Joan Russell Noble
Auteur van Recollections of Virginia Woolf
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Werken van Joan Russell Noble
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Algemene kennis
- Geslacht
- female
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3 excellent--john lehmann, nigel nicholson, leonard woolf. the rest more of the same which is okay since i need a lot of re-inforcement. v.w. was beautiful, an interesting person to talk to, great with kids.
Statistieken
- Werken
- 2
- Leden
- 148
- Populariteit
- #140,180
- Waardering
- 3.9
- Besprekingen
- 2
- ISBNs
- 9
- Talen
- 1
First published in 1972, thirty years after her death, this pulls together 27 short sketches of Virginia Woolf by friends, relatives and colleagues, some previously published and some new contributions. It provoked me to think how little we can really know of anyone; each of these people saw a slightly different side of her, often through a mutual involvement with the Hogarth Press, and there is much less about her inner life than you would get, for instance, in Hermione Lee’s biography. We get the same anecdotes told from different perspectives; we get different takes on her behaviour and attitudes; we get a sense of someone who was loved by many but not really understood by anyone. I particularly noticed the varying accounts of her interactions with children and younger women; she was capable of showing immense sympathetic curiosity, but also of brutal rudeness. I suppose most of us are like that.
A couple of these pieces are surprisingly weak – Rebecca West admits that she didn’t really know her very well, and T.S. Eliot writes a short encomium which actually has very little content. But most of them are interesting and rewarding. One of the longest and most interesting is by William Plomer, who I confess I had not heard of but whose books I will now look out for. There’s also a moving contribution by Louie Mayer, the Woolfs’ housekeeper who was probably the last person to speak to her before her death. I think even if you’re not a big fan of Woolf’s writing, it’s a very interesting exercise to get a couple of dozen different personal perspectives on their memories of a particular individual; and if you are a fan of Woolf’s writing, it certainly adds to the appreciation of her work.… (meer)