This is the first biography to concentrate exclusively on Woolf's close and inspirational friendships with the key women in her life, including the caregivers of her Victorian childhood who instilled in her a lifelong battle between creativity and convention: her taciturn sister, Vanessa Bell; enigmatic artist Dora Carrington; complex writer Katherine Mansfield; aristocratic novelist Vita Sackville-West; and riotous, militant composer Ethel Smyth. Virginia Woolfs Women
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A very dry read,my first tentative steps into the world of Virginia Woolf and the bloomsbury set.each chapter deals with the women she befriended,but my goodness what a depressing group hardly any show of of being happy was either frowned upon by this serious group or was omitted from the book.less eccentric and more what you could say manic depressive,which I think I theses more enlightened times would be dealt with more sympathy.if your not depressed before reading it you will be after. 224 (4.5) I absolutely adored this book, so much more than I expected. Reading a Virginia Woolf biography is always an emotional rollercoaster and usually I have incredibly mixed feelings, but Vanessa Curtis really wrote something fascinating, and unique, here. There were moments (particularly in the Vita chapter) where I certainly didn’t agree with all of her opinions, but that’s inevitable, and it didn’t upset or anger me half as much as other books or pieces of writing I’ve read about her/their relationship did. I am so unbelievably passionate about this woman, in all her complexity, and I’m so grateful a book focusing on her relationships and friendships with women exists and I had the pleasure of reading it. I will never tire of reading about her or the equally incredible women in her life. 224 An interesting way of discovering Woolf and women of her time. They seem so similar to us in many ways, and their extraordinary lives serve to remind us of the strength of women's characters throughout the ages.
An easy book to step in and out of, depending on your mood and how much you want to read at a time. 224 I did find this interesting to learn more about important women of the time but it felt a bit lopsided. Ironically without men Im not sure you get the full picture of Woolfs life and career. I came away understanding a series of relationships but that only gives a tantalizing impression of the writer and person. Maybe I need to read more of the other books in a crowded corner of the literary world to fill in the gaps. 224 i want to read it lol 224
The girls are crying and the boys are masturbating
Uvek sam mislila da se dva albuma The Dresden Dolls “Yes, Virginia...” i “No, Virginia” odnose na Virdžiniju Vulf zbog centralne teme seksualnosti i muško-ženskih odnosa ali šipak, neka druga priča je iza naziva.
Ova knjiga, koja začudo nije ni strip ni fikcija od maksimum 300 strana (jedino od čega mi mozak ne ključa na >30C), toliko drži pažnju da se nisam odvojila od nje dva dana. Nudi jedan sasvim drugačiji portret Virdžinije Vulf preko njenih odnosa sa bitnim ženama u njenom životu. Godinama sam je idealizovala zbog “A room of one’s own” kao feminističku ikonu, ono žensko-ženska solidarnost, sve za sestru, pesnica i podvrtanje rukava à la Rosie the Riverer i tako to... međutim, Virdžinija je umela da bude itekako okrutna prema svojim ženskim prijateljicama u svojim prepiskama, izuzetno zavidna ako bi se neko (uključujući i njenu sestru Vanesu) usudio da bude uspešniji od nje. Jedino njeno žensko-žensko prijateljstvo u kome je u potpunsti podržavala drugu osobu je bilo ono sa Vitom Vestvil-Saks... ali ni sa njom se ne bi spontano družila da ova poslednja nije pripadala nekoj oho-ho aristokratskoj porodici, za koju je Virdži bila totalni sucker.
Takođe deluje poprilično nesvesno svog povlašćenog položaja, kada se čudi kako kompozitorka Etel ne može da osnuje svoj orkestar, kad je ona, Virdžinija, sama osnovala svoju izdavačku kuću... pa da nije bilo gospodina supruga Lenarda, teško da bi se išta od toga ostvarilo.
Ono što je super prikazano Virdžinim peripetijama sa muškarcima i ženama, ponekim izlivom besa i gomilom koketiranja jeste koliko je bila životna i koliko je stereotip (depresivna biseksualka samoubica po čemu je, avaj, znaju široke narodne mase) daleko od istine.
