Latest news with #VirginiaWoolf
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Caleb Azumah Nelson: ‘Virginia Woolf's London is the London I know'
It's always a surprise when ecstasy arrives. Recently, I've found myself waking early, with dawn on the horizon. I think it might be beautiful to catch the sunrise, and in those quiet moments, I am reminded of the bustle of the city, or a lover's hand in mine, or the words that I couldn't quite say, and, looking back towards the sky, find the sun already risen. I rue that I've missed it; I'm surprised it arrived so quickly. But for a moment, the light shines bright; and briefly, the parts of myself I don't always get to are illuminated. In these moments, I'm reminded of our aliveness. Much of my writing practice is concerned with closing the gap between emotion and expression. The sense of loss in this chasm is inevitable; it's impossible to translate the excitement of seeing a loved one across the room, or the bodily jolt that arrives when you pass a friend on the street and realise you have become strangers. But still, I try to write, as Virginia Woolf did, not so much concerned with knowledge, but with feeling. And since language won't always get you there, I employ music, rhythm. Woolf does this masterfully in Mrs Dalloway. She was not just concerned with the notes of an instrument, but moments when a pianist's hands might hover over the keys, or the break before a trumpeter blows; and even before that, what route did the pianist take to work today? What did the trumpeter say to his wife before they slept the night before, and what did she say back? And even further back: what might the musician have witnessed, at 18, which has shaped their life? How did Sally Seton kissing Clarissa Dalloway – a moment Woolf describes as a revelation, a religious experience – shape both their lives? The question that pulses through this novel: how do we come to be? They may not be musical notes but these questions and their answers are all music of some kind. Woolf also writes with a painterly touch. The images she conjures remind me of work by my favourite painter, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, in which the interior preoccupations are externalised in the strokes on the canvas, both tender and sure; in the ways characters fill the frame with their bodies, their personhoods; in the ways the backgrounds speak as much to the narrative as the foremost subject does. In Woolf's work, there are rarely any direct gazes. Everyone looks away, unable to wrangle with the feeling of being seen, or they glance away when caught. And you understand. It can be scary to be seen. All these emotions and feelings, preoccupations and fears, all out in the open, with nowhere to hide. And yet, if we don't show ourselves, Woolf suggests, it's impossible to truly live. Speaking of backgrounds, allow me a couple of indulgences here: the first, the city. Specifically, the city of London, which I've always known as home, have always known and loved, for all its ways. In Mrs Dalloway, London is not just a backdrop but an essential character. It is a living, breathing organism, to be held, touched, traversed, poked and prodded. To be, in some way, loved. Woolf writes in relation to our love of London, foolish as it may be. And yet, I cannot resist the allure of the city, because it's home to me. The way the streets speak; the frenetic pace of its workers; the all-knowing boom of Big Ben, followed by St Margaret's; 'the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands'; the way quiet breaks open on entering St James's Park accented only by the slow steps of others, or the flap of ducks swimming in the pond; the way the symphony starts back up as soon as you break out of the park, on to the streets, a distinct hum being heard all round, rising up from the ground. The city hums. But the hum isn't coming from the pavement. Home, whether it is a city, or town, or village, can only really be its people. The London of Mrs Dalloway, the London I know, is filled with parents and children, lovers and enemies, strangers and familiar faces; filled with love and envy, ambition and grief; filled with an immense beauty, a beauty she, I, might witness 'in people's eyes'. And if we look closely, as strangers and lovers pass us, we might see this beauty as further evidence of our aliveness. And, if you'll allow me, I'd like to speak briefly on love. When I mention the ecstatic or this notion of aliveness, I'm speaking to the moments that are at the height and depths of the human experience. Love encompasses all of these categories. Early on in the novel, Woolf broaches Clarissa's relationship with Sally Seton: 'had not that, after all, been love?' It makes me wonder, is love a question, or does it make us question? Does it make us ask 'who is that?' when confronted with our pull towards another? Does it make us reframe this pull as something that cannot be resisted, as if desire is something to be resisted, as if it is weakness and not virtue? There are no answers, only more questions. But I'd like to point to ecstasy, to one person's lips meeting with another: 'the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling'. Is this not how it feels to be closest to oneself? To feel the most alive? There are no answers, only more questions. But I think, this is what love does. It expands our lives and the ways we express ourselves by making space for our truest, deepest desires, even if we're only glimpsing these needs for a moment. It questions how we came to be, and what we need to go on; it finds us in the space between who we have been and who we are trying to become. And right there, in the midst of it all, love holds up a mirror to see ourselves, our full selves. Grief, I think, is both love's opposite and companion. The grief of a life you might have lived. The grief of a person you might have been. And grief arrives not as loss but its inarticulacies. Clarissa is able to say what happened to her sister, Sylvia, felled by a tree, but she struggles to say how it made her feel. She's able to understand that if she had married Peter, 'this gaiety would have been mine all day!' but she struggles with the emotional heft of this possibility. Some people never find the language to express their grief, or else it tumbles down the chasm between emotion and expression; but we try. 'It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels', but we try. Sometimes, the moonlight briefly vanishes as night does; the sun doesn't blaze but a new dawn breaks; and with that first light, that early sunshine before any clouds appear, the grief eases. And, doused in sunlight, once more, we are reminded, we are alive. Extracted from a talk commissioned by Charleston festival 2025.
