[Vwoolf] Bloomsbury-bashing

Neverow, Vara S. neverowv1 at southernct.edu
Sat Mar 23 17:45:27 EDT 2019


Dear Melanie,


Thanks so much for posting this absolutely awful essay. Of course, it's the same as it ever was. Those boring Bloomsberries. So effete. So arrogant. So privileged. So banal. Blah, blah, blah. (Nonetheless, I do want to know what is written from these perspectives even though I have to hold my nose while reading.)


I am intrigued that Dalrymple refers to Woolf as Mrs. Woolf in an essay published in 2002. He seems to be yearning for the early 1960s, the era of good ole pre-Second-Wave Feminism life. Ah, if only we could reinstate patriarchy in its full glory and put women firmly in their place!


Best,


Vara



Vara Neverow
Department of English
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu


________________________________
From: Melanie White <melanie.white at comcast.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2019 4:12 PM
To: Neverow, Vara S.; 'Mark Hussey'; 'Woolf Listserv'
Subject: RE: [Vwoolf] Bloomsbury-bashing


Years ago when I was just getting acquainted with VW and Bloomsbury, I chanced upon this essay, and I have never forgotten it. I was blown away by the writer's contemptuous vitriole. He seemed to go very far out of his way to take the most negative interpretation possible on everything to do with her. I had trouble imagining why anyone would take this so very seriously, as if he'd suffered personally as a direct result of something VW said or did. I still don't understand it. Something in the Bloomsbury subculture reeeeally pushes some peoples' buttons.



https://www.city-journal.org/html/rage-virginia-woolf-12371.html<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.city-journal.org%2Fhtml%2Frage-virginia-woolf-12371.html&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568724720&sdata=CRfNJb%2Bf1Vxk44uFJZod5t7bev3KLXIuaf7r6d4hUmI%3D&reserved=0>







From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces+melanie.white=comcast.net at lists.osu.edu> On Behalf Of Neverow, Vara S. via Vwoolf
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2019 2:06 PM
To: Mark Hussey <mhussey at verizon.net>; 'Woolf Listserv' <vwoolf at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Bloomsbury-bashing



Thanks, Mark! Much appreciated. And thanks, Stuart, for posting a similar snarky rant by the same Bloomsbury-hater. And, of course, thanks to Brenda for the reference to Christopher Reed’s extremely detailed and nuanced essay.

As to my own rationale for the request, I think it’s worth keeping track of these snide remarks. They illuminate the motivations, misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the adversaries and reveal the flawed rationales for their various vendettas.

Best,

Vara

Vara Neverow
Department of English
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu

________________________________

From: Mark Hussey <mhussey at verizon.net>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2019 1:59:34 PM
To: Neverow, Vara S.; 'Woolf Listserv'
Subject: RE: [Vwoolf] Bloomsbury-bashing



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):





Last summer, at my wife's suggestion, we went to Charleston Farmhouse<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fart%2Fwhat-to-see%2Fcharleston-farmhouse-review-bloomsbury-sets-radical-spirit-restored%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568724720&sdata=rA9WYvRRN0Ga8fDdxiv%2ByH66ZDn8H6csRRO1iFrnWpE%3D&reserved=0> 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 Vanessa Bell<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fart%2Fartists%2Ftime-save-vanessa-bell-beasts-bloomsbury%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568734725&sdata=fGUY2YjYUEKIlTuto9LibRhBpR2CioXX1AirkpfoKBc%3D&reserved=0>, sister of Virginia Woolf<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbooks%2Fauthors%2Fvirginia-woolf-remains-one-literatures-alluring-writers%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568744730&sdata=TXFGV%2F2hEkb4IBlpeKtF1gCA2TGaWR9pGbzL8ychxk4%3D&reserved=0>, 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.

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.

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 Picasso<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fart%2Fartists%2Fwork-meals-sex-untold-story-picassos-early-years%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568744730&sdata=aTg29lvX%2ByQ6UP1G2H4tvhySLIsG6nXQWf3%2BPbP4Zvw%3D&reserved=0>; 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.

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.

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 Joyce<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fart%2Fartists%2Fhow-james-joyces-ulysses-inspired-good--and-bad--art%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568754739&sdata=leTrC4mI%2FRWB5tR49ef8d9vIVVbgA0nLotEgzBTV1Dk%3D&reserved=0>. 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.

Strachey had an entirely destructive mentality. Eminent Victorians (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.





From: Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+mhussey=verizon.net at lists.osu.edu] On Behalf Of Neverow, Vara S. via Vwoolf
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2019 10:00 AM
To: vwoolf listserve
Subject: [Vwoolf] Bloomsbury-bashing



Greetings,

Possibly of interest is a link below to an article in the Telegraph. 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.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/snobbish-crude-self-obsessed-has-bloomsbury-group-lost-bloom/<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbooks%2Fwhat-to-read%2Fsnobbish-crude-self-obsessed-has-bloomsbury-group-lost-bloom%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568754739&sdata=N7kkpvBxgbsaScF8n%2FSxa7a7jg1lMMD7dIjxKOnOFPg%3D&reserved=0>

[Image removed by sender.]<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwwwtelegraph.co.uk%2Fbooks%2Fwhat-to-read%2Fsnobbish-crude-self-obsessed-has-bloomsbury-group-lost-bloom%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568764744&sdata=X%2BzP12eRlNYR60nvNj%2FpG%2FIFD%2BNsc%2BiiiLehZlnF1D0%3D&reserved=0>


Snobbish, crude and self-obsessed: has the Bloomsbury Group lost its bloom? - telegraph.co.uk<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbooks%2Fwhat-to-read%2Fsnobbish-crude-self-obsessed-has-bloomsbury-group-lost-bloom%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cneverowv1%40southernct.edu%7C61562bda677e4b76a2a508d6afcbe26a%7C58736863d60e40ce95c60723c7eaaf67%7C0%7C0%7C636889687568764744&sdata=c00yFj2sQySh8qFuBPVIC%2FEXR8VR8z%2BkHZ%2FDlVTEja0%3D&reserved=0>

www.telegraph.co.uk

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 ...




Best,

Vara

Vara Neverow
Department of English
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu
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