[Vwoolf] Weighing in
atleswoolf at aol.com
atleswoolf at aol.com
Fri Aug 23 07:44:53 EDT 2013
Michael Cunningham tends to get knocked around a lot on this list, but that's where the interest in Woolf started for me. While in college, I'd read bits of A Room of One's Own in a literary theory anthology (where it was helpfully listed under "Feminism"), but very little else -- no one else taught her. In 1998, I read a rave review of The Hours in the gay magazine The Advocate a few months before it won the Pulitzer Prize, and I thought, "That sounds interesting." I went straight to the bookstore, bought it, and read it in one sitting. I knew at that instant that my life was now different. I walked over to my bookshelves -- about a year earlier, I'd bought a book-club four-pack paperback set of the Bell biography, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas which I'd not touched since. I picked up the Bell biography, began reading, and have not stopped with Woolf since that moment. As fortune would have it, I was beginning graduate school around that time, so I was free to make her the focus of my work and my writing. So yes, all because of Cunningham. I recognize his flaws, but it's not all bad, folks. I've had plenty of students over the years begin reading Woolf after reading The Hours, which I think was Cunningham's point all along.
Best,
Drew Shannon
College of Mount St. Joseph
-----Original Message-----
From: Bonnie Scott <bkscott at mail.sdsu.edu>
To: Toni McNaron <mcnar001 at umn.edu>
Cc: woolf list <VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Thu, Aug 22, 2013 11:23 pm
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Weighing in
I was aware of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and during my freshman year in college I decided on a rainy afternoon to check her out in the library. I pulled To the Lighthouse off the shelf, sank down on the floor and began reading. Before I knew it the bell for the library closing was going off. My roommate was sure that something dire had happened to me, not just because I barely made curfew, but because I returned in a slightly dazed condition. I did my honors thesis in Woolf and Joyce, a combination I've never turned from.
Best,
Bonnie
On Aug 22, 2013, at 2:13 PM, Toni McNaron wrote:
Vara asks other of us to say how we became captivated by Woolf. I was in graduate school in Madison at the University of Wisconsin, working on Renaissance (as we called it then) literature. I had never even heard of Virginia Woolf. A woman to whom I was entirely attracted asked me if I read her and I tried not to answer. I went right to the library and got /To the Lighthouse/ because the object of my crush had mentioned that title. I was completely stunned and amazed and just kept reading. As soon as I had a little wiggle room as a professor, I began teaching her to other young people who didn't know who she was. The relationship with the woman only lasted 7 years, but my connection to Virginia continues to grow as I continue to age.
Toni
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Bonnie Kime Scott, Ph. D.
Professor Emerita of Women's Studies
San Diego State University
bkscott at mail.sdsu.edu
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