[Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
Detloff, Madelyn
detlofmm at miamioh.edu
Thu Sep 3 10:14:10 EDT 2015
I think Shakespeare has gotten that kind of treatment, so perhaps it is a
sign of her cultural significance? Just a thought.
And I agree that Brenda Silver's VW Icon is a must read on this subject.
There is certainly enough material for a reprint with an additional chapter
or two on Woolf's iconicity since the book came out!
cheers,
Madelyn
On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 10:10 AM, Angeliki Spiropoulou <
angelikispiropoulou at hotmail.com> wrote:
> A very good question, Mark!
>
> Angeliki
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> From: mhussey at verizon.net
> To: vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2015 09:30:03 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
> Thinking more about this really interesting issue, I am wondering if any
> other writer than Woolf has attracted so many biographers (leaving aside
> the explicitly fictional versions of her). There seems to be a widespread
> compulsion to narrate some version of her life, and the flow has hardly
> stopped (the latest, perhaps, being Vivianne Forrester’s). And, of course,
> there must be an appetite for reading the story in these different versions
> to induce publishers to risk putting them onto the market. But is hers
> really the most interesting writer’s life of the twentieth century? Are
> there, in fact, other writers who have elicited a similar or greater number
> of biographical treatments?
>
>
>
> *From:* Sarah M. Hall [mailto:smhall123 at yahoo.co.uk]
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 03, 2015 5:22 AM
> *To:* Mark Hussey; 'Danell Jones'; 'Stuart N. Clarke';
> vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> Fictionalized Danell: have you considered crowdfunding?
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Mark Hussey <mhussey at verizon.net>
> *To:* 'Danell Jones' <danelljones at bresnan.net>; 'Stuart N. Clarke' <
> stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>; vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 2 September 2015, 21:44
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> Michael Lackey’s new listserv on biofiction (details of which I posted
> last week) and his forthcoming book(s) on the subject are evidence of
> growing academic interest in these questions. I shall keep working on my
> fictionalized Danell if I see any money in it! More seriously, my concern
> is how the fictional version of Woolf so often play into existing
> antagonistic paradigms promulgated by laddish novelists in the UK and other
> Bloomsbury bashers…
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Danell Jones [mailto:danelljones at bresnan.net
> <danelljones at bresnan.net>]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 02, 2015 1:54 PM
> *To:* 'Mark Hussey'; 'Stuart N. Clarke';
> vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> *Subject:* RE: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> I love it! Now I’m dying to know how did I get to the penthouse? Where do
> I keep my opium? The Des Moines thing was clearly a misprint in the
> *Register*. J
>
>
>
> More seriously, I am writing a biography of a African Edwardian living in
> London and am working very, very hard to ground everything in fact, even
> though I am dramatizing some scenes. It is an interesting process. The
> whole genre of creative nonfiction is exciting, complex, challenging.
>
>
>
> I’m always really interested hearing people’s thoughts about where the
> boundaries are in historical novels, creative nonfiction, and even
> sometimes, history.
>
>
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
> Danell
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Mark Hussey [mailto:mhussey at verizon.net <mhussey at verizon.net>]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 02, 2015 10:48 AM
> *To:* 'Danell Jones' <danelljones at bresnan.net>; 'Stuart N. Clarke' <
> stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>; vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> *Subject:* RE: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> “Danell Jones, a zoo keeper from Des Moines with a secret opium habit and
> a penchant for fast cars, leaned out of her penthouse window one snowy
> morning and ….”
>
>
>
> I think, to paraphrase Woolf, there are many varieties of “truth” (just as
> there are many varieties of error…). Brenda Silver’s *Virginia Woolf Icon*
> is instructive here. I agree, it is a great conversation!
>
>
>
> mark
>
>
>
> *From:* Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu
> <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Danell Jones
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 01, 2015 9:54 AM
> *To:* 'Stuart N. Clarke'; vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> As someone who has fictionalized Woolf, may I defend creative writers by
> suggesting that Woolf quite liked the “truth” of fiction? “I prefer, where
> truth is important,” she wrote, “to write fiction.”
>
>
>
> Her “true” story of the *Dreadnought* Hoax, for example, contains a good
> deal of fiction.
>
>
>
> This is a great conversation!
>
>
>
> Danell
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu
> <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Stuart N. Clarke
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 01, 2015 5:04 AM
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> See VW Letters #264, 270, 271.
>
>
>
> Stuart
>
>
>
> *From:* Sarah M. Hall <smhall123 at yahoo.co.uk>
>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 01, 2015 11:11 AM
>
> *To:* Mark Hussey <mhussey at verizon.net> ; 'Leslie Hankins'
> <lhankins at cornellcollege.edu> ; vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu ; 'International
> Virginia Woolf Society' <ivwsociety at gmail.com>
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> Dear All,
>
>
>
> I've contacted Priya Parmar to ask about the source for the table
> 'incident' and she says:
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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!
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> All the best,
>
>
>
> Sarah
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Mark Hussey <mhussey at verizon.net>
> *To:* 'Leslie Hankins' <lhankins at cornellcollege.edu>;
> vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu; 'International Virginia Woolf
> Society' <ivwsociety at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, 29 August 2015, 22:06
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> 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!
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net at lists.osu.edu
> <vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net at lists.osu.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Leslie
> Hankins
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 29, 2015 4:57 PM
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu; International Virginia Woolf
> Society
> *Subject:* [Vwoolf] curiouser and curiouser: the desk(s) of VW
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> I felt at a loss because it didn't sound familiar, at least not the
> outrage of it all.
>
>
>
> Finally she tracked it down to the novel Vanessa & Her Sister by Parmar.
>
>
>
> The passage in the novel (set up as a journal entry) is rather harsh:
>
>
>
> Saturday 5 May 1906--46 Gordon Square (end of a long day)
>
>
>
> "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.
>
>
>
> And--Virginia, after listening to a stinging lecture from Thobs, has
> written twice today, pestering poor Violet for the price of the table."
> (87)
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> I'll keep looking but it does seem curious.
>
>
>
> leslie
>
> --
>
> Leslie Kathleen Hankins
>
> Professor
>
> Department of English & Creative Writing
>
>
>
> *"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." *
>
> Virginia Woolf,
> "How Should One Read a Book?"
>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
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--
Madelyn Detloff
Director of Graduate Studies, English Department
Associate Professor of English and WGS
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
(513) 529-1395
Please note that Miami has changed its domain name to miamioh.edu. My new
email address is detlofmm at miamioh.edu.
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