[Vwoolf] Blinded by preconceptions

[Stuart N. Clarke]

“The Virginia Woolf Memorial in Tavistock Square inscribes the space with the memory of Woolf, writing her story onto the Bloomsbury cityscape. ‘Virginia Woolf lived in a house formerly on the south side of Tavistock Square from 1924 to 1939 where most of her greatest novels were written and published’, the memorial’s base tells passers-by, providing them with the name of the person represented by the bust and the motivation for its placement at that very spot.  Unlike many statues and busts scattered across the capitals of Europe, the bronze cast of Stephen Tomlin’s 1931 Virginia Woolf bust does not mention the represented figure’s dates of birth and death (1882–1941).  Instead, it offers a quotation from an autobiographical text ... followed by a sponsorship claim: ‘“Then one day walking round Tavistock Square I made up, as I sometimes make up my books, To the Lighthouse; in a great, apparently involuntary rush.” This memorial was erected by the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, 26 June 2004’.”*

If only there were somewhere nearby, some means of ascertaining Woolf’s dates that would be easily accessible to passers-by.  Perhaps, if the reality is too strong, a photo might help:



And what does “a sponsorship claim” mean, except to sneer?  (SNEERING ALERT!  The author quotes one “R. Solnit” with apparent approval: “Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world” (111).)

When Jean Moorcroft provides “a pleasant walk” in her “Virginia Woolf: Life and London”, the author comments that “evidently social problems will be avoided” (113).  As Olivia Manning once wrote: “You might suppose that were it not for such distractions as Tiberias, the Valley of the Kings or Hadrian's Villa, tourists abroad would occupy themselves solely in alleviating poverty."

*PLATE, Liedke, "Walking in Virginia Woolf's Footsteps: Performing cultural memory", European_Journal_of_Cultural_Studies, IX,1:101-20 at 103-4 (2006)


Stuart 
(Day 240)
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