A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf
A Writer's Diary, unlike Woolf's fiction–beautiful though, is an easy book to read. One can see what she has lived through from 1918 to 1941. The book is aptly titled; it is primarily about words, mind, books, artists, writing, and how these myriad things at once possess and liberate a sensitive soul like hers.
There are a few things, among many other, that particularly make me stop and reflect to know her better. What one immediately recognizes in her work is the brilliance of mind that is at work. In her diaries entries, we glimpse that mind. She comes across as someone who is wholly immersed in words, and drawn to them. Life seems to have no meaning if one cannot shape it through words, and express the process of her 'becoming.' Such an extraordinary ambition could be liberating and rewarding, but it could also whip the person indulging it – this constant struggle to better life, to live it fully by capturing its 'ever-eluding, ever-mobile' essence. In one of her entries, for instance, a rather casually selected example, she thinks of 'wording' a floating cloud in these words; “The clouds – if I could describe them I would; one yesterday had flowing hair on, like the very fine white hair of an old man. At this moment they are white in a leaden; ...,”
I find some entries particular poignant in which she mentions what comes between her and the 'word-world' she seeks to tame. The phases when she could not write due to ill–health, and times when non-creative processes usurp her time which she only wishes to spend writing and thinking things. As she was aging she became more and more restless with thoughts of 'body' and 'time.' Such a fecund mind, rippling with ideas and books in it, is tied to these very real limitations. In one of her entries, she writes about a dying person, but her ways of seeing gives a peep into her own fears of what lays ahead – what it all comes to in the end. She observes, “he is sinking into old age, very shabby, loose-limbed, wearing black woollen mittens. His life is receding like a tide slowly; or one figures him as a dying candle, whose wick will soon sink into warm grease and be extinct.”
These entries also show how vulnerable she is. Throughout the book, she claims that criticism of her work does not matter, that she does not care much, but we also see that she cares and gets affected by bad reviews. Not only criticism, she is also concerned with the sales of her books, like any ordinary writer. Now reading these small things about Woolf in 2018 make her identifiable and endearing with ordinary mortals. She is not only someone who wrote 'Mrs. Dalloway.' It is a pleasure to see the little girl, even momentarily, in her so powerfully overshadowed by the formidable adult writer in her.
I am also quite moved by how she responded to Joyce's Ulysses – to her this book seemed 'thin, diffuse, pretentious, brackish, even underbred in the literary sense, pointless. To her, it all felt as if a young boy is scratching his pimples on page after page. Clearly, she was quite stunned by Joyce's achievement but found it hard to acknowledge it. Even much later, she remained occupied with his work and finally accepted his genius which I assumed she had noticed, to her bewilderment, when she first laid her eyes on 'Ulysses.' It was all very clear to her even then.
While reading her thoughts I was a bit surprised that she hardly wrote about her relationships, about, love, gender, and sexuality. I wondered if the book is a compilation of only her selective diary entries – pertaining to the writer's struggles and ruminations on her art. But finally, I did see gender and sexuality, casually but powerfully, being mentioned in small paragraphs. I saw someone who wrote 'A Room of One's Own' making astute observations on men's behavior and how men occupy space. As for sexuality, there is again a brief but telling claim that friendships between women are more superior, private and comforting than between man and woman. All this, of course, sated my gratuitous curiosity.
Even before I started reading her book, I knew that she drowned herself. For this reason, perhaps, I noticed that images and metaphors of water appear in all sort of ways in her diary entries.
I also felt that there is nothing more important to her than 'words.' Her world was hinged on words. Clearly, she attained certain hights or depths and found herself in unfamiliar territories which come with their own challenges and fears. It might be lonely 'there'. What shall I write now? Whom shall I read now? What is left to explore? What is the meaning of all this?
At a certain point in her life either the words were not there anymore or they had gone unruly– wholly unmanageable. The only comforting thing, then left, was to walk into a river.
There are a few things, among many other, that particularly make me stop and reflect to know her better. What one immediately recognizes in her work is the brilliance of mind that is at work. In her diaries entries, we glimpse that mind. She comes across as someone who is wholly immersed in words, and drawn to them. Life seems to have no meaning if one cannot shape it through words, and express the process of her 'becoming.' Such an extraordinary ambition could be liberating and rewarding, but it could also whip the person indulging it – this constant struggle to better life, to live it fully by capturing its 'ever-eluding, ever-mobile' essence. In one of her entries, for instance, a rather casually selected example, she thinks of 'wording' a floating cloud in these words; “The clouds – if I could describe them I would; one yesterday had flowing hair on, like the very fine white hair of an old man. At this moment they are white in a leaden; ...,”
I find some entries particular poignant in which she mentions what comes between her and the 'word-world' she seeks to tame. The phases when she could not write due to ill–health, and times when non-creative processes usurp her time which she only wishes to spend writing and thinking things. As she was aging she became more and more restless with thoughts of 'body' and 'time.' Such a fecund mind, rippling with ideas and books in it, is tied to these very real limitations. In one of her entries, she writes about a dying person, but her ways of seeing gives a peep into her own fears of what lays ahead – what it all comes to in the end. She observes, “he is sinking into old age, very shabby, loose-limbed, wearing black woollen mittens. His life is receding like a tide slowly; or one figures him as a dying candle, whose wick will soon sink into warm grease and be extinct.”
These entries also show how vulnerable she is. Throughout the book, she claims that criticism of her work does not matter, that she does not care much, but we also see that she cares and gets affected by bad reviews. Not only criticism, she is also concerned with the sales of her books, like any ordinary writer. Now reading these small things about Woolf in 2018 make her identifiable and endearing with ordinary mortals. She is not only someone who wrote 'Mrs. Dalloway.' It is a pleasure to see the little girl, even momentarily, in her so powerfully overshadowed by the formidable adult writer in her.
I am also quite moved by how she responded to Joyce's Ulysses – to her this book seemed 'thin, diffuse, pretentious, brackish, even underbred in the literary sense, pointless. To her, it all felt as if a young boy is scratching his pimples on page after page. Clearly, she was quite stunned by Joyce's achievement but found it hard to acknowledge it. Even much later, she remained occupied with his work and finally accepted his genius which I assumed she had noticed, to her bewilderment, when she first laid her eyes on 'Ulysses.' It was all very clear to her even then.
While reading her thoughts I was a bit surprised that she hardly wrote about her relationships, about, love, gender, and sexuality. I wondered if the book is a compilation of only her selective diary entries – pertaining to the writer's struggles and ruminations on her art. But finally, I did see gender and sexuality, casually but powerfully, being mentioned in small paragraphs. I saw someone who wrote 'A Room of One's Own' making astute observations on men's behavior and how men occupy space. As for sexuality, there is again a brief but telling claim that friendships between women are more superior, private and comforting than between man and woman. All this, of course, sated my gratuitous curiosity.
Even before I started reading her book, I knew that she drowned herself. For this reason, perhaps, I noticed that images and metaphors of water appear in all sort of ways in her diary entries.
I also felt that there is nothing more important to her than 'words.' Her world was hinged on words. Clearly, she attained certain hights or depths and found herself in unfamiliar territories which come with their own challenges and fears. It might be lonely 'there'. What shall I write now? Whom shall I read now? What is left to explore? What is the meaning of all this?
At a certain point in her life either the words were not there anymore or they had gone unruly– wholly unmanageable. The only comforting thing, then left, was to walk into a river.
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