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A video tour of Monk’s House

Friday 3 May 2013 by Paula Maggio

This video tour of Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Monk’s House in Rodmell, Sussex was produced by the BBC and is hosted by Paul Martin.

If you haven’t walked in her steps through England — or even if you have — this is a great way to get an up-close look at the Woolfs’ longtime home.

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Handwritten Manuscript Pages From Classic Novels

Friday 3 May 2013 by Paula Maggio

Including a page from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway

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Toby’s Room: Better late than never

Thursday 2 May 2013 by Alice Lowe

 I finally read Pat Barker’s Toby’s Room. My library’s reservation system is fantastic but does require some patience! Paula first Toby's Roommentioned it here last summer, noting the allusions—in more than the title—to Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, as did Hermione Lee, who reviewed it for The Guardian.

I read Barker’s Life Class around that time before I knew it was the prequel to Toby’s Room, and I posted on the “near sightings,” the Bloomsbury references when the protagonist, Slade art student Elinor Brooke, has tea at Ottoline Morrell’s.

Elinor’s brother Toby, like Jacob before him, dies serving in World War I, and like Jacob is revealed mostly through family and friends. Toby’s Room is still Elinor’s story, in which she seeks to unearth the mysterious details of his death. Woolf appears in entries from Elinor’s diary. She records her impressions from a weekend at Charleston Farmhouse, presumably at the invitation of Vanessa Bell:

“VB was in the drawing room when I arrived, with her sister, Mrs. Woolf. I’ve met her more than once, though I don’t think she remembered me and gave me a lukewarm welcome. Doesn’t like young women, I suspect. I thought the talk would be well above my head, but they were quite relaxed and gossipy and we chatted on easily enough. Or they did. I was too nervous to say much. It was like listening to an old married couple. They’ve got that habit of completing each other’s sentences…”

The other guests are “the conscientiously objecting young men” working at the farm, none of whom, she realizes, are going to be interested in her. There’s talk of the war at dinner, and Woolf talks about “how women are outside the political process and therefore the war’s got nothing to do with them.”

Elinor is struck by Woolf’s observation but finds it less convincing when she later tries to echo the sentiment herself. Barker has no such problem making her case. In both novels, she challenges readers to explore the role of art and artists in time of war, heightening the drama with real, fictional and hybrid characters as she did in her Regeneration trilogy.

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Posted in Bloomsbury, Charleston Farmhouse, Virginia Woolf, Woolf in Contemporary Fiction, Woolf sightings | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Woolf sightings: On a bike, in a lodge, in a war

Monday 29 April 2013 by Paula Maggio

Virginia Woolf and Dutch biking trivia is Woolf sighting number one this week. Other sightings include a mention of Woolf’s writing lodge in the same breath as a UK Thinking Shed (3), an op-ed in the LA Times that includes three Woolf novels on a list of “Literature’s Greatest Hits,” and a quasi-mystical novel that connects Woolf to an imaginary Nazi win in World War II (6). Read on for more.