The Guardian
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Caleb Azumah Nelson: ‘Virginia Woolf's London is the London I know'
It's always a surprise when ecstasy arrives. Recently, I've found myself waking early, with dawn on the horizon. I think it might be beautiful to catch the sunrise, and in those quiet moments, I am reminded of the bustle of the city, or a lover's hand in mine, or the words that I couldn't quite say, and, looking back towards the sky, find the sun already risen. I rue that I've missed it; I'm surprised it arrived so quickly. But for a moment, the light shines bright; and briefly, the parts of myself I don't always get to are illuminated. In these moments, I'm reminded of our aliveness. Much of my writing practice is concerned with closing the gap between emotion and expression. The sense of loss in this chasm is inevitable; it's impossible to translate the excitement of seeing a loved one across the room, or the bodily jolt that arrives when you pass a friend on the street and realise you have become strangers. But still, I try to write, as Virginia Woolf did, not so much concerned with knowledge, but with feeling. And since language won't always get you there, I employ music, rhythm. Woolf does this masterfully in Mrs Dalloway. She was not just concerned with the notes of an instrument, but moments when a pianist's hands might hover over the keys, or the break before a trumpeter blows; and even before that, what route did the pianist take to work today? What did the trumpeter say to his wife before they slept the night before, and what did she say back? And even further back: what might the musician have witnessed, at 18, which has shaped their life? How did Sally Seton kissing Clarissa Dalloway – a moment Woolf describes as a revelation, a religious experience – shape both their lives? The question that pulses through this novel: how do we come to be? They may not be musical notes but these questions and their answers are all music of some kind. Woolf also writes with a painterly touch. The images she conjures remind me of work by my favourite painter, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, in which the interior preoccupations are externalised in the strokes on the canvas, both tender and sure; in the ways characters fill the frame with their bodies, their personhoods; in the ways the backgrounds speak as much to the narrative as the foremost subject does. In Woolf's work, there are rarely any direct gazes. Everyone looks away, unable to wrangle with the feeling of being seen, or they glance away when caught. And you understand. It can be scary to be seen. All these emotions and feelings, preoccupations and fears, all out in the open, with nowhere to hide. And yet, if we don't show ourselves, Woolf suggests, it's impossible to truly live. Speaking of backgrounds, allow me a couple of indulgences here: the first, the city. Specifically, the city of London, which I've always known as home, have always known and loved, for all its ways. In Mrs Dalloway, London is not just a backdrop but an essential character. It is a living, breathing organism, to be held, touched, traversed, poked and prodded. To be, in some way, loved. Woolf writes in relation to our love of London, foolish as it may be. And yet, I cannot resist the allure of the city, because it's home to me. The way the streets speak; the frenetic pace of its workers; the all-knowing boom of Big Ben, followed by St Margaret's; 'the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands'; the way quiet breaks open on entering St James's Park accented only by the slow steps of others, or the flap of ducks swimming in the pond; the way the symphony starts back up as soon as you break out of the park, on to the streets, a distinct hum being heard all round, rising up from the ground. The city hums. But the hum isn't coming from the pavement. Home, whether it is a city, or town, or village, can only really be its people. The London of Mrs Dalloway, the London I know, is filled with parents and children, lovers and enemies, strangers and familiar faces; filled with love and envy, ambition and grief; filled with an immense beauty, a beauty she, I, might witness 'in people's eyes'. And if we look closely, as strangers and lovers pass us, we might see this beauty as further evidence of our aliveness. And, if you'll allow me, I'd like to speak briefly on love. When I mention the ecstatic or this notion of aliveness, I'm speaking to the moments that are at the height and depths of the human experience. Love encompasses all of these categories. Early on in the novel, Woolf broaches Clarissa's relationship with Sally Seton: 'had not that, after all, been love?' It makes me wonder, is love a question, or does it make us question? Does it make us ask 'who is that?' when confronted with our