Analysis by Paralysis: July 2010

Friday, July 30, 2010

Monday, July 26, 2010

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

As much as Leonard Woolf has been the scandal of a Bloomsbury generation obsessed with valorizing Virginia Woolf, I can’t help but like the man. (see various). He was adventurous, clear-headed, and jewish (a trait that I always adore in a man), and he wrote a bevy of articles all beyond any sort of reproach. He was someone you could count on, and pictures of him always remind me of a loyal, if somewhat rheumatic, weasel. I’m Leonard’s side, most of all, because I’m researching him, and, in perverse counter-feminism, think that he’s become one of the few men in history to be overshadowed by his wife.

Yet Leonard’s fame and reputation have suffered over the years, possibly, even, from his own pen. After a prolific career of pamphlets and books advocating socialism, the most that he produced a scant six books after Virginia’s death. Of these, five are part of an immense autobiographical project, and the one is the last of his “political trilogy,” Principia Politica.[1] The autobiographies are glanced over almost in a routine by Bloomsbury acolytes, either to mine for (frequent) references to Virginia, or to get a flavor from one of the least publicized members of the group. Prinicipia Poltica, unfortunately, has dropped out almost completely out of notice. If we take Leonard at his word, he would hardly mind his marginal place in history. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, and no degree of fame can help you afterward:

“I cannot believe that death is anything but complete personal annihilation. I cannot, therefore, feel any personal interest or involvement in anything of mine after I have been annihilated. I should like to know what happens on the day after my death, e.g. what horse wins the Derby if I die the day before Derby day, and I should like to know what happens to my books after my death, but as I shall never know either, annihilation makes it all one for me. The fate of my books, even before my death, loses some of its importance for me, and this in turn diminishes both the pleasure in success of the pain of failure.” (Downhill all the way; 206)

Elusive comments like these intrigue me all the more. I’m not sure any author is free of that myth of immortality, after all. To paraphrase Orwell: “All writers are vain, self-obsessed, and jealous” (somewhere in Why I write). Yet however sincere Leonard Woolf might or might not have been, the fate of his books certainly have not been as star-studded as his wife’s.

I’m going to be researching Leonard for these reasons, among others. Naturally, I’m not solely interested in self-admitted failures for their own sakes, nor am I a believer that every forgotten writer deserves rediscovery, but I think Woolf has been misappraised. I interested in the following questions:

1. How much has Woolf’s fiction (The Wise Virgins, The village in the Jungle) have to do with his Fabian and socialist positions?

2. How much did Woolf have an impact in the Labour party?

3. Are they’re, in essence, to Leonard’s (two “Wolves”?): one, the shadowy husband of Virginia, known for the surname he bestowed on he alone; two, the politically-active, campaigning Woolf, still known, at least implicitly among the British left for his energetic attacks on imperialism and world capitalism?

I have no idea what the answer to these questions will be. I’m interested in the recent depiction of Leonard as the domineering tyrant who drove constricted Virginia’s creativity and finally drove her to madness, but I think this question is hopelessly tangled with a Virginia Woolf industry I’d like to avoid. Rather, I hope to see what Leonard Woolf’s impact might actually have been, and, most importantly, how he might continue to important today.

If you have any suggestions or ideas, email me. I’m drowning in research right now, and need any lifelines that could be tossed.

[1] Downhill all the way; 224ish

Posted via email from Scribblings of James Perkins

Who's afraid of Leonard Woolf?

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1. How much has Woolf’s fiction (The Wise Virgins, The village in the Jungle) have to do with his Fabian and socialist positions?

2. How much did Woolf have an impact in the Labour party?

If you have any suggestions or ideas, email me. I’m drowning in research right now, and need any lifelines that could be tossed.

[1] Downhill all the way; 224ish

Posted via email from Scribblings of James Perkins

Who's afraid of Leonard Woolf

Elusive comments like these intrigue me all the more. I’m not sure any author is free of that myth of immortality, after all.

To paraphrase Orwell: “All writers are vain, self-obsessed, and jealous” (somewhere in Why I write). Yet however sincere Leonard Woolf might or might not have been, the fate of his books certainly have not been as star-studded as his wife’s.

1. How much has Woolf’s fiction (The Wise Virgins, The village in the Jungle) have to do with his Fabian and socialist positions?

2. How much did Woolf have an impact in the Labour party?

If you have any suggestions or ideas, email me. I’m drowning in research right now, and would welcome a lifeline.

[1] Downhill all the way; 224ish

Posted via email from Scribblings of James Perkins