<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17499"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17455">Dear All,</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_18225"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17455"><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_18222"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17455">I've contacted Priya Parmar to ask about the source for the table 'incident' and she says:</span><br><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17455"></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17493"></div><blockquote id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17596"><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_15964">The incident with the table
is definitely rooted in historical fact. It was valuable and she did
ask Violet for it and appalled her family. I think it comes from a
letter from Vanessa Bell. It may be mentioned in a letter of Virginia's
as well. I do not think it pops up in Lytton Strachey's
correspondence. I wish I had my notes! The dates I know are accurate.</div><div class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_15966"><br class="" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17497" clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17513">I
am not sure if that helps! I have finally stored my research notes in
America and feel a bit bereft that I do not have them to hand! </div></blockquote><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17515" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17517" dir="ltr">Obviously in a novel, the author will explore and speculate on people's emotions ('particular favourite', 'thundered in'), which can lead to difficulties if readers take it at face value. Also, when the (non-Woolfian) reader passes on their interpretation of the events, they add their own layer of emotion ('predatory', 'demanding', 'heirloom', 'horribly embarrassed'). In fact, it has been filtered through three people by the time it gets to us; not that I am questioning your interpretation of your colleague's words, Leslie. <br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_18112" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_18133" dir="ltr">But you're right, Mark. We can't help readers misinterpreting fiction as fact; any more than we can help people believing uncorroborated 'facts' they read in a non-fiction book or a newspaper, which it seems to me are more dangerous and inexcusable.<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17718" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17717" dir="ltr">All the best,</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17594" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17592" dir="ltr">Sarah</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17519" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17590" dir="ltr"> <br></div><blockquote id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17376" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17375" style="font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17374" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, Sans-Serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17373" dir="ltr"> <hr id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17715" size="1"> <font id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17378" face="Arial" size="2"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Mark Hussey <mhussey@verizon.net><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> 'Leslie Hankins' <lhankins@cornellcollege.edu>; vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu; 'International Virginia Woolf Society' <ivwsociety@gmail.com> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, 29 August 2015, 22:06<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW<br> </font> </div> <div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17428" class="y_msg_container"><br><div id="yiv9780785571"><style>#yiv9780785571 #yiv9780785571 --
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#yiv9780785571 </style><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17427"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17426" class="yiv9780785571WordSection1"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17429" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">Perhaps we need to institute a fact checking website to counter the endless flow of misinformation coming from novelists and tv series writers, film-makers and others who prefer fictional versions of VW et al. to anything based on the historical record!</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17425" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div><div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br><br></div><div class="yiv9780785571yqt0049288412" id="yiv9780785571yqt87696"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17444" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">From:</span></b><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17588" style="font-size:10.0pt;"> Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net@lists.osu.edu] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Leslie Hankins<br clear="none"><b>Sent:</b> Saturday, August 29, 2015 4:57 PM<br clear="none"><b>To:</b> vwoolf@lists.service.ohio-state.edu; International Virginia Woolf Society<br clear="none"><b>Subject:</b> [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW</span></div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17437"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17442" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">Hello again! The desk plot thickens. A colleague at dinner (not a VW scholar) told me she had read somewhere that VW was really very predatory and rude about asking for and demanding a desk from a friend, a desk that was an heirloom, etc. She said that Vanessa had been horribly embarrassed by the whole thing, etc, etc. </div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17440"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17439" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">I felt at a loss because it didn't sound familiar, at least not the outrage of it all.</div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">Finally she tracked it down to the novel Vanessa & Her Sister by Parmar. </div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17436"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17435" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17617"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17616" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">The passage in the novel (set up as a journal entry) is rather harsh:</div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17620"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17619" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17623"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17622" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">Saturday 5 May 1906--46 Gordon Square (end of a long day)</div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17626"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17625" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17629"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17628" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">"Virginia asked Violet for a table. Such an innocuous sentence, but what a rumpus it has caused. It is apparently a particular favourite of Violet's and a valuable antique to boot. Virginia just thundered in to tea at Violet's one afternoon and told her that she would quite like to have it. Mother would be so distressed. Thoby and Adrian are appalled--"One simply does not go about asking for other people's things, Ginia!"--and I am now resigned. I was unsettled at first, wary as I am for any signs of imbalance or incongruity in Virginia, but seeing that it was just one of her peculiar moments of directness at work, I relaxed. Violet was an utter dear and had the table delivered the next day. Virginia is planning to have two of the legs sawn off, which makes the gift quite irreversible.</div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17632"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17631" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"><br clear="all"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17635"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17634" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> And--Virginia, after listening to a stinging lecture from Thobs, has written twice today, pestering poor Violet for the price of the table." (87)</div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17638"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17637" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17641"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1441093293039_17640" class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">I've looked at VW's letters to Violet (Vol 1 270, [May 1906] p 225ff but haven't found anything about Vanessa's reaction. Does anyone have any more information about this? I've hardly looked at Patmar's book but my colleague noted that it made VW out to be rather demonic.</div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">I'll keep looking but it does seem curious.</div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">leslie</div></div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal">-- </div><div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"><span style="">Leslie Kathleen Hankins</span></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"><span style="">Professor</span></div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"><span style="">Department of English & Creative Writing</span></div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"> </div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">"Moreover, however interesting facts may be, they are an inferior form of fiction, & gradually we become impatient of their weakness & diffuseness, of their compromises & evasions, of the slovenly sentences which they make for themselves, and are eager to revive ourselves with the greater intensity & truth of fiction." </span></i><span style="font-size:10.0pt;"> </span></div></div><div><div class="yiv9780785571MsoNormal"><span style=""> Virginia Woolf, "How Should One Read a Book?"</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br><div class="yqt0049288412" id="yqt79562">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">Vwoolf mailing list<br clear="none"><a original_target="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" saprocessedanchor="true" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:Vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" href="mailto:Vwoolf@lists.osu.edu">Vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a><br clear="none"><a original_target="https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf" saprocessedanchor="true" shape="rect" href="https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf" target="_blank">https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf</a><br clear="none"></div><br><br></div> </div> </div> </blockquote> </div></body></html>