Vanessa and Virginia
It鈥檚 undeniably rich material for a novel: two sisters, one a renowned Impressionist painter, the other a famous modernist writer, both of whom led unconventional lives overshadowed by too many deaths.
In Vanessa and Virginia, Susan Sellers, a Virginia Woolf scholar at St. Andrews University in Scotland, explores the close but rivalrous relationship between Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, the two talented, tormented Stephen sisters, born less than three years apart.
Sellers鈥檚 novel is narrated by Vanessa when she is old and arthritic. It is addressed to her sister, still sorely missed years after she drowned herself in the River Ouse with stones in her pockets.
Sellers knows her subject inside-out 鈥� which is both a strength and problem for her book. Unlike Michael Cunningham, who used 鈥�Mrs. Dalloway鈥� to create an entirely new and stunning novel, 鈥淭he Hours,鈥� Sellers hews closely to her source material. But in aiming for something more impressionistic than conventional historical fiction, her narrative has a sometimes beguiling, sometimes frustrating elliptical quality.
Because Vanessa鈥檚 intended audience 鈥� her dead sister 鈥� knows everyone she鈥檚 talking about, her narrative deliberately elides such anchoring details as last names and dates. It is hard to say whether 鈥淰anessa and Virginia鈥� will resonate for readers unfamiliar with the history, or whether it聽 will matter if they don鈥檛 know that Vanessa鈥檚 lover 鈥淩oger鈥� is critic Roger Fry and friend 鈥淢aynard鈥� is the economist Maynard Keynes.
But readers familiar with the Bloomsbury set may feel as if they鈥檙e watching a paint-by-numbers portrait emerge. Seeking to fill in some blank spots 鈥� including the year of Woolf鈥檚 birth (1882) and death (1941) 鈥� I picked up Nigel Nicolson鈥檚 short biography, 鈥淰irginia Woolf鈥�; this is one case where fiction just can鈥檛 compete with the facts.
Sellers makes an interesting but challenging choice in designating the painter, not the writer, to tell this story. Her narrator notes, 鈥淵ou were the one with words. You were the one who knew how to take an event and describe it so that its essence was revealed. I do not have your talent. If you were here you would know how to tell this tale.鈥�
Vanessa views her tale through what she calls 鈥渢he kaleidoscope of memory.鈥� The aim is to capture in prose the fracturing effects of Cubism and Impressionism, mirroring the sisters鈥� artistic styles. Unfortunately, to underscore her narrator鈥檚 identity as a visual artist and express her state of mind, Sellers relies on too many descriptions of paintings, as tedious to read about as dreams.
Far more compelling are her evocations of the rivalry that began with the sisters鈥� competition for attention from their overextended mother 鈥� who, with three children from her first marriage and four with Leslie Stephen 鈥� never had enough time for poor Vanessa, the eldest of the second closely spaced batch. 鈥淚 need her to tell me she loves me,鈥� Vanessa recalls thinking at 16 as she watched her mother die.
The two girls also competed over Thoby, the brother born between them, whose sudden death in young adulthood from typhoid propels Vanessa into marriage with Clive Bell. Even this compromised marriage arouses Virginia鈥檚 jealousy. While Vanessa is preoccupied with her newborn son, whom Virginia snidely calls her 鈥渁ppendage,鈥� Virginia sidles up too close to Clive.聽 Vanessa seeks comfort in an affair with the attentive Roger Fry, though she isn鈥檛 in love with him, either.
The sisters鈥� open marriages and open acceptance of homosexuality help drive Sellers鈥檚 novel.
The great love of Vanessa鈥檚 life, artist Duncan Grant 鈥� at one time her younger brother Adrian鈥檚 lover 鈥� is also the source of her greatest frustration, which Sellers captures vividly. Vanessa unhappily allows Duncan鈥檚 lover, Bunny (David Garnett), to live with them, realizing that otherwise Duncan will seek male companionship elsewhere. Things get even more gnarly when Angelica, her daughter with Duncan (who until adolescence believes that Clive Bell is her father) marries Duncan鈥檚 ex-lover, Bunny.
Sellers鈥� narrator comments with remarkable understatement: 鈥淭he edifices of convention have been razed to the ground,鈥� adding, 鈥淗ow entangled our lives must seem to anyone outside the skein.鈥澛� She calls her domestic arrangement 鈥渙ur queer triangle,鈥� though hexagon is probably more like it.
Fortunately, the sisters are better at divvying up their artistic domains, 鈥減lacating each other by exaggerating our differences, renouncing all claim to the other鈥檚 field.鈥�
鈥淰anessa and Virginia鈥� captures the sisters鈥� seesaw dynamic as they vacillate between protecting and hurting each other, depending on who is up and who is down. For all their competition 鈥� each picturing the other as more content and successful 鈥� they are as intimately connected as twins. Through it all, work is their refuge 鈥� from their lives and themselves.
Heller McAlpin, a freelance critic in New York, is a frequent Monitor contributor.
