[Vwoolf] Fwd: Speculative recuperations of Woolf's suicide

Sun Jun 17 06:41:58 EDT 2012

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Karen Bercovici <kberco at crocker.com>
> Date: June 17, 2012 6:39:23 AM EDT
> To: Laurie Reiche <p.reiche at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Speculative recuperations of Woolf's suicide
>
> Laurie:  thank you for this beautifully expressed piece which  
> reflects some of my own feelings about the fluidity, multiplicity  
> and mystery of our understandings of human actions, and VW's suicide  
> in particular. This is an artistic, creative view, which can and  
> should merge with the academic/scholarly. You are not romanticizing  
> suicide at all, you are grasping for an understanding of the  
> emotions/thoughts/experiences which may lie behind this terrible,  
> final action, an action which also does speak a universal language.   
> I do also find that the term mental illness is problematical.  who  
> defines it?  the medical profession?  a patriarchal institution if  
> ever there was one. hollow language.  your description is not  
> counter to saying she suffered in the end from mental disturbances  
> which drove her to this terrible act and such a great loss for us all.
>
> karen bercovici
> On Jun 16, 2012, at 4:17 PM, Laurie Reiche wrote:
>
>> Do I dare jump into this brilliant conversation, being nobody  
>> really except an unknown poet/writer who is a Woolf worshipper and  
>> new to speaking in this company of Woolf scholars? Well, of course,  
>> I'm going to take the leap, if only to say this: the reasons for  
>> Woolf's suicide (or anybody's for that matter) was, obviously, an  
>> accumulation of multifaceted anguishes. One emotional,  
>> psychological, political, or physical event usually won't be the  
>> trigger propelling one to choose to die. Can you imagine (I suppose  
>> we could never) being a fly on the wall of Woolf's brain and  
>> listening in on the conversations taking place in her mind---not  
>> the thoughts she wrote in her diaries but the one's she couldn't  
>> catch in her net of words---during the months before she died? I  
>> imagine (having felt suicidal depression myself over the many long  
>> years of my life) her brilliant mind being like a periscope  
>> observing the whole vast and tumultuous sea of existence, making  
>> notes, philosophical declarations, artistic comments, political  
>> utterances while simultaneously noticing her own body and the way  
>> it, too, was reacting to her thoughts: nerves pitching upward or  
>> plummeting down---Thantos luring her into the darkness at the same  
>> time as Eros (all the loves in her life and passions) beckoning her  
>> to stay in the light of life? I don't know if I'm making myself  
>> understood? I'm just trying to say that Woolf's reasons for suicide  
>> cannot be fully understood; finding one particular factor is  
>> wrongheaded. Anyway, I don't think she'd approve of us taking one  
>> path to understanding her motivation! She was a multifaceted gem of  
>> a woman and her death was a reflection of that blinding (?)  
>> complexity and---yes---effulgence. But her suicide can't help but  
>> make me think of Paul Celan's---so many years after the Holocaust--- 
>> throwing himself into the Seine; or Plath's ritualistic toying with  
>> death---every ten years trying it then finally losing the roulette  
>> game---and the reasons? Always so many…and always so mysterious. I  
>> wrote a poem a while back called "Points and Slopes" which was,  
>> literally, a portrait of Woolf. The last two lines of the sonnet  
>> sums up the conundrum we face when trying to understand her  
>> suicide, (and her life:) "...What do your eyes see that your mouth  
>> does not?/Such pain in the glass of your eyes or is that light  
>> gladness?"
>> Warmly,
>> Laurie Lessen Reiche
>>
>> On Jun 16, 2012, at 9:20 AM, Brenda Helt wrote:
>>
>>> This is exactly the type of thing I’m talking about.  Woolf was  
>>> specific in her suicide letter as to why she took her life, and  
>>> when her contemporaries began to hypothesize that she committed  
>>> suicide because she feared Nazi invasion etc, Leonard quoted the  
>>> letter publicly in order to stop that nonsense—which it seems to  
>>> me is an unfortunate thing to have to do when your partner has  
>>> just died.  Mental illness is the main reason most people commit  
>>> suicide, and it’s why Woolf committed suicide.  She specifically  
>>> said so and did not mention other reasons.  The “carefully  
>>> considered choice” is just another form of the romantic madwoman  
>>> (or genius) throwing herself into the abyss—an attempt to  
>>> recuperate as “altruistic” something that is the result of mental  
>>> illness.  That is a dangerous direction for Woolf scholars to go,  
>>> in my opinion, because we seem then to throw the weight of our  
>>> authority as Woolf scholars (and teachers/professors) behind a  
>>> recuperative attitude towards suicide that does not encourage our  
>>> students, readers, or audience members who might be fascinated  
>>> with her suicide because they themselves contemplate suicide to  
>>> get the medical help they need.  I think we would have been better  
>>> off to have another thirty or so years of writing from Woolf; her  
>>> suicide ranks as one of those horrible things that happens in life  
>>> that it’s too bad Leonard or someone didn’t see coming and manage  
>>> to stop.  I can’t recuperate it.  I wouldn’t want to try.  And I  
>>> prefer the facts.
>>>
>>> Brenda Helt, PhD
>>>
>>> From: vwoolf-bounces+helt0010=umn.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu  
>>> [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+helt0010=umn.edu at lists.service.ohio- 
>>> state.edu] On Behalf Of jeannette smyth
>>> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2012 8:42 AM
>>> To: Woolf list
>>> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Apocryphal lines & Woolf's suicide
>>>
>>> Thank you for this excellent Orr information; I know Sir Leslie's  
>>> financial anxiety was formative in Woolf's life, as well as  
>>> Virginia's and Leonard's natural asceticism and frugality.
