[Vwoolf] Weighing in

[Alice Lowe]

Time to weigh in on behalf of the diaries. I knew Woolf's work only slightly when I went to England on a 6-month exchange in 1990. There I was in a Devon village, free of all responsibility, between careers, seeking new direction, open & curious. My host's bookshelves were dominated by economic history (his specialization), and old seafaring tales (his passion), but there among them was A Writer's Diary. I took it off the shelf & sat down with it - that was the start of everything. I went from there to the novels, diaries & letters & more, but to this day I always come back to A Writer's Diary for inspiration and renewed energy - the language, the observations, the insights, oh my! 

I wrote about my experience, "Discovering England - Discovering Virginia Woolf," for the first encounters feature in the VW Bulletin mentioned earlier in this exchange. I've enjoyed all of the accounts about how people came to Woolf...
 
Alice Lowe
www.aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com 
 

From: "atleswoolf at aol.com" <atleswoolf at aol.com>
To: bkscott at mail.sdsu.edu; mcnar001 at umn.edu 
Cc: VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
Sent: Friday, August 23, 2013 4:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Weighing in



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.
>
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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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