How to date Virginia Woolf
A relationship with the great modernist author comes with its ups and downs.
A relationship with the great modernist author comes with its ups and downs.
Your grad school professor fixes you up with Virginia Woolf on a blind date.
鈥淩eport back to me with a two-page paper,鈥� he tells you.
The date does not go well.聽 You want to quit after pre-dinner appetizers, but she insists on a five-course dinner.聽 You don鈥檛 understand how a date that short鈥攐ne hundred ninety-seven pages, to be exact鈥攃ould feel so long and tedious.聽 You can鈥檛 follow her conversation, can鈥檛 understand what she so desperately wants to tell you.
When your professor asks you how it went, you tell him it was interesting, but you can鈥檛 see a long-term relationship growing.聽 鈥淥kay,鈥� he says.聽 鈥淚 mean, I think she鈥檚 great, but she鈥檚 not for everyone.鈥�
Time ticks by.聽 You feel literary loneliness in struggling to complete your first novel.聽 Dismissed by most of your workshop peers with comments such as 鈥渕ake me care,鈥� 鈥渢his is way too commercial,鈥� and 鈥測our protagonist is annoying,鈥� you begin to wonder if you are really cut out to be a writer.聽 You鈥檙e about to give up.
Then one day, you see Virginia in the street.聽 You want to pretend you鈥檝e never met her before, but she looks straight into your eyes and says, 鈥淯npraised, I find it hard to start writing in the morning; but the dejection lasts only 30 minutes, and once I start I forget all about it.聽 The central fact remains stable, which is the fact of my own pleasure in the art.鈥�
With those words, your soul unlocks.聽 You finish your novel.聽 You decide to give Virginia another chance.
You start the relationship slowly this time, meeting only in short spurts.聽 A 鈥淧rofessions for Women鈥� cappuccino here, a Room of One鈥檚 Own lunch there.聽 With each brief date, you fall deeper and more quickly through the phases of love:聽 interest, respect, admiration, devotion.聽 And she falls in love with you, too:聽 she understands you, supports you, dries your tears when you feel like the biggest loser of all the writers out there.聽 鈥淭he only thing worth doing in your book is to stick it out,鈥� she tells you, your ink stained fingers intertwined with hers.聽 鈥淪tick to the idea and don鈥檛 lower it an inch, in deference to anyone.鈥�
聽You fly to England to see where she lived at 46 Gordon Square, look at original pages from her diary at the British Museum, walk the streets of Bloomsbury, see her sister Vanessa Bell鈥檚 paintings at the Courtauld Gallery.聽 It is here that you propose marriage to Virginia, outside the steps by the Russell Square tube station.聽
You marry Virginia two months later in a ceremony at the New School鈥檚 Arnold Hall on 13th Street in New York.聽 Standing before a crowd of your peers, you read your vow to her.聽 Your grad professor is the best man, and as Virginia and you pass by him on your way out of the hall, he catches your eye and gives a wink.聽
鈥淭old you so,鈥� he mouths.
鈥淭hank you,鈥� is all you can respond.聽 鈥淭hank you, thank you, thank you.鈥�
Jessica Rosevear blogs frequently about Virginia Woolf at聽www.jessicarosevear.com.
Join the Monitor's book discussion on Facebook and Twitter.