It’s Sept. 1, which means we have only three days to wait until the U.S. Sept. 4 release of the film Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day, a playful and visually stunning adaptation of Woolf’s second and longest novel that emphasizes Woolf’s feminist theme.
Night & Day is an unromantic comedy about a passionate astronomer Katharine Hilbery who does everything she can to avoid romantic love and marriage. – official synopsis
Screenings
A Hilbery family portrait
The film will be shown in more than 100 U.S. cinemas in these cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, Portland, Phoenix, Austin, San Diego, Miami, Detroit, Cleveland and Nashville.
Released in the UK on June 19, after premiering in the European market early this year, Digital Spy called it a “refreshing” period drama.
The cast and the changes
Katharine Hilbery in her lab
Set in 1910, Night and Day stars Haley Bennett playing Katharine Hilbery as a would-be astronomer who wants to study at Cambridge.
Coincidentally, Haley spent her early years split between Ohio and Florida, which included attending high school in Stow, an Ohio city adjacent to mine.
Justine Waddel wrote the screenplay and produced the film. Simon Goff wrote the score. Both were part of an interesting post-screening discussion at the 35th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Sound in Istanbul in June, which was moderated by Woolf scholar Anne Fernald.
Here are some of the changes to Woolf’s novel that the film includes:
Jennifer Saunders and Timothy Spall play Mrs. and Mr. Hilbery, who are rather different from their novelistic originals,
Katharine
Elyas M’Barek is “working-class editor” Ralph Denham,
Jack Whitehall is an effectual William Rodney, who confuses ‘astrologer’ with ‘astronomer’; and
singer Lily Allen is forthright suffragette Mary Datchet.
Filming locations
Filming took place last year at sites in in the north-east of England:
Literary and Philosophical Society (Newcastle upon Tyne)
Common Room of the Great North (The Mining Institute, also in Newcastle)
Ryhope Engines Museum (Sunderland)
Tanfield Railway (Gateshead/Durham) and
Beamish Museum (County Durham); as well as in Cologne.
Woolf’s novel and the film
Mary Datchet and Katharine
Woolf published Night and Day in 1919 and dedicated it to her artist sister Vanessa Bell, who readers — and Woolf herself — identify as Katharine Hilbery.
In writing the novel, Woolf noted in one of her letters that she was concerned with “the whole question . . . of the things one doesn’t say; what effect does that have?” (L2 400).
“a comic novel of manners concerning five young people struggling with issue of love and work, engagement and marriage, in London in the early years of the twentieth century as the Edwardian generation Woolf herself belonged to sought to escape the social and moral strictures of their parents’ Victorian world. (183).
So does the film.
Fun and contemporary in tone, this refreshing film showcases an ensemble of humourous performances against the ravishing backdrop of London in 1910, advances in science and technology and crumbling Edwardian patriarchy. – official synopsis
Pioneer. Visionary. Rebel. That’s how economist and Bloomsbury Group member John Maynard Keynes is portrayed in a new play on stage at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London for a limited run Sept. 21 – Dec. 12.
Titled The Standard of Living, the play is written by James Graham and directed by Nicholas Hytner. It is billed as the story of how Keynes — husband to ballerina Lydia Lopokova, lover to Duncan Grant, and friend to Virginia Woolf — moved between the corridors of power in Whitehall and his circle of creative, rule-breaking friends.
It also explores the question: What is a good life? while markets crash, old systems crumble and Britain teeters on the edge of chaos.
Including music, dance, desire and debate, The Standard of Living is being called “a thrilling, funny and deeply moving portrait of a man who dared to imagine something better.”
Literature Cambridge has a new project: The Archive. A unique audio collection, it offers more than 25 hours of audio lectures recorded live online and available with a monthly or annual subscription.
About the lectures
The recordings focus on Virginia Woolf and her contemporaries:
The recordings also cover 19th-century writers, such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and more. And lectures often include additional notes and photographs subscribers can explore.
Literature Cambridge plans to expand and rotate the selection of topics at the end of this year, adding more audio lectures from its collection, with a special emphasis on Victorian writers.
