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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Not sure why anyone would want to waste their time on this old buffer’s ramblings, but here Heffer goes again… (It is possible to register for a free account to have full access to a limited number of articles; the readers’ comments are even more depressing and ill-informed than Heffer’s nonsense):<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#86146E;text-transform:uppercase'>L</span><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>ast summer, at my wife's suggestion, we went to <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/what-to-see/charleston-farmhouse-review-bloomsbury-sets-radical-spirit-restored/"><span style='color:#222222;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;text-decoration:none'>Charleston Farmhouse</span></a> in Sussex, a place of pilgrimage for devotees of the Bloomsbury Group. In the Twenties, this collection of writers and artists supposedly changed – in their view, modernised – British culture. Charleston was acquired by <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/time-save-vanessa-bell-beasts-bloomsbury/"><span style='color:#222222;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;text-decoration:none'>Vanessa Bell</span></a>, sister of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/virginia-woolf-remains-one-literatures-alluring-writers/"><span style='color:#222222;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;text-decoration:none'>Virginia Woolf</span></a>, during the Great War. Her husband was Clive Bell, an art critic. However, Mrs Bell shared the house with Duncan Grant, by whom she had a daughter, Angelica. Grant was homosexual, and one of his boyfriends had been David Garnett, a novelist, whom Angelica married. It is little wonder that biographies, diaries, films and television programmes about the denizens of Bloomsbury seem to have such enduring appeal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>But is it all a bit of a con? Charleston heaves with visitors. Yet the decor – Bloomsbury colour schemes imposed on the walls, furniture and doors, the paintings, even the lampshades – causes the uncouth, me among them, to marvel at its crudity. It gave me the same sensation as seeing ancient cave art, only without the anthropological resonance. One senses that most who go to Charleston do so to commune with the spirit of Bloomsbury, which hangs heavily over it. Leonard and Virginia Woolf were frequent visitors; so were Roger Fry and Lytton Strachey.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>Yet when one reads about these people, one soon realises the benefit of Bloomsbury for those who were part of it: the mutual backslapping, with everyone praising everyone else's work. The paintings of Grant and Bell are not in the league of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/work-meals-sex-untold-story-picassos-early-years/"><span style='color:#222222;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;text-decoration:none'>Picasso</span></a>; and yet many regard them with comparable reverence. Not everyone has fallen under the spell: in 1935, the Cunard Line commissioned Grant to design murals for the first-class lounge of the Queen Mary, but ordered them to be removed once they saw them the following year.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>The literary side of Bloomsbury continues to capture the imagination of successive generations; and Woolf and Strachey, from the group's hard core, are the most prominent. (EM Forster, often accused of being a Bloomsbury man, had far more diverse connections.) Both Woolf and Strachey merit more detailed consideration than there is space for here, but a general observation about each will suffice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>Woolf was brilliant at conveying her own psychoses in her prose, and in her adoption of the stream of consciousness as developed by Proust and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/how-james-joyces-ulysses-inspired-good--and-bad--art/"><span style='color:#222222;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;text-decoration:none'>Joyce</span></a>. I have yet to detect any originality in her literary conceptions, although she was capable of effective communication of scenes, characters and ideas. Her fiction is laced with her snobbery, and her criticism throbs with it: if one finds such things amusing, then Woolf is a hoot.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333'>Strachey had an entirely destructive mentality. Eminent Victorians<i> </i>(1918), praised for its wit, makes cheap laughs out of twisting the truth. His essay on Thomas Arnold is a travesty, and his decision to mock a culture that made Britain into the world's leading power is instructive – though only of Strachey himself. He shared the self-obsession of the rest of the group, who were united above all by an unshakeable belief in their superiority. Perhaps the Bloomsberries were rather superior in their time. Happily, the intervening years have given the rest of us the chance to catch up, and see through their collective self-regard.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net@lists.osu.edu] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Neverow, Vara S. via Vwoolf<br><b>Sent:</b> Friday, March 22, 2019 10:00 AM<br><b>To:</b> vwoolf listserve<br><b>Subject:</b> [Vwoolf] Bloomsbury-bashing<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div id=divtagdefaultwrapper><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'>Greetings,<br><br>Possibly of interest is a link below to an article in the <i>Telegraph. </i>The article seems to be is dedicated to Bloomsbury-bashing. Alas, the article is only accessible to subscribers. Perhaps someone who has access will be able to share it with those of us who do not. <br><br><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/snobbish-crude-self-obsessed-has-bloomsbury-group-lost-bloom/" id=LPlnk479695>https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/snobbish-crude-self-obsessed-has-bloomsbury-group-lost-bloom/</a> <o:p></o:p></span></p><div style='margin-bottom:15.0pt;overflow:auto' id="LPBorder_GT_15532630089140.9190098730467888"><table class=MsoNormalTable border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width="90%" style='width:90.0%;background:white;border-top:dotted #C8C8C8 1.0pt;border-left:none;border-bottom:dotted #C8C8C8 1.0pt;border-right:none'><tr><td width=250 valign=top style='width:187.5pt;border:none;padding:15.0pt 15.0pt 15.0pt .75pt'><div style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt;display:table' id="LPImageContainer_15532630089130.33957700842116956"><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:15.0pt;background:white'><a href="https://wwwtelegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/snobbish-crude-self-obsessed-has-bloomsbury-group-lost-bloom/" target="_blank"><span style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=250 height=156 id="LPThumbnailImageID_15532630089130.8914475868381961" src="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/books/2019/03/08/TELEMMGLPICT000190495534-xlarge_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqPuL-8ex6Wxr3HGFUi6PIc45tImKey5x700iKis9lGeo.jpeg"></span></a><o:p></o:p></p></div></td><td valign=top style='border:none;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in;display:table-cell' id="TextCell_15532630089130.6859255594876366"><div id="LPTitle_15532630089130.8228151390874674"><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:15.0pt;mso-line-height-alt:15.75pt'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Segoe UI Light","sans-serif";color:#212121'><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/snobbish-crude-self-obsessed-has-bloomsbury-group-lost-bloom/" target="_blank"><span style='text-decoration:none'>Snobbish, crude and self-obsessed: has the Bloomsbury Group lost its bloom? - telegraph.co.uk</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div style='margin-top:7.5pt;margin-bottom:12.0pt' id="LPMetadata_15532630089140.9985525098038135"><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:15.0pt;line-height:10.5pt'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Segoe UI","sans-serif";color:#666666'>www.telegraph.co.uk<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div id="LPDescription_15532630089140.4195779765513685"><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:15.0pt;line-height:15.0pt'><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Segoe UI","sans-serif";color:#666666'>L ast summer, at my wife's suggestion, we went to Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex, a place of pilgrimage for devotees of the Bloomsbury Group. In the Twenties, this collection of writers and ...<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></td></tr></table></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><br><br><br>Best,<br><br>Vara<br><br>Vara Neverow<br>Department of English<br>Southern Connecticut State University<br>New Haven, CT 06515<br>203-392-6717<br>neverowv1@southernct.edu <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>