224 I loved this book. It was delightfully well written, very lyrical, feminine, knowledgeable, insightful, varied, and very much in tune with Madame Woolf herself. It made me see Virginia in a more detached way, as I was getting close to pathological devotion, and this rendition of her life made me fear Woolf as much as like her for both her flaws and her genius.
Adorable and mischievous Violet Dickinson, sweet and powdered Ottoline, the one and only Vanessa, frightening Katherine, Carrington!, sweet and love struck Vita, immense and powerful Ethel ... my God, what an array of strong impressive forerunners. I developed a soft spot for Ottoline, just because, and who wouldn't want a Carrington in their life? (please, please, see Emma Thompson as a perfect indomitable Carrington in the 1995 film).
I thought it was spot on to dedicate a book to the women in her life. You can see Virginia hop-scotching around them as she developed as a writer and as this unconventional, complete and definitely not anonymous woman (as she put it once when describing her love for women)! These women were fascinating and their stories raw and enticing, you could see the Victorian times hop onto the Edwardian's in the way they seemed to daisy chain through Virginia's life. The end of the book describes Hyde Park Gate in a way that you lets you almost breath the atmosphere past and present.
This book is a great companion to any other book that swifts you onto perusing Woolf's imprint on the world. And it will certainly lead you full on to Vanessa and Vita!
The very last sentence is brief, compelling and beautiful. It made me cry with emotion; it was much needed after reading this enthralling book, but don't flick through and find it yet, save it for last ... 224 Most of what's written about Virginia Woolf nowadays focuses on her mental illness and suicide. People are obsessed with the idea of the mad genius, the artists who must have been able to produce such great works only
This biography has a clear goal that very much goes against that. While it is impossible to narrate her life without telling the story of the series of deaths that made her the tortured writer she's known as, it attempts to showcase a much more interesting side of her that is hardly common knowledge. She loved to gossip! She called everyone she loved by various animal nicknames! She craved the attention of her most beloved friends, begged for visits, especially when she was in a bad place, and was very insecure about her friends' opinions of her work.
I did my graduate's thesis on Virginia Woolf's letters, and like this book, my greater goal was to gain insights into who Virginia was through her written interactions with close friends, family and acquaintances. This book tells the story of her life through her relationships with women. So I knew that, if I was going to finally read an entire biography of Virginia's, it was going to be this one.
Listen, I had gigantic expectations. As much as I am interested in Virginia Woolf alone, I'm fascinated by her relationship with Vita Sackville-West and obsessed with their correspondence. So there's that. And besides, I've read tons of her letters with other friends and plenty of papers about them too. So I knew what I wanted from this book, and I can't say it didn't deliver. I finished it with my heart heavy and full of love for Virginia, having gained a new perspective of my admiration for her and a new understanding of just why I like her so much. It presented me with a bunch of little things I didn't yet know and made me appreciate her more. Not necessarily good things about her, I think is worth emphasizing; just that she was human and flawed as well, and not just mentally ill and brilliant, as she's often unjustly described.
While I did like this book a lot, I had some issues with a couple of chapters. See, it follows a loose chronological order, starting from the first women in her life up until the women that were her closest friends before she died. It is, however, separated in chapters by the women they will focus on. I found myself questioning this format a few times, because it meant that, in the beginning, a lot of it overlapped in the timeline. I read about Julia and Stella, her mom and her step-sister, and their tragic deaths, and then the book goes into a chapter about Violet Dickinson and for a little while Julia and Stella are alive again, and then they aren't, and then it goes into Vanessa's and the book yet again jumps back to family life with everyone alive.
