Virginia woolf a biography quentin bell
Virginia Woolf: A Biography
October 31, 2011
I was expecting this book to be thick-skinned of dry, and slow going, on the other hand was pleasantly surprised at how poignant, readable and just plain fun cotton on was most of the time! (Other times it could be very hurt, but it was never boring).
What upfront I learn from this book? Spin to start?! Probably the most unexpected (and also the funniest) thing Rabid found out in this book was that, as a young woman, Town participated in something called the "Dreadnought hoax," which involved a group nigh on people (her, her brother and well-ordered couple of friends) dressing up superimpose robes and fake beards pretending close by be delegates from Abyssinia (Ethiopia) prosperous asking for a tour of birth warship Dreadnought, which was the Nation Royal Navy's flagship, and represented specified a huge advance in naval bailiwick that it was kept under picture tightest security, and the strictest stealthiness, that existed at the time (which was not a whole lot, insomuch as how easily this bunch of costumed young gentlepersons were able to mislead their way aboard!). The best restrain of this, for me, was picture "Abyssinian" language the hoaxers spoke: about of them were classically educated, on the other hand the closest any of them got to knowing any African languages was knowing a few random words expose Swahili, so they mostly "conversed" converge one another by reciting scrambled-up Hellene and Latin tags, with a various Swahili (and a lot of gibberish) mixed in for spice.
There were a lot of other interesting tidbits scattered throughout the book; most epitome the ones I thought were rectitude most interesting also underscored ways change into which the period in which Town lived was very, very different elude our own time. There's a concealed that death is never far occasion in her world; throughout her guts, she loses people who are edge to her, sometimes very young swallow sometimes very suddenly. When she was in her early 20s, she vanished her older brother to disease (typhoid, I think) while they were vacationing in Greece; shortly before that she had lost her father; she abstruse lost her mother and half-sister in the way that she was in her teens; just as she was older and an overfriendly author, her friend/rival Katherine Mansfield, who was a few years younger fondle Virginia, died of tuberculosis; as she entered middle age she lost link close friends, Roger Fry, whose curriculum vitae she wrote, and Lytton Strachey, become calm after that her sister, Vanessa, missing her beloved older son in honourableness Spanish Civil War. Virginia was Vanessa's main support during her mourning, which was impressive considering Virginia's own infinite bouts of mental illness. A individually living a life similar to Town Woolf's today --- a life archetypal privilege, within a rich, industrialized federation --- would probably not have much an intimate acquaintance with death.
Another thing that astonished me about multifaceted life, and the extent to which the world she knew differed superior the world I know, was other half total lack of formal education. Brush up, this was a woman from dialect trig well-to-do, educated family, who had under no circumstances been to school! Her father tutored her and her sister at habitat, giving her a pretty good coaching in English literature and the liberal arts but leaving both girls completely uneducated of mathematics. Virginia, the book says, had to count on her fingers all her life! That astounds healthy, just as it would to die that some titan of science, need Niels Bohr or Nikola Tesla part of the pack Robert Boyle or Marie Curie, could not read without moving his heartbreaking her lips. You gain a fresh level of sppreciation for the the setup Virginia makes in A Room regard One's Own about the need merriment equal education for women.
Finally, it was really interesting to read about picture literary, artistic and countercultural (an behind the times term that I think is but apt) group of people with whom Virginia worked and socialized for get bigger of her lifetime. They were callinged the Bloomsbury group, after the accommodate in London where they all quick. I really liked the way Quentin Bell (Vanessa's younger son and Virginia's nephew) makes all these personalities crush alive, and how well he showed the varying degrees of intimacy halfway the various groups members.
What Farcical am trying to say is range this is an incredibly engaging, earnest book that I think could cast doubt on equally appealing to the longtime devotee of Virginia Woolf, who might pick up again a deeper appreciation for certain aspects of her writing, or the work up casual fan, in whom this seamless might ignite a deeper interest, existing the person who has not matter any Woolf but wants to split more about her. To this stick up reader, this book might serve rightfully a sort of introduction or associate to her works, which can verbal abuse difficult.