About the lecturers
Lecturers are world-class academics with deep insight into their subjects. Most are current or past members of the University of Cambridge.
How to subscribe
You can subscribe to The Archive for £12 per month or £130 per year. All prices include VAT at 20 percent. A subscription provides access to all the audio recordings in The Archive for the duration of the subscription.
Listen to a preview
Listen to an excerpt from a lecture on Pride and Prejudice by Alison Hennegan, retired fellow of Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge.
Sounds. I heard many while I was in Istanbul, Turkey, for this year’s annual Virginia Woolf conference.
Street scene in Istanbul, as seen through a car window
I heard the sounds of the call to prayer, the sounds of traffic in the street, the sounds of conversations in many languages, as well as the sounds of music, voices, and dramatic comedy at the 35th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Woolf and Sound, which was held at Istanbul Bilgi University June 24-28.
Demet Karabulut Dede did an expert job of organizing the conference, attended by about 100 scholars and common readers from around the globe. She was assisted by a helpful team of student volunteers. They included Batuhan Kara, Deniz Lal Ildes, Ece Nas, Frances Elanur Sagman, Irmak Cibir, Mehlika Vardi, Özge Bozokly, Sule Yildiz, and Zeynep Özcçetin.
Sounds at the conference
I went to four days worth of brilliant keynotes, panels, and presentations. Here are just a few:
a much-anticipated screening of Night and Day, the new film that delightfully strays from Woolf’s 1919 novel by the same name, and that included a discussion with Justine Waddell, producer, and Simon Goff, composer.
a brilliant presentation by Nicea Helena de Almeido Nogueira on “The Poetic Role of Sound in Virginia Woolf’s Short Story ‘A Haunted House,’ which delighted me by aligning and expanding on my own presentation, “The Poetry of Sound in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando,” and
a full-course Friday evening banquet at the fabulous Biz Istanbul’s rooftop restaurant with a breathtaking evening view of the be-jeweled ancient peninsula above the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus.
This was the view as evening fell at the conference banquet, held at the rooftop restaurant at Biz Istanbul. Comradarie and toasts were plentiful.
What lingers most is Istanbul itself
But what lingers most in my memory are the sights and sounds of Istanbul itself — particularly those that Woolf herself experienced when she visited Istanbul in 1906 and 1910, when Istanbul was known as Constantinople.
Woolf journaled about her 1906 trip, but did not write about her visit in 1910, as it was an emergency trip to help her sister, Vanessa, who had suffered a miscarriage.
Here are a few quotes from Woolf’s 1906 trip, as noted in Travels With Virginia Woolf (1993) by Jan Morris, a book I love and refer to often when I travel.
Woolf’s journal entries from her early travels, including her 1906 trip to Turkey, can be found in their entirety in A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897-1909 (1990).
The Golden Horn
Woolf traveled to Constantinople by ship in 1906. In this passage she describes her view of the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus from her ship’s cabin window.
Our conference hotel, the Movenpick, was located on the Golden Horn, so I had a different but similar view. I was told the buildings across the way in my view had mostly been built in the past 50 years, well after Woolf’s time.
The Golden Horn drives a broad blue wedge between two high banks of houses; so that, as some one says, a battle ship rides at anchor in the street before your door – p. 225
View from the city side of the Golden Horn of the Bosphorus, which shows as a tiny sliver beyond the greenery.
Hagia Sophia
In this passage, Woolf describes seeing Hagia Sophia, which we visited on the last day of the conference. Her view was from the deck of a ship. Ours was from the ground.
there was St. Sophia, like a treble globe of bubbles frozen solid, floating out to meet us. For it is fashioned in the shape of some fine substance, thin as glass, blown in plump curves, save it is also as substantial as a pyramid. Perhaps that may be its beauty. – p. 224
Hagia Sophia with its “treble globe of bubbles”
Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine cathedral until 1453, was a mosque when Woolf visited in 1906 and remains a mosque today, after a short life as a museum.
