose in Hersham. Everybody smiles and is happy and chatty. The staff seem to spend all day gossiping but they do run a good shop. They just can't do enough to help you.
Then went to the garden centre for something to cover the seedlings. I bought a sort of kit - a bit like K'nex for putting bamboo canes together, and a big net. Better go and do it now.
I miss my old class!
Last night I couldn't sleep - probably woken by hunger and the acorns falling on the roof - I was very hungry as I didn't eat properly in the evening - but I want to lose weight anyway. So I went to F's room and read a lot more of Virginia Woolf's diary Vol 2 - same old cheap edition; the cover has fallen off but I can use it as a bookmark. I am enjoying all the Bloomsbury gossip. She has started to report conversations for the sheer fun of it; it's lovely to read. She is very funny sometimes. She gets very down in the dumps about certain things - feels such intense rivalry with Katherine Mansfield - they all think J.M. Murry is a terrible man but they think he's bound for glory, which galls them, The Woolfs heard that their view at Rodmell was about to be destroyed by a new house being built right next to their garden, you can almost feel Virginia's angst and anger - that didn't happen, (thank God, because it's so lovely now), and Leonard and V. bought the land themselves and extended their garden, so they finally could relax about that. VW has started to be comfortable around Tom Eliot "Eliot's visit passed off successfully, & yet I am disappointed to find that I am no longer afraid of him." - He is rather proud of some poems he wants the Hogarth to print - called "The Waste Land". Then she is still up against her servants Lottie and Nelly. "Refer back to some other scene of the kind if you wish to know how many hours have been wasted; how many reflections upon the lower classes formulated; & how often L[eonard] has approached me before I order dinner with a pained, solicitous appearance, begging me on no account to say this or that, strongly advising me at all costs to make something else plain."
I went to the dentist this morning and now I have another gold tooth - hope it will be comfortable like the others. I have a most expensive mouth. It has been a terribly expensive month, and this comes on top of Australia, which cost I don't like to say how much. We had to spend a lot on F - buy stethoscope, memberships, warm coat, food, towels, all sorts of things. Then my dentistry. The dentist, Catherine, says I huff and sigh in the chair and she is quite sarcastic about it, finds it irritating although I don't know I'm doing it; I don't feel like a bad patient.
Went to the happiest shop I know - Waitrose in Hersham. Everybody smiles and is happy and chatty. The staff seem to spend all day gossiping but they do run a good shop. They just can't do enough to help you.
Then went to the garden centre for something to cover the seedlings. I bought a sort of kit - a bit like K'nex for putting bamboo canes together, and a big net. Better go and do it now.
Thursday, 21 May 2015
The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume 1, 1915-19 part 1, post 1
Last night I had to get up and check the dictionary
because, during the evening class, I had written ~"defence" on the board and I was suddenly sure it was the wrong spelling! Shouldn't it be "defense"? But the latter, it turns out, is the US spelling, which I occasionally mention but I don't teach.
that is typical of a night after teaching. I go to sleep but I wake up with random teaching-related thoughts and then I have a mental review of the lesson.
In the night I continued reading a book I bought when I was at University "The Diary of Virginia Woolf 1915-9". Although I read it all those years ago I can't really remember it so it's a terrific surprise. Mrs W is living in Richmond with her husband Leonard, and walks to the butcher and the grocer when she needs to, and they walk to Twickenham or to Kingston most days, which must have been the thing in those days as all the Bloomsbury group walked every day.
She likes going to London for the Library and to the 1917 Club, which seems to have been founded as a place for Bloomsburies to meet their young followers. The original Bloomsburies are already minor legends! even though VW has written only one novel at this time. She is making her living (and so is LW) by writing reviews in the TLS and other notable publications. They buy a manual printing press and begin by publishing Katherine Mansfield stories. Meanwhile, Nessa is seeing out the war at Charleston because Duncan and Bunny are conchies and so have to work as farm labourers. Leonard is simply in poor health and after attending many army medical boards, it is established that he does not have to fight. Maynard is working for the government and I am not sure how Lytton avoids the war, but like the others he takes a house in the country (with Carrington). and there are loads more people in the book because VW has an incredible social circle. To start with, she is related to a vast array of people, some rather grand and titled, and some ordinary folk, and then a great number of literary grandees are somehow blood relatives, and then all her friendships seem to be long-lasting and involve more and more people. Yet often she and Leonard sit by the fire and read in the evenings, or play cards, and that's what she likes as much as anything. People make social visits without warning and she has to give them (whoever it is) lunch or tea or dinner, and it must be very difficult because as the war goes on food is in very short supply, and so is coal.
