What impressed you most when it came to Virginia Woolf?
Is it the feminist pioneer who wrote that "if a woman wants to write, she must have money and a room of her own"?
Or a stream-of-consciousness literary representative alongside James Joyce?
Or is it a literary critic who is often astonishing, arrogant, sharp and mean?
Is it the genius female writer who fights mental illness in the classic movie "All the Time"?
Stills from the movie "All the Time"
Perhaps, the diary can bring us closer to the life and spiritual world of this legendary female writer.
Woolf has always kept a diary, starting on the eve of her 15th birthday and continuing to commit suicide by throwing herself into the water, she kept a diary for more than 40 years.
After her death, her husband, Leonard Woolf, compiled her diary and published it, and his original preface reads:
"For Woolf, in addition to recording her daily life and thinking about life and the universe, the diary is also her unique expression as a writer, in which she contemplates the works she is writing or preparing to write."
Recently, CITIC published an anthology of Woolf's diary, "Thinking Is My Resistance."
Thinking is my resistance Penguin Light Classic by Woolf CITIC Press Books ¥31.9 Purchase
In this book, we can see a more real and vivid side of this stream-of-consciousness fiction master and pioneer of feminism.
As a writer, her diary will focus more on the creation itself, exhausting the flowing psychology and emotions of writing, and also recording the "torture" of the mind caused by long ideas and revisions.
Today, let Ashin take everyone together and get closer to Woolf's world.
"Virginia Stephen"
To understand the life of a master, it is often necessary to start with her childhood.
On January 25, 1882, the Stephen family, who lived in Hyde Park Gate in London, welcomed the seventh child in the reorganized family, and they named the little girl "Virginia".
Stephen's family was a literary family, his father Leslie Stephen was a well-known writer, and his mother Julia was a beautiful model sought after by the Pre-Raphaelites.
Julia, Leslie and Virginia at Taran Manor, 1892
The two elders provided the children with a prosperous life, a rich education and a huge collection of books. Every summer, the whole family comes to Tarland Manor in St Ives, Cornwall, for a holiday.
Here, Woolf made memories of his childhood that will last a lifetime: chasing and frolicking in the garden, listening to the waves at night, and looking out over the lookout to the black rocks and white lighthouse in the bay.
"For almost forty years, everything was built here, everything was immersed in Si."
Godrevi Lighthouse in Cornwall
Woolf's time at Taran Manor profoundly influenced Woolf's literary creation, and her important works "Jacob's Room", "To the Lighthouse" and "The Waves" are echoes of this memory.
She wrote in her diary on May 14, 1925:
"Now, I have a strong desire to put aside the news and finish 'To the Lighthouse.'
The book should not be long: I will recreate the character of my father, but also the character of my mother, as well as St. Ives and my childhood, and explore the topics I often discuss in the book—life, death, and so on. ”
"Thinking is My Resistance" May 14 diary illustration
However, good times were always short-lived, and after the summer of 1895, the family did not continue their vacation plans - in May of that year, their mother Julia died of illness.
The days that followed were described by later Woolf as "seven unfortunate years": in 1897, his sister Stella died; In 1904, his father, Leslie, died after two years of illness.
The loss of loved ones caused Woolf to have several nervous breakdowns and tried to commit suicide by jumping out of a window. As an adult, she complained of being sexually assaulted by her half-brother and cousin.
It can be said that the various experiences in her teenage years profoundly affected her sensitive, negative, sharp and radical heart.
"Virginia Woolf"
Perhaps it is "endowed with vicissitudes and sentences", or perhaps it is the influence of family atmosphere, the children of Stephen's family have shown outstanding literary and artistic talent.
Virginia and her sister Vanessa met her younger brother Toby's classmates at Trinity College in Cambridge while studying at King's College London, and they gradually gathered around a group of like-minded "literary youths": they despised the moral precepts of the Victorian era and advocated loyalty to self-desire and pure aesthetics.