While Woolf wrote that the Christian decorations of the earlier church “had been corrected & erased altogether till it has no virtue or vice left in it . . . sacred heads have been obliterated from the wall” (227), some have been restored and can be seen today.
Art depicting Christian figures in Hagia Sophia
Jesus Christ is depicted in the center of this piece, with royal figures on either side offering him gifts.
Woolf climbed to the gallery far above the main floor, and we did, too. Like her, we saw people milling about below. Instead of children, we saw adults. And instead of the people moving between the pillars, they were moving between the scaffolding, as the mosque is currently being renovated.
We climbed the long slant that leads to the top of the church . . . And when we looked down into the church there were troops of children, who played hide & seek among the august pillars, & chattered like monkeys as they ran. – p. 228
At the end of our climb, we were on the mezzanine or gallery, where we had a view of those far below.
Woolf admired the lights. We did as well.
Rings of hanging light made little island in the immense gloom; & gradually, as the lamps were lit all round the arches, a soft golden glow shone forth from ceiling & column, till the air seemed warmed to the core. – p. 228
The “Rings of hanging lights” of Hagia Sophia, as seen from the mezzanine.
The Grand Bazaar
On the fourth day of her trip to Constantinople in 1906, Woolf went to the Grand Bazaar. Many of us at the conference did, too, finding exotic teas and spices and other goods.
In Woolf’s day, the bazaar had around 7,000 shops “divided into streets & alleys;” it still does today. She bargained for the cloaks and silk and Turkish delight she purchased. I bargained for my goods as well. I also felt the same urgency she did to “find a Bazaar.”
We had to find a Bazaar, the Grand Bazar indeed, & in time . . . we took refuge in a great honeycomb of little shops, built beneath a single roof & divided into streets & alleys like the ways of a city of dwelling houses. – p. 229
One outdoor section of the Grand Bazaar
More of the Grand Bazaar
The fez
Woolf’s entries mention the fez, part of the national dress in 1906, several times.
Now in the purlieus of Constantinople a great deal of the Gorgeous East still runs warm; a vine was laced across the road, & a various torrent of red fezes, turbans, yashmaks, & European respectability came pouring down it, like a turbulent Highland water. – p. 229
A view does not by any means promise beauty of detail; & the streets were insignificant, & the national dress — a fez & a frock coat — is a disappointing comprise. p. 236
The men save for their red caps & an occasional nose like a scimitar, might be citizens of London – p. 233
I talked about the fez a lot, too. My 20-year-old grandson, a junior at Ohio State University, had requested I bring one back for him, so I asked nearly everyone at the conference where I might find one.
Worried that I would not be able to locate one for sale, since no one wears a fez in Turkey any more, I sent him photos of those I saw at the Topkaki Palace, another site we visited.
While he thought my photos were “awesome,” I knew they were a sorry excuse for the real thing. So I was ecstatic when, just minutes after I arrived at the Grand Bazaar, I found a tall stack of actual fezzes for sale.
My grandson is wearing his fez in the last rather poorly framed photo below. I apologize for the curtain pole appearing to stick out of both sides of his head. ♥
The clothing display at the Topkaki Palace showed several fezzes, including this one at the left, shown with a handsome tunic.
Here is the first news item. The second will be posted later this week, so stay tuned.
Maggie Gee’s Virginia Woolf in Manhattan has now been published in Turkish by Eriken Yayınları, under the title Virginia Woolf Manhattan’da.
Translated by Prof. Dr. Mine Özyurt Kılıç, the novel brings together London, New York and Istanbul through a playful literary dialogue with Virginia Woolf’s works, from Mrs Dalloway and Orlando to A Room of One’s Own and The Waves.
The cover design, created by artist Elif Okur Tolun, also nods to Vanessa Bell’s legacy, gently recalling her contribution to the visual world of Woolf’s books—as Woolf’s sister and a key figure in the Bloomsbury circle, Bell famously decorated many of the early Hogarth Press editions of Woolf’s works with her own artwork, helping to shape their distinctive visual identity.