VW doesn't cook anything - she has a couple of servants called Nelly and Lottie to do the cleaning and the cooking, but because of the air raids she and Leonard frequently spend the nights in the kitchen with the servants, chatting away for hours and hours to keep their spirits up. VW doesn't really like the servants but can't manage without them. That's an aspect of her life that is really strange. When she and L go down to the house they rent in the country, Asheham, they have to take the servants too, in the train, and it's weirdly like taking your pets with you. Supposedly she is a revolutionary who wants everyone to have the same: £300 a year is the figure mentioned; so where are the servants going to come from in that scheme of things?
She is incredibly nasty about the lower classes and how limited their thinking is; and even though her husband works hard for the cause of Ceylonese luminaries, and she has them round for tea and so forth, she refers to them as "darkies". Then she also tells that Katherine Mansfield smells like a civet cat and it's really unpleasant to be in the same room as her! There are many of these astonishing bits and that's why it's so entertaining.
The war starts distantly from London but by the end there are bombing raids by planes whenever the moon is out, and London suffers, but most of all, can't sleep at night.
Her brother-in-law (Cecil) was killed in the war and she writes nothing at all about how L feels about this, or anything about how she feels, but she and L are now planning to print a small book of Cecil's poems, so I think they do have feelings which she chooses not to share.
because, during the evening class, I had written ~"defence" on the board and I was suddenly sure it was the wrong spelling! Shouldn't it be "defense"? But the latter, it turns out, is the US spelling, which I occasionally mention but I don't teach.
that is typical of a night after teaching. I go to sleep but I wake up with random teaching-related thoughts and then I have a mental review of the lesson.
In the night I continued reading a book I bought when I was at University "The Diary of Virginia Woolf 1915-9". Although I read it all those years ago I can't really remember it so it's a terrific surprise. Mrs W is living in Richmond with her husband Leonard, and walks to the butcher and the grocer when she needs to, and they walk to Twickenham or to Kingston most days, which must have been the thing in those days as all the Bloomsbury group walked every day.
She likes going to London for the Library and to the 1917 Club, which seems to have been founded as a place for Bloomsburies to meet their young followers. The original Bloomsburies are already minor legends! even though VW has written only one novel at this time. She is making her living (and so is LW) by writing reviews in the TLS and other notable publications. They buy a manual printing press and begin by publishing Katherine Mansfield stories. Meanwhile, Nessa is seeing out the war at Charleston because Duncan and Bunny are conchies and so have to work as farm labourers. Leonard is simply in poor health and after attending many army medical boards, it is established that he does not have to fight. Maynard is working for the government and I am not sure how Lytton avoids the war, but like the others he takes a house in the country (with Carrington). and there are loads more people in the book because VW has an incredible social circle. To start with, she is related to a vast array of people, some rather grand and titled, and some ordinary folk, and then a great number of literary grandees are somehow blood relatives, and then all her friendships seem to be long-lasting and involve more and more people. Yet often she and Leonard sit by the fire and read in the evenings, or play cards, and that's what she likes as much as anything. People make social visits without warning and she has to give them (whoever it is) lunch or tea or dinner, and it must be very difficult because as the war goes on food is in very short supply, and so is coal.
VW doesn't cook anything - she has a couple of servants called Nelly and Lottie to do the cleaning and the cooking, but because of the air raids she and Leonard frequently spend the nights in the kitchen with the servants, chatting away for hours and hours to keep their spirits up. VW doesn't really like the servants but can't manage without them. That's an aspect of her life that is really strange. When she and L go down to the house they rent in the country, Asheham, they have to take the servants too, in the train, and it's weirdly like taking your pets with you. Supposedly she is a revolutionary who wants everyone to have the same: £300 a year is the figure mentioned; so where are the servants going to come from in that scheme of things?
She is incredibly nasty about the lower classes and how limited their thinking is; and even though her husband works hard for the cause of Ceylonese luminaries, and she has them round for tea and so forth, she refers to them as "darkies". Then she also tells that Katherine Mansfield smells like a civet cat and it's really unpleasant to be in the same room as her! There are many of these astonishing bits and that's why it's so entertaining.
The war starts distantly from London but by the end there are bombing raids by planes whenever the moon is out, and London suffers, but most of all, can't sleep at night.
Her brother-in-law (Cecil) was killed in the war and she writes nothing at all about how L feels about this, or anything about how she feels, but she and L are now planning to print a small book of Cecil's poems, so I think they do have feelings which she chooses not to share.
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