pull towards another? Does it make us reframe this pull as something that cannot be resisted, as if desire is something to be resisted, as if it is weakness and not virtue? There are no answers, only more questions. But I'd like to point to ecstasy, to one person's lips meeting with another: 'the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling'. Is this not how it feels to be closest to oneself? To feel the most alive? There are no answers, only more questions. But I think, this is what love does. It expands our lives and the ways we express ourselves by making space for our truest, deepest desires, even if we're only glimpsing these needs for a moment. It questions how we came to be, and what we need to go on; it finds us in the space between who we have been and who we are trying to become. And right there, in the midst of it all, love holds up a mirror to see ourselves, our full selves. Grief, I think, is both love's opposite and companion. The grief of a life you might have lived. The grief of a person you might have been. And grief arrives not as loss but its inarticulacies. Clarissa is able to say what happened to her sister, Sylvia, felled by a tree, but she struggles to say how it made her feel. She's able to understand that if she had married Peter, 'this gaiety would have been mine all day!' but she struggles with the emotional heft of this possibility. Some people never find the language to express their grief, or else it tumbles down the chasm between emotion and expression; but we try. 'It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels', but we try. Sometimes, the moonlight briefly vanishes as night does; the sun doesn't blaze but a new dawn breaks; and with that first light, that early sunshine before any clouds appear, the grief eases. And, doused in sunlight, once more, we are reminded, we are alive. Extracted from a talk commissioned by Charleston festival 2025.
Irish Times
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Books in Brief: David Brennan's scintillating second novel feels ancient, magical and urgently new
Spit By David Brennan Epoque Press, £10.99 'I once inhabited the body of a dead dog for two weeks.' Few openings grab you like that of David Brennan's scintillating second novel, a lyrical lament soaked in folklore, fury and fierce longing. Narrated in part by a roguishly wise púca, it bears witness to a village steeped in grief and secrecy. Danny Mulcahy, its haunted not-quite-hero, drifts through this fever-dream world as a mysterious death unsettles the town, while Rosie, radiant and unknowable, performs rituals with jam jars and flowers. Brennan conjures a rural Ireland exploring the struggle for escape and redemption in places where people are bound. Crackling with dark humour and incantatory force, every line pulses with linguistic relish. Grotesque, glorious and gorgeously written, Spit feels ancient, magical and urgently new. Adam Wyeth [ From the archive: How To Write A Song by David Brennan Opens in new window ] In The Rhododendrons By Heather Christle Corsair, £20 In the Rhododendrons opens with the myth of Persephone. An appropriate beginning for this memoir, in which the author (of bestselling The Crying Book), follows the path of her mother's childhood through Richmond and Kew Gardens with Virginia Woolf 'as her guide'. It was in England, also, that Christie was sexually assaulted as a teenager, an event that paralleled both her mother's and Woolf's experiences. American born and bred, the author's outsider's eye looking in upon English culture proves interesting. The intrigue unfortunately largely stops here. Christle observes rather than inhabits her story, which means that while the reader is treated to frequent utterings of poets, scientists and other great thinkers, we remain distant from the subject who is at the heart of this memoir. Brigid O'Dea READ MORE Your Life is Manufactured: How We Make Things, Why It Matters and How We Can Do Better By Tim Minshall Faber, £20 Cambridge professor Tim Minshall's book sprang from a talk he gave to a group of schoolchildren. He plays the role of teacher throughout Your Life is Manufactured, educating his reader on the innards of the semi-invisible world of manufacturing. Intensely readable, the book is a conversation starter, shedding light on the fragile and far-reaching processes behind our one-click shopping habits. [ Reviews in brief: Stop Me If You've Heard This One; The Shape of Things Unseen; and Take Six Opens in new window ] Minshall encourages a greater sense of appreciation for the everyday objects we take for granted, optimistically suggesting that shopping local and investing in regenerative manufacturing is the future of sustainable consumerism. The book is unapologetically nerdy, though more technical details are smoothed over by humour and human insight. There's an accompanying website, as well as an epilogue detailing how the hardback itself is manufactured. Emily Formstone