I'd say my main problem was with Vanessa's chapter, actually, for two reasons. One is what I just mentioned. Vanessa was arguably the person closest to Virginia's heart, in her entire life, except maybe for her husband Leonard. As sisters, they'd known each other since they were little and Vanessa outlived Virginia. What this means for this book is that, inside an entire book that spans Virginia's life, there's Vanessa's part that also sums up her entire life, from when they were born up until Virginia's suicide letter to Vanessa. And I feel like the author could've maybe handled that one a bit better. I don't know how to articulate this but I just felt like the author didn't care much for Vanessa. It wasn't as entertaining as Ethel Smyth's or Dora Carrington's, or as heartfelt as the one about Julia and Stella, or even heartfelt in itself -- it was one of the chapters I was most interested in, for the immensely important role that Vanessa had in Virginia's life, and I found it disappointing.
The chapter about Ottoline and Katherine was also weird to me -- I think they were grouped together because they incited similar feelings in Virginia (?), but their stories were told in sequence anyway. And Vita's... I've decided I won't go into detail about Vita's because I'm very biased due to the fact that I am completely obsessed with her, so I've settled for telling myself that if I want more, I can read whole other books about their relationship solely. I did feel like the author didn't much care for their relationship either, or for Vita, and sensed lots of biting irony in the way the author talked about Vita's relationships with other women and how she used to fall in love hard and fast and write poetry in response to declarations of love. She was just that person and I love her so much for all of it but I guess I can't force everyone else to feel the same. I just expected better from a chapter about their whole very close friendship and the fact that Virginia wrote the entirety of one of her greatest works inspired by Vita's life and personality. (I say I won't talk about it and start rambling, I know.)
The last chapter almost made me take back all my criticism as the quote right under the title Virginia brought tears to my eyes. I genuinely like her so much and this book did a nice job of fueling that for weeks to come as I re-read letters and look for more biographies, more papers, everything. Not perfect, but still a pretty awesome read. 224 3,75☆
„Kobiety Virginii Woolf” składają się z ośmiu rozdziałów, z czego każdy z nich opowiada o innych kobietach, istotnych w życiu pisarki. Pierwszy dotyczy babci, matki oraz przyrodniej siostry Woolf - Marii, Julii oraz Stelli. Drugi - jej siostry Vanessy, trzeci - przyjaciółki z dzieciństwa, a także miłości, Violet, czwarty - przyjaciółek, do których sama Virginia miała ambiwalentny stosunek ze względu na mieszankę podziwu i odrazy, jakie w niej wzbudzały - Ottoline oraz Katherine, następnie Carrington - przyjaciółki, Vity - kochanki oraz Ethel - bliskiej znajomej. Ostatni rozdział dotyczy samej Virginii.
Ta książka była niezwykle interesująca, a wnikliwa analiza relacji z każdą z wymienionych kobiet sprawiała wrażenie bardzo rzetelnej. Moim jedynym zarzutem są momenty, w których Vanessa Curtis snuła się między faktem a domysłem, dając nie do końca przejrzysty obraz odczuć lub zachowań, towarzyszących pisarce.
Jak sama pisze: „twórczość Virginii Woolf kształtował i inspirował korowód niezwykłych, tajemniczych i udręczonych kobiet”. I właśnie takie kobiety Woolf umieszczała w swoich powieściach, inspirując się tymi, które znała.
Uważam tę pozycję za bardzo wartościową - szczególnie dla fanów pisarki, chcących zgłębić jej historię, jednocześnie porzucając stereotyp Virginii jako słabej psychicznie, szalonej, nieuleczalnie smutnej kobiety.
Cieszy mnie również fakt, iż pisarka nie została przedstawiona przez Curtis w samych superlatywach - oprócz wrażliwej na piękno, lirycznej postaci o niezwykłym intelekcie jest także próżną, złośliwą egoistką. 224 Ogni capitolo analizza il legame tra Virginia e una delle donne della sua vita: la madre, la sorella Vanessa, le amiche (tra cui, molto interessanti i capitoli su Dora Carrington e su Katherine Mansfield), le amanti, mettendo in luce tratti misconosciuti, difetti inclusi, di una scrittrice fragile e complessa che si tende più a idolatrare che a conoscere. 224