One of the most talked about by this group is that the royal delegation that once impersonated Abyssinia boarded the battleship "Intrepid", which is the most proud battleship of the British Royal Navy, making the navy a joke.
On the far left is Virginia Stephen
These talented young men often met at the Stephens' Bloomsbury residence, which formed the Bloomsbury Group.
Their circle, centered on intellectuals such as writers and artists, has profoundly influenced British society's views on literature, art, philosophy, feminism and sexual emancipation.
Later, the group was joined by the famous macroeconomist John Maynard Keynes, the writer E.M. Foster, and Leonard Woolf, the soul mate of the second half of Virginia's life.
A still from the Broomsbury group's short play "Breaking Through the Cage"
In 1912, Virginia Stephen and Leonard Woolf registered their marriage, and since then, her name has changed to the familiar title - Virginia Woolf.
In 1915, the couple moved to Hogarth House on Paradise Road—the year our diary selection began.
Hogarth House in illustration of "Thinking is My Resistance"
In 1917, they bought a printer and founded the later famous "Hogarth Press" at home to satisfy Woolf's need to create freely without the constraints of the publishing house (she called herself "the only woman in England who could write freely") and to ease Woolf's emotions through manual work such as typesetting and printing—at this time, she had not fully recovered from a nervous breakdown in 1915.
It can be said that this up-and-coming publishing house witnessed the birth of almost all of Woolf's important works.
Even after the death of Virginia during World War I, World War II, Leonard persevered with his printing career.
Stills from the movie "All the Time"
A small book that delves into Woolf's inner world
Woolf began keeping a diary at the age of 15, and early on, she invented a "Miss Jan" to refer to herself. And as she grew older and became self-conscious and feminine-conscious, the style of her diary changed.
Thinking is My Resistance is a selection of Woolf's diaries written between 1915 and 1941, an important period in her married emotional life, literary creation and publishing career, and her style in the diary began to stabilize, mature, and continue.
In this little book, you can truly see the highlights and abysses of the legendary writer's life from the age of 33 to 59: including the writing and publication of his masterpieces, the friendship with Leonard, the story with his girlfriend Vera, the literary exchange with friends, the recurrence of depression, the last time before his death...
Her words are sometimes lively, sometimes mean, sometimes depressing, but always full of spirituality and beauty.
There is a sharp and venomous tongue that evaluates "Ulysses":
"I should read Ulysses now and look for reasons for it and against it. I've read 200 pages so far—less than a third.
The first two or three chapters I read with pleasure, excitement, fascination and interest, and then I felt confused, bored, annoyed, and disappointed, like witnessing an anxious college student scratching his acne. ”
There is also a surge of excitement when I hear about the masterpiece:
(T.S.) Eliot came to dinner last Sunday and read his poem.
He chants it, chants it, gives it rhythm. The sentences, symmetry and tension of the poem reveal unparalleled beauty and power. I can't tell you what makes it so cohesive. But he kept reciting until he had to leave in a hurry, so we didn't have time to discuss. But I listened to it.
The poem is called "The Wasteland." ”
There are frustrations when writing is not in good shape:
"Shame! Shameful! Shameful! From April 27 to today, I haven't remembered a word. And I'm writing this diary now just so as not to transcribe a page or two of Jacob's Room. ”
There is also self-analysis when fighting depression:
"No, I'm not going to examine myself. I marked Henry James's words: Don't stop watching. Observe how old age arrives. Observe greed. Watch your depression so that it can come in handy – at least I hope. I am determined to spend this time in the best possible way. ”
And her last diary, stopped 4 days before committing suicide by throwing herself into the water, she wrote about her silence during communication, about the windy weather, about the idea of the work, and the last sentence was - "L (Leonard) is fiddling with azaleas..."
Stills from the movie "All the Time"
"Keeping a diary is like tickling; If written smoothly, it's like taking a bath. "From 1915 to 1941, you can see Woolf's story in your diary and see Woolf's thinking.
Woolf has always resisted the world in her own way, and thinking is her resistance.