Reading Virginia Woolf in St Ives

Photograph: Janet Minichiello

Having just wrapped an incredible study of The Years in St Ives, I am inspired. We encountered a new book (for me and for the Salon). We were a tentative group — some knew some, some knew none — and all were in the wild and constantly changing weather of St Ives.

Our meeting space was in the wonderful Porthmeor Studios, with windows of stained glass made from the sands of the sea below us. This special space was renovated to honour the rich history of artists and fishermen who have worked and created here for centuries. Now the walls also hold the words of Woolf and the thoughts she inspired in us.

To be together after months of isolation and multiple postponements, to be in the surging air and seas of Cornwall, to face and grapple with Woolf’s contemplation of fragmentation, of breakdown (social, political and domestic), of ‘obdurate language’, to find our way through to our own shared epiphanies in the face of her shards: this is what is so deeply satisfying about these retreats. 

In The Years, Woolf tries to use fact to find truth in the expanse of fiction, but this is an uneven attempt from a writer who sings so beautifully the realm of interiority. She experiments — and finds a play between — the snapshots of nature at seasonal moments, the movement between light and shadows, between what we say and what we mean. Setting the work to span the twilight of the Victorian era to the ‘Present Moment’ (unspecified, but most agree 1932), we move with a London family through meals, parties, deaths, war and structural change. There are moments of pure lyric flight and moments interrupted — profound thoughts uncompleted, intense connections unrealised, desires frustrated. For the better part of a week, twelve of us lived with this work, the discussions not stopping after the sessions, but seeping into our dinners, walks and swims. 

It was an incredible experience to be with a group of hungry minds in a beautiful place, as we dug deeply into the complexity and richness of Woolf’s vision. And then there were moments of hilarity: was that an orgasm on the train? Do we need to comment on the stain on the wall? And what’s the fuss about lavatory vs. bath? There were moments of discomfort as we worked to situate the antisemitism that Woolf portrays — is this her own, or her reflecting a difficult world, or the struggle for the artist against the press to speak politically? 

Together, we came to some extraordinary understandings. And then there were rainbows, and Sheila sang . . .

For anyone who fancies joining our next trip to St Ives, we are beginning to plan for Spring 2022. In the meantime, a new study of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway begins on 11 October and there are still places left!

Head Divided–coming salons in London–looking towards September

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“She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.”– Mrs. Dalloway

It may be bad for the mind to try to be equally in Moby Dick, Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway and Magic Mountain all at once. I feel the mind muscle aching with the deliciousness of over-use –but wonder if this will result in a Pentecostal babble of tongues–unintelligible and aching for meaning. What I know is that when I am fully in each of these works– and deeply submerged with a gathering of other lively minds– the tempo slows and the language transcends– and suddenly we are swimming in ideas, insights and connections fresh and rich.

Two Studies in London June & July  (use the links to register)

Mrs Dalloway  by Virginia Woolf   Two evening meetings Tuesday June 24th and July 1st 7:30-10 PM

Alice Munro and Eudora Welty Short Stories One meeting July 14th  7-10 PM

“As many critics have observed, however, the real delight of reading Munro – slowly and deliberately — is this: one awakens to the beautiful and perverse in the very ordinary people living among us.”

Coming in September:
Marcel Proust: Swann’s Way, Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom! …in January, time to re-meet Ulysses– so perhaps an Odyssey and Hamlet en route? …and more….send me your requests now!

Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway

Mrs-Dalloway-Oxford World Classics Edition

She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone;
she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.

–Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf’s writing hits emotion first—‘what happens’ takes second place to ‘what feels’. The language is packed with subtlety, nuance and evocative images as Woolf probes the depths of intimate relationships. Come join us for this exploration of a warm June day in London: madness, aesthetics, the nature of love and intimacy, war, relationships across and between genders, Imperialism—all are prodded in this delicate and lyric work.

Mrs Dalloway makes an ideal study: her writing is challenging to read on one’s own, rich as it is in images, references and details that deliver a powerful emotional and intellectual impact. The study format encourages exploration by reading with a group of diverse and questing minds. Together we will work to understand Woolf’s incisive study of human personality—and use some of her contemporaries (Freud, Henri Bergson, Roger Fry) to help make sense of this new writing she creates. Here is Julia Briggs from her biographical study of Woolf through her works:

Mrs. Dalloway is the story of a day in the lives of a man and woman who never meet—a society hostess who gives a party, and a shell-shocked soldier… What they have in common or why their stories are told in parallel, the reader must decide, for this is a modernist text, an open text, with no neat climax or final explanation, and what happens seems to shift as we read and reread. Woolf intended her experiment to bring the reader closer to everyday life, in all its confusion, mystery and uncertainly, rejecting the artificial structures and categories of Victorian fiction.”

SALON DETAILS

  • Four meeting study
  • Recommended edition: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; Oxford World’s Classics edition; ISBN-13: 978-0199536009
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