WOOLFING # 32

“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter very much, do they?”

— Virginia Woolf, Night and Day

WOOLFING # 31

STICK IT TO THE MAN WITH 10 VIRGINIA WOOLF QUESTIONS FOR THINKERS 

By MEAGHAN WAGNER

Virginia Woolf, born this week in 1882, was a singular figure in literature and in history.  A writer whose work wouldn't be appreciated for decades after her own life, Woolf nevertheless came to be considered a seminal modernist and exerted influence on major thinkers of the day through letters and conversation. Her tenacious focus on women, particularly the inner lives of "average" women, and her eloquent way of expressing the detriment of double standards are what set her apart from her contemporaries and blazed a trail for women in all professions, writing and beyond.
In large part, her success stemmed from her willingness to challenge conventions. Her brothers were formally educated at Cambridge and she had no compunction about showing her resentment at being denied the same opportunity. Instead, she became a strong advocate of independent education especially in the forms of broad reading and writing beyond the accepted cannon. Perhaps because of this, one quality that pervades all of her writing -- fiction, nonfiction, even her personal diaries -- is the propensity to ask questions. Often it's rhetorical, occasionally it's more stylistic, but always her questions push the reader to think independently.So in celebration of Woolf's 134th birthday, we've assembled a list of some of her most thought-provoking questions for you to ponder for yourself.

1. How could one leap on the back of life and wring its scruff? (“20 February 1930.” A Moment's Liberty, 1990)

2. The streets of London have their map; but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner? (Jacob's Room, 1922)

3. What is the meaning of life? That was all — a simple question. (To the Lighthouse, 1927)

4. I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill. ("Professions for Women." The Death of the Moth and Other Essays ,1942)

5. Here I come to one of the memoir writer’s difficulties — one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: ‘This is what happened’; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. Who was I then?  (A Sketch of the Past, 1939)

6. But to go deeper, beneath what people said (and these judgments, how superficial, how fragmentary they are!) in her own mind now, what did it mean to her, this thing she called life? (Mrs. Dalloway, 1925)

7. Outwardly, what is simpler than to write books? Outwardly, what obstacles are there for a woman rather than for a man? Inwardly, I think, the case is very different. ("Professions for Women." The Death of the Moth and Other Essays ,1942)

8. Perhaps I have been too happy for my soul's good? And does some of my discontent come from feeling that? (“2 January 1923.” A Moment's Liberty,1990)

9. Life for both sexes — and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement — is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to one self.  (A Room of One's Own, 1929)

10. Why have I so little control? It is the case of much waste and pain in my life. (“15 September 1926.” A Moment's Liberty, 1990)

WOOLFING # 30

On this day in 1924, Virginia Woolf and her husband bought a house at 52 Tavistock Square, in the Bloomsbury district of London near the British Museum. Woolf had been associated with the district since 1902, when she took a house in the area with her three siblings after their father's death. She had remained in the neighborhood, becoming a central character of the "Bloomsbury Group," a set of writers and thinkers including biographer Lytton Strachey and writer E.M. Forster.

(NOTE: 52 Tavistock Square: The Bloomsbury house Woolf lived in the longest, and where she wrote most of her novels, was destroyed in WWII and replaced by part of the Tavistock Hotel. At 52 Tavistock Square, Virginia and Leonard lived on the top two floors, with a firm of solicitors on the ground two floors, and the Hogarth Press in the basement, where Virginia also had a writing room.)

Image: Bust of Virginia Woolf in Tavistock Square

WOOLFING # 29

"Lock up your libraries, if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."

Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own (1929)

Já que não existe lugar para o meu pensamento junto das cobras e dos ratos que habitam o bairro do Butantã, serei a voz que desafina em outro lugar.

Estou longe de ser alguém que está no mundo apenas para marcar presença: sem falsa modéstia e sem um pingo de arrogância, vim para a fazer a diferença! E assim cumpro a sina maldita que me cabe neste latifúndio acadêmico quadrado e tacanho...

Tal qual foi dito tão brilhantemente por Virginia Woolf, não existe limite algum para a minha capacidade intelectual. Sei que existe um espaço para o livre pensar, independentemente de qualquer demanda ridícula e absurda de "redefinição de objeto de pesquisa". E sei que em algum lugar deve haver um lugar para mim... Eu estudei em duas universidades diferentes (uma privada e uma federal): o pouco mérito que recebi foi fruto de muito esforço, de muito sacrifício, de muita provação. Acho que, faltando pouco tempo para chegar aos meus 35 anos de idade, já passei da hora de acreditar de que preciso provar minha capacidade para os outros...

Parece que tudo isso não é o suficiente. Mas tudo bem, não vou me deter: a minha persistência é inesgotável! Os medíocres podem fechar alguns portões para mim, porém sempre há um lugar onde eu possa entrar pela porta da frente e com todo o respeito que eu mereço e eu gosto!

Eu caio derrotado pela mediocridade mais uma vez hoje. Choro de ódio e frustração. A partir de amanhã, vou levantar e começar tudo de novo: como tantas vezes fiz!

Porque viver é andar para frente. E eu sigo adiante!

Como bom aquariano que sou...

WOOLFING # 28

From Virginia to Leonard: 

"If I were thinking clearly, Leonard, I would tell you that I wrestle alone, in the dark, and that only I can know. Only I can understand my own condition".

WOOLFING # 27

"Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends."Virginia Woolf

WOOLFING # 26

Leonard Woolf: "How was your sleep?"
Virginia Woolf: "Uneventful..."