>>>
>>> Another factor in her suicide, as I understand it, was the  
>>> imminence of a Nazi invasion. I think this is mentioned, rather  
>>> brutally, by Vanessa, in one of her letters to Virginia -- the  
>>> prospect of being an "invalid" or raving lunatic at such a time,  
>>> with both Leonard and herself on Hitler's to-kill list.
>>>
>>> Finally, as I understand it, Adrian Stephen, a physician, had  
>>> provided them all with a suicide pill in the event of a successful  
>>> Nazi invasion.
>>>
>>> These factors, along with the Bloomsberries' longstanding atheism  
>>> and Leonard's carefully cultivated stoicism (via Montaigne/ 
>>> Seneca), would have made Virginia Woolf's suicide the altruistic,  
>>> logical, long-contemplated, communitarian and sane decision -- the  
>>> absolute opposite of a romantic madwoman's hurling herself into  
>>> the abyss -- that it seems to have been.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>> Jeannette Smyth
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: "Neverow, Vara S."
>>> Sent: Jun 14, 2012 8:36 AM
>>> To: "helt0010 at umn.edu" , Woolf list
>>> Cc: Wayne Chapman
>>> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Apocryphal lines & Woolf's suicide
>>>
>>>
>>> With regard to Woolf's suicide, I would recommend that Woolfians  
>>> also consult the monograph Virginia Woolf's Illnesses by Douglass  
>>> W. Orr <http://www.clemson.edu/cedp/cudp/pubs/orr/main.htm>. Orr  
>>> argues veryconvincingly that Woolf's suicide was linked to  
>>> financial anxieties. If she were to have needed nursing care, the  
>>> costs would have been devastating. Chapter 14 of the volume is  
>>> exceptionally informative on this topic and can be read in a  
>>> searchable PDF format (many thanks to Wayne Chapman, for not only  
>>> publishing the manuscript but also making it so readily  
>>> accessible!).
>>>
>>> Vara Neverow
>>>
>>> From: Brenda Helt <helt0010 at umn.edu>
>>> Reply-To: "helt0010 at umn.edu" <helt0010 at umn.edu>
>>> To: VWOOLF listserv <vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
>>> Subject: [Vwoolf] Apocryphal lines & Woolf's suicide
>>>
>>> Um, then don’t?  I’m disturbed by tendencies among scholars and  
>>> others to attempt to recuperate Woolf’s suicide in ways that might  
>>> make it seem a model for those who see her as an icon.  She left a  
>>> suicide note—in fact, she left two.  Leonard is also on record as  
>>> to the reasons for the suicide.  Surely it’s sufficient to stick  
>>> to the primary source evidence of what Woolf actually said before  
>>> taking her life, together with the long history of her fight with  
>>> mental illness as recorded in her diaries and letters as well as  
>>> in Leonard’s autobiography, Vanessa’s letters, etc.  I think we  
>>> tread on dangerous ground when we give voice in the classroom or  
>>> on the stage or in print to a redemptive view of Woolf’s suicide  
>>> that the evidence does not support.  She feared she was again  
>>> going mad and would not recover this time.  She calls what she  
>>> suffers from a “disease,” which it is.  This is what she said.   
>>> Why not tell students about that fear and have a discussion about  
>>> depression, bipolar disorder, and mental illness more generally?   
>>> About the likely outcomes of not getting such diseases treated  
>>> properly—“proper” treatment was not available for Woolf at this  
>>> time.  Of course, do your research first.  And Hermione Lee’s  
>>> biography of Woolf is quite solidly grounded in the facts on the  
>>> issue of her suicide.  I’d read her pages dedicated to the suicide  
>>> before talking about it with students.
>>>
>>> Hope that’s helpful.
>>>
>>>
>>> Brenda Helt
>>>
>>> From: vwoolf-bounces+helt0010=umn.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu  
>>> [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+helt0010=umn.edu at lists.service.ohio- 
>>> state.edu] On Behalf Of Melody Wilson
>>> Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 6:14 AM
>>> To: atleswoolf at aol.com
>>> Cc: Vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
>>> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Apocryphal lines
>>>
>>> Interesting--I'm very troubled about putting words in her mouth as  
>>> well.
>>>
>>> Be Wise
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jun 14, 2012, at 6:12 AM, atleswoolf at aol.com wrote:
>>>
>>> As far as I know, these lines are the screenwriter David Hare's  
>>> and not Michael Cunningham's.  They don't appear in the novel --  
>>> only in the film.  I read somewhere a while back that Hare said he  
>>> was nervous about putting such words into Woolf's mouth, or  
>>> something to that effect.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Drew Shannon
>>> College of Mount St. Joseph
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Melody Wilson <melodywilson at tds.net>
>>> To: Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <Vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
>>> Sent: Thu, Jun 14, 2012 8:51 am
>>> Subject: [Vwoolf] Apocryphal lines
>>>
>>> Dear Woolfians:
>>> I am writing a eulogy, and after showing The Hours in my class (we  
>>> had read
>>> Dalloway), I was struck by the final lines I paraphrase as to look  
>>> life in the
>>> face and to love it...then to put it away (I'm stuck in this  
>>> screen and can't
>>> verify).  I have done a preliminary search and think these are  
>>> cunningham's
>>> lines (he attributes them to one of the suicide notes).  Can  
>>> anyone verify that
>>> these lines are not Woolf's?  I will probably open w them anyway  
>>> as the are
>>> appropriate but I would like to know.  Thanks for your help.
>>>
>>> Be Wise
>>>
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>>
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