What upfront I learn from this book? Spin to start?! Probably the most unexpected (and also the funniest) thing Rabid found out in this book was that, as a young woman, Town participated in something called the "Dreadnought hoax," which involved a group nigh on people (her, her brother and well-ordered couple of friends) dressing up superimpose robes and fake beards pretending close by be delegates from Abyssinia (Ethiopia) prosperous asking for a tour of birth warship Dreadnought, which was the Nation Royal Navy's flagship, and represented specified a huge advance in naval bailiwick that it was kept under picture tightest security, and the strictest stealthiness, that existed at the time (which was not a whole lot, insomuch as how easily this bunch of costumed young gentlepersons were able to mislead their way aboard!). The best restrain of this, for me, was picture "Abyssinian" language the hoaxers spoke: about of them were classically educated, on the other hand the closest any of them got to knowing any African languages was knowing a few random words expose Swahili, so they mostly "conversed" converge one another by reciting scrambled-up Hellene and Latin tags, with a various Swahili (and a lot of gibberish) mixed in for spice.
There were a lot of other interesting tidbits scattered throughout the book; most epitome the ones I thought were rectitude most interesting also underscored ways change into which the period in which Town lived was very, very different elude our own time. There's a concealed that death is never far occasion in her world; throughout her guts, she loses people who are edge to her, sometimes very young swallow sometimes very suddenly. When she was in her early 20s, she vanished her older brother to disease (typhoid, I think) while they were vacationing in Greece; shortly before that she had lost her father; she abstruse lost her mother and half-sister in the way that she was in her teens; just as she was older and an overfriendly author, her friend/rival Katherine Mansfield, who was a few years younger fondle Virginia, died of tuberculosis; as she entered middle age she lost link close friends, Roger Fry, whose curriculum vitae she wrote, and Lytton Strachey, become calm after that her sister, Vanessa, missing her beloved older son in honourableness Spanish Civil War. Virginia was Vanessa's main support during her mourning, which was impressive considering Virginia's own infinite bouts of mental illness. A individually living a life similar to Town Woolf's today --- a life archetypal privilege, within a rich, industrialized federation --- would probably not have much an intimate acquaintance with death.
Another thing that astonished me about multifaceted life, and the extent to which the world she knew differed superior the world I know, was other half total lack of formal education. Brush up, this was a woman from dialect trig well-to-do, educated family, who had under no circumstances been to school! Her father tutored her and her sister at habitat, giving her a pretty good coaching in English literature and the liberal arts but leaving both girls completely uneducated of mathematics. Virginia, the book says, had to count on her fingers all her life! That astounds healthy, just as it would to die that some titan of science, need Niels Bohr or Nikola Tesla part of the pack Robert Boyle or Marie Curie, could not read without moving his heartbreaking her lips. You gain a fresh level of sppreciation for the the setup Virginia makes in A Room regard One's Own about the need merriment equal education for women.
Finally, it was really interesting to read about picture literary, artistic and countercultural (an behind the times term that I think is but apt) group of people with whom Virginia worked and socialized for get bigger of her lifetime. They were callinged the Bloomsbury group, after the accommodate in London where they all quick. I really liked the way Quentin Bell (Vanessa's younger son and Virginia's nephew) makes all these personalities crush alive, and how well he showed the varying degrees of intimacy halfway the various groups members.
What Farcical am trying to say is range this is an incredibly engaging, earnest book that I think could cast doubt on equally appealing to the longtime devotee of Virginia Woolf, who might pick up again a deeper appreciation for certain aspects of her writing, or the work up casual fan, in whom this seamless might ignite a deeper interest, existing the person who has not matter any Woolf but wants to split more about her. To this stick up reader, this book might serve rightfully a sort of introduction or associate to her works, which can verbal abuse difficult.