  1. A spin through a world where bicycles rule streets, Los Angeles Times
    It seems just about any and every famous person who ever rode a bike in Amsterdam or who wrote about the city’s cycling scene earns a cameo, including Audrey Hepburn, Albert Camus and Virginia Woolf. In 1935, Woolf wrote in her diary that “the cyclists …
  2. Woolf’s Orlando on stage at USM, The Portland Phoenix
    With insights into both the masculine and the feminine, s/he is at the center of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a fabulist commentary on the fluidity of gender and sexual identity. Playwright Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of the novel is on stage in a vivacious …
  3. The Diary: Inspiration? Here’s a shed load of ideas, The Star
    The Thinking Shed at Digital Media Centre Barnsley . By Colin Drury Published on 22/04/2013 09:40. THE shed: a humble environment which has inspired some of history’s most creative moments. Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf and Roald Dahl all wrote in theirs.
  4. A Golden Age Mood Board Based on Spring Altuzarra, New York Magazine
    He’s referring to the cinematic version of Virginia Woolf’s book, a gender bending time-warp with Tilda Swinton as its main character. One scene, with Moorish architecture and Ottoman fashion, served as inspiration for this heavily spangled look. And …
  5. Austin Peay State University’s Jill Franks to discuss new book at May 14th …, Clarksville Online
    A brilliant but melancholy young writer named Virginia Woolf often attended these salons, known as the Bloomsbury Group, and it seems fitting that her presence will again be evoked at 5:00pm on May 14th during the Austin Peay State University Center of …
  6. In House of Rumour, Ian Fleming and Aleister Crowley win World War II – io9, io9
    But in Jake Arnott’s novel House of Rumour it becomes the focal point for a secret history that’s stranger and more elaborate than just “What if the Nazis won?” Arnott weaves figures like L. Ron Hubbard and Virginia Woolf into a quasi-mystical tale.
  7. Daphne du Maurier and Her Sisters: The Hidden Lives of Piffy, Bird and Bing by …, The Guardian
    Her book belongs to the growing genre of what might be called Sisterly Feelings; Paula Byrne’s excellent recent The Real Jane Austen and Dunn’s own A Very Close Conspiracy: Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf are notable examples, though perhaps one of …
  8. ‘The Interestings,’ by Meg Wolitzer, Washington Post
    “The Interestings,” the new novel by Meg Wolitzer, arrives with an endorsement from the estimable author of “The Marriage Plot” and “Middlesex,” stating that, “Like Virginia Woolf in The Waves, Meg Wolitzer gives us the full picture here.” (Riverhead …
  9. `William and Judith’ takes on the Bard at the Browncoat, StarNewsOnline.com (blog)
    Photo courtesy of Richard Davis. Downtown Wilmington’s Browncoat Pub & Theatre opens its latest play April 19, “William & Judith,” an original work by Cody Diagle. It was inspired by this quote from the author Virginia Woolf: “Let me imagine, since the …
  10. Don’t Miss: April 19-26, Wall Street Journal
    … recalling Mr. Bennett’s working-class childhood in the north of England. An engaging treat, as we follow the gentle slope of the career he sums up as: “If you’re born in Barnsley and set your sights on being Virginia Woolf, it isn’t going to be ..
  11. To the Lighthouse: You Know, the One in San Francisco Hardly Anyone Seems …, The Atlantic Cities
    So I pose the question to you, dear reader, by way of Virginia Woolf: For how would you like to spend the night upon a private island the size of a tennis lawn in San Francisco Bay? For just a night or two, I reckon most of us — like Woolf’s young …
  12. Best Bets, April 19, Austin American-Statesman
    Virginia Woolf’s and James Joyce’s studies of characters’ inner ramblings are a Modernist artifact for plenty of writers and readers today. But for Kelman, they remain a useful way to explore the depths of people often considered outsiders. His Booker …
  13. Entertainment calendar, News Sentinel
    IPFW’s Department of Theatre presents “Orlando,” the stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel by playwright Sarah Ruhl in its last weekend. Performances are at 8 p.m. today-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday in Williams Theatre, 2101 Coliseum Blvd. E.
  14. ‘Orlando’ highlights role of Greek chorus, Yale Daily News (blog)
    “Orlando,” a play by Sarah Ruhl, a lecturer at the School of Drama and Theatre Studies Department, is a dramatic adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando: A Biography.” Orlando is a young man born in Elizabethan England who lives in several …
  15. Tribeca Film Festival Will Honor Nora Ephron With an Annual Award to a Woman …, Slate Magazine (blog)
    But it’s a substantial cushion, an updated version of Virginia Woolf’s “money and a room of her own.” And unlike lots of people who are honored by Hollywood, Ephron’s a genuinely great role model, someone who made movies about and for women—but not…
  16. On the Page: Willa Cather and Fiona Maazel, New York Observer
    If Willa Cather isn’t the most well-known 20th century American writer, she’s certainly one of the most underrated, a direct descendent of Virginia Woolf and a clear precedent to the straight-laced social realism of Jonathan Franzen. The pressing …
  17. Sleeping with Tilda and Quentin, Huffington Post
    In 1993, Tilda Swinton portrayed an English nobleman next to Quentin Crisp’s Queen Elizabeth in Sally Potter’s film adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending novel, Orlando. In the film, Orlando, played by Swinton, subtly, surprisingly changes his …
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Video lecture on Virginia Woolf and painting

Friday 26 April 2013 by Paula Maggio

If you are interested in Virginia Woolf and art, a 46-minute introductory talk on “Women Writers and the Avant-Garde: Virginia Woolf and Painting” is a real find.

Dr. Manuela Palacios González

Dr. Manuela Palacios González, professor of English Literature at the University of Santiago at Compostela, is the lecturer.

Thanks to Manuela Palacios Gonzalez for the link.

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