Indian Express
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
From Chandannagore to Bloomsbury: Virginia Woolf's unexpected ‘Bengali connection'
For as long as I can remember, Virginia Woolf has been one of the most revered British writers in the history of English literature. As a self-proclaimed fangirl, I told myself I would only consider myself truly literate the day I could fully understand Woolf's writing. Just a few days ago, as I closed the final page of A Room of One's Own, a familiar discussion resurfaced, one that had first made waves in 2022 during the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival. William Dalrymple had claimed Virginia Woolf had Bengali roots. 'I can share something about Virginia Woolf that no one knows much about the fact that she was part Bengali. We both have Bengali ancestors, and much like her, I am half-Bengali too. We have a mutual great-grandmother who was born in Chandannagore. Virginia came from Franco-Bengali origins, and we have the marriage certificate of her Bengali grandmother and a Frenchman. Her grandmother was very aware of her Bengali and Hindu origin, even when living abroad.' Dalrymple went on to say that Woolf's facial features resembled those of a Bengali woman. This is also true of her writing. Her works that are lyrical, introspective, and use stream-of-consciousness, bear a certain resonance with the literary voices of the Bengal Renaissance. But resemblance and shared lineage do not necessarily translate into perspective. While critics and readers alike have compared the call for autonomy in A Room of One's Own to Bengali author Rassundari Devi's early memoirs, arguably India's first female autobiography, the broader implications of Woolf's feminism extend beyond personal identity. She called for literal, emotional, intellectual space for a woman to flourish. She wrote for a woman, and in doing so, gave voice to every woman. Still, reading her as an Indian woman, I cannot help but wonder what if she had known about her supposed Bengali origins? Would it have altered her worldview? Would her perception of the so-called 'third world' shift? There are unsettling moments in her writing that reflect the unconscious biases of her time. In Mrs Dalloway, Clarissa recalls hearing that Peter married an Indian woman: '…and then the horror of the moment when someone told her at a concert that he had married a woman met on the boat going to India! Never should she forget all that! Cold, heartless, a prude, he called her. Never could she understand how he cared. But those Indian women did presumably—silly, pretty, flimsy nincompoops…' Was this jealousy? A satirical critique? Or a reflection of Woolf's own internalised imperial gaze? As an Indian reader, I find it both fascinating and dissonant that someone who might have descended from the very culture she 'others' would depict it so unkindly. Yet, even within that discomfort, I return to the power of her pen. Her language, lucid yet elusive, invites me into her mind, her contradictions, her struggles. And I wonder had she been aware of her lineage, would she have written differently about the Indian woman? Woolf remains, for me, a literary icon, not because she was perfect, or fully inclusive, but because she dared to write what she felt, and in doing so, allowed us to question what remains unsaid. Her work continues to shape how I see myself. As John Dewey once said, 'Art is experience.' And perhaps, so too is identity. (As I See It is a space for bookish reflection, part personal essay and part love letter to the written word.)
The Guardian
27-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Reading deeper into Virginia Woolf's vicious diary entry
John Harris confuses Virginia Woolf's admittedly vicious diary entry about disabled people with her firmly held beliefs in referring to her 'grim ideas' and associating her with contemporary eugenics (Again and again, we are shocked by the treatment of learning-disabled people. Yet we never learn from the past, 20 July). Under the Mental Deficiency Act 1913, mentioned by Harris, Woolf could easily have been categorised as an 'imbecile' during her several breakdowns, and hallucinations occasioned by family deaths and sexual abuse by her half-brothers. Woolf's experiences of medical professionals who forced her to gain weight and forbade reading and writing (which made her life meaningful), and of private asylums, left her in no doubt of this possibility, which she illustrates so brilliantly in Mrs Dalloway. The diary entry is surely a defence mechanism and projection – caricaturing others' features to displace her personal HummVice-chair, Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
