[Vwoolf] New Yorker Article

Wed Dec 30 09:07:47 EST 2020

Hear hear Christine, and thank you, Mark, for your excellent pointed comments, ho ho!

From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> On Behalf Of Christine Froula via Vwoolf
Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2020 7:55 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] New Yorker Article

Love your extended witticism, Mark, and also identify deeply with your existence. Inside every Woolf scholar and teacher there remains a passionate Common Reader like yourself, or so I think--everyone starts out as a CR, and her writings are so rich and various that we can only remain so, whatever our later awareness of nits and commitments to nitpicking. Whatever path we take through life, she's a cherished companion on the way, ever surprising, inexhaustibly funny, taking us down all sorts of fascinating byways, always There. 

For me and some other Woolf scholars with whom I spoke on its release (we watched it together at a conference), The Hours film creates a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, as it does for you. At the same time, it's a new work in its own right, and people who had only heard of VW via Albee liked the film and talked to me about it. (Speaking of Albee, Regina Marler commented on LW's granting his request to use VW's name: "Good for business?" LW was a brilliant manager.) Who knows how many people have come to VW and MD by way of The Hours? (Probably more than via Albee, who gave her name marquee value while emptying it of all content.) And Cunningham's translation of the losses, grief, and mourning of the postWWI moment to the AIDS crisis seems to me a masterstroke, even if his book can't compare with the masterpiece MD is. 

As you say, our American culture industry is a celebrity culture, and we have few media that aspire to bridge deep thought and popular sensation. The NYT long ago made a conscious decision not to review academic books, and its editors sometimes make spectacular lapses of judgment, so immersed are they in DC Groupthink, etc. Being a CR is a fine antidote imho--the horse's mouth.

Happy New Year,

Christine

On 12/29/2020 8:31 PM, Mark Scott via Vwoolf wrote:

And before someone else does, I feel that I must say that my attempted witticism about Angels of the House and Slater’s Pins clearly has no point.

Mark Scott

Common Reader

From: Mark Scott via Vwoolf 

Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2020 4:03 PM

To: Kristin Czarnecki ; vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>  

Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] New Yorker Article

As a common reader, this piece from The New Yorker resonated much more for me than the one authored by Michael Cunningham.  My interest in Virginia Woolf did come from the movies, but not from the film of Mr. Cunningham’s ‘The Hours’.  I saw Sally Potter’s interpretation of ‘Orlando’ shortly after it was released and was intrigued, amused and fascinated by the playful treatment of gender and time.  So I bought a used paperback and read the book.  Sometime later a film of ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ was released directed by Marleen Gorris who had directed the delightful ‘Antonia’s Line’ and starred the great Vanessa Redgrave, one of my favorite actresses.  Again, I got a copy of Woolf’s novel and, as Jenny Offill expressed so well in her piece in The New Yorker, I was struck by the beauty of the writing.  I also reread books that have a special resonance for me and find something fresh and new in them with every reading.  After reading the novel, I also realized that the film hardly did more than scratch the surface or penetrate into the ‘beautiful caves’ that Woolf had dug out behind her characters.  Finally I saw ‘The Hours’, was very impressed with the acting and, having lived through the AIDS pandemic and lost a partner and several close friends, was very moved by Ed Harris’s portrayal of the character that parallels Septimus Smith.  But later I read Hermione Lee’s biography of Woolf and began to wonder who it was exactly that Nicole Kidman was portraying.  Much was made of the prosthetic nose (which did not make the actress look anything like Woolf, in my opinion) and to give Kidman credit where credit is due as an actress, she did seem to disappear into the character.  But from what I gleaned from Hermione Lee’s biography, the character Kidman inhabited was...not Virginia Woolf.

Finally, at some point, I read Cunningham’s book ‘The Hours’ and, quite frankly, found what I thought was his attempt to give an impression of Woolf’s writing to be quite annoying.  I am also not a fan of biofiction and although I read ‘The Wide Sargasso Sea’ with some interest, I don’t find any great desire to read novels that are sequels or prequels of classic works written by contemporary authors.  I did read the excerpt from Cunningham’s introduction to ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ in The New York Times with a bit of an eye roll that here was one more article from an author who seems to have been appointed by the mainstream press as the foremost authority on Virginia Woolf.  Popular culture in the twenty-first century is largely centered on the culture of celebrity.  In the very particular niche of popular culture that is devoted to ‘serious’ art or literature, Michael Cunningham is the celebrity name that is most associated with Virginia Woolf.  The new Vintage addition of ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ is more than likely being published to appeal to as broad a readership as possible and is not being marketed as a text for scholarly study of the novel.  Michael Cunningham’s name on the book’s cover as author of the introduction will do more to sell copies than the name of one of the respected, legitimate scholars that subscribe to this listserv.  I read your emails and I admit that I sometimes am amused by what seems to be nitpicking.  How many Angels of the House can dance on the head of one of Slater’s Pins?  All joking aside, I do recognize the importance of what you all do, not, I suspect, that that makes any difference to any of you and why should it?  That being said, I wish you luck in your quest for the Harcourt editions of Woolf’s novels.  I have read all of the novels as well as the diaries.  I have for some time now been reading the collected letters and have made it to the sixth volume.  Maybe I have a bit of apprehension about coming to the end since I have not picked that worn out paperback up for some time now.  But finish it, I will when the time comes that I feel inclined to do so.  The insights that your emails often bring to light are greatly appreciated.

Mark Scott

Common Reader 

From: Kristin Czarnecki via Vwoolf 

Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2020 9:08 AM

To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>  

Subject: [Vwoolf] New Yorker Article

Mrs. Dalloway is certainly having a moment!  

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-lifetime-of-lessons-in-mrs-dalloway__;!!KGKeukY!lAAETcL928uBtPII-DZ-M0mBUMANPz1rShozuMjo2uE_nhSZLmjx_j8TQ8sFm1zXOGk$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-lifetime-of-lessons-in-mrs-dalloway__;!!KGKeukY!mAqfa4PNoJOQ4DOa0c4fgqVKODxKSAJF96K2G_YdJt3Q6y3YfjZ3RwNNYy4qhp6zRxw$> 

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