I don't know how this happened

I don't know how this happened but I find myself halfway through volume one of Virginia Woolf's Diary (1915-1919) and almost unable to put it down.  I know that the diaries are famous as works in their own right, but I had no idea what riveting reading it would be.  I'm sure there is an entire industry devoted to their exegesis, but the interest for me is simply their intimacy and strange familiarity.  Probably the only thing my writing will ever have in common with that of Virginia Woolf is the refrain in one's diary of what a relief it is to pour out the day onto the page and on the flip side, the physical pang when something happens so that one is unable to write the diary. 

With writers, of course, one has to wonder if even a diary is written with one eye on publication.  If it was, then Virginia Woolf was either entirely unconcerned about what posterity would think of her or unable to imagine a world which would not share her views on the disabled or non-whites. 

Bloomsbury is famously incestuous (indeed to the point of Byzantine incomprehensibility at times) but I hadn't appreciated that 'Bloomsbury' was a group very much aware of its own inverted commas, even at the time.  VW rather condescendingly refers to someone wanting to be Bloomsbury; a comment made from the unassailable heights of its official nobility. 

And then the diaries chat to each other.  Virginia discusses diaries with Lady Ottoline Morrell in November 1917 who 'keeps one by the way, devoted however to her "inner life"; which made me reflect that I haven't an inner life."  The footnote then quotes from Lady Ottoline's published diary reporting the same conversation thus "When we were talking about keeping a journal, I said mine was filled with thoughts and struggles of my inner life.  She opened her eyes wide in astonishment."  Very funny.  But also quite telling.  The diary isn't all tortured depression and despair; more about problems with the servants, gossip about who's seeing whom, the difficulties of finding decent food and endless afternoons spent taking tea.  I never really expected Virginia Woolf to be so cosy.

She is also completely disarmingly arrogant and honest about her snobbery.  Or maybe she simply didn't realise.  By sheer coincidence today we had to sort out a very packed store cupboard and I happened upon some of my old diaries that I haven't touched in at least a decade.  Glancing back at my seventeen year old thoughts had me literally covering my face with my hands and cringing.  The wonder is that anyone is thick skinned enough to leave their diaries to be read by strangers.  And Woolf, choosing the moment of her own death must also, one assumes have deliberately chosen to leave them for others to read.

I truly cannot put the book down.  I had thought that I'd stocked up at the London Library until the new year but it's looking dangerously as though I'll need the next couple of volumes to see me through until then.  Very addictive.

Comments

[Dorothy W.]

You're making me want to keep reading in the diaries -- I've read the first volume, but haven't continued. I want to though!

[Andrew]

As an aside, what Woolf work would you recommend to someone who hasn't read her before?

[Sandra]

Dorothy, they work well at this time of year when I seem to be too busy to have a decent amount of reading time - they're so easy to dip in and out of.

Andrew, I'm by no means a Woolf expert - personally I like Orlando and its quite easy to get into. My favourite is Mrs Dalloway; tied with To the Lighthouse. If you're seriously thinking about embarking on some Woolf then why not head over to Susan Hill's blog (link in the right hand sidebar) where she's running a Woolf for Dummies course (not that I'm calling you a dummy, just that's the name of it!)

[Danielle]

I am reading A Voyage Out (trying to follow along--though am behind--Susan Hill's little course). I am very curious about her life and want to read more eventually. It would be great to read her diaries along with her fiction.

[jenclair]

This reminded me that a few years ago I bought Lady Ottoline's Album: Snapshots and Portraits that I found at an antique store. Lady Ottoline had been mentioned so often in anything to do with Bloomsbury that I bought it without even looking closely. It is full of photographs of people like Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf, Siegfried Sassoon, Alduous Huxley, Katherine Mansfield...she knew everyone. I'm off to see if I can locate it.

[Sandra]

Danielle, take care! You start out with one Woolf novel, a short biography, a diary here and there and then, before you know it, you have been sucked into an entire lifetime of reading about Bloomsbury! Seriously there is an amazing amount about VW and the extended tribe. And if, like me, you like second-hand gossip, it's rather addictive and fun.

Jenclair, that book sounds amazing. I love old photos of authors. With Woolf and her circle there always seems to be such a startling contrast between the rather staid and conventional exterior and the experimental, ambitious interior. I find myself studying such photos for ages looking for clues to the mind that animated the mundane looking person!

[Stefanie]

I love Woolf's diaries! I am in the middle of number three but haven't picked it up for months due to so many other things going on. But you have inspired me. I like to read a few entries before going to sleep at night, and tonight, I'll pick it up again!

[citronyella]

Volume 5 of the Diary (1936-1941) has a hold over me. To see the world moving so inexorably to war, to see the effect of this on Woolf, its simply unputdownable. I have 2 copies, the soft cover is at work, the hc is at home, and no matter how many times I try to take it up and shelve it with its siblings, it refuses to go, and is simply - there! along with the Letters from that time and the early WW2/Phony war/Battle of Britain books that have slowly escaped from my husband's collection to join it. How glad I am that she kept a diary of this particular time and place! In a way, its like shaking hands over the abyss of time.