A Room of One's Own, and Three Guineas

An unique essay, much needed, explaining how time and solitude is needed to be able to create, and how women have been deprived of it for centuries. How much writers, poets, great artists have we lost through history by not considering women as equals to men? A real food for thought, still vital even decades after it was written.

Virgina I love you but idk this book was mid. Like I already get all this stuff and yessss feminism, I will do what I want despite judgement of others. I'm sure that this book would mean more if I was reading it in 1940, but im not. I am reading it now in 2024. Although times have changed its crazy to see that the motivation of anti-feminists really hasn't changed. Maybe I need to read it again while paying more attention. I don't regret reading it which means it has my stamp of approval I guess.

I gleaned three “truths” from this essay:

1. Anger is an emotion that warps creativity
2. Poverty is a state that generates fear and bitterness (“intellectual freedom depends on material things”)
3. (and this is the one I find to be more truthy than true) Only a truly androgynous mind can be unfettered by rage and produce works of “genius”. As Woolf posits, “it is fatal for anyone who writes to think of their sex.” To a certain extent, I agree. To this day, men's writing often finds itself acrid in the “shadow of the ‘I'” from which no truth can grow - there is no question that ego dominance in a narrative chokes all possible oxygen sources. However, writing as a woman does not necessarily need to result in “sacrifice to the man with the measuring rod” - righteous anger at the status quo does not inherently equate to deference.

Briefly, her obsession with purity in the form of creation rings a bit hypocritical next to her criticisms of chastity as a virtue.
4. (cheating) I really ought to read Jane Eyre one day.

I believe one should read this very short book before proceeding with any pre-20th century women's fiction. Virginia Woolf describes in a captivating manner how it was significantly different to be able to sit and write as a woman of those older centuries, than it was as a man. Even the “greats” like George Elliot, Charlotte or Emily Bronte, did not write unimpeded, the way Shakespeare or Tolstoy did -her comparisons, not mine-
“...the overflow of George Elliot's capacious mind should have spread itself, when the creative impulse was spent, upon history or biography. They (Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and George Elliot) wrote novels however.”
Because even having a room of one's own to use as writing ground, was inconceivable. And even when a written work was completed, by Emily, George, or Charlotte, a big if given all the daily interruptions a woman would encounter, the amount of times she would hide her manuscripts from the eyes of others so as not to be judged or prevented from continuing her work, even then, she could not openly publish it and earn what she rightly deserved. Instead of praise she would expect public shaming and judgement, if the audience found out the work was penned by a “she”.
All this is general knowledge to us now, but it does sit comfortably and permanently in the mind when read through the words of Virginia Woolf. Virginia a woman who, as she herself acknowledges in ‘A Room of One's Own', was also helped by fortunate circumstances to be able to write unimpeded in her lifetime – even if she was simultaneously hindered other factors not discussed in this essay. It is important to have this backdrop in mind when reading women's fiction, because according to her it is not a mere contextual detail, but a central and pervasive aspect of their works. Not that knowing it should alter our appreciation of them, or of any venerated work written by men.

It was fascinating to read this alongside with [b:White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism 43708708 White Fragility Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism Robin DiAngelo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548478235l/43708708.SY75.jpg 58159636] - made me understand a lot more. Among other things how we ARE taking something away from them. When one is used to be “teacher's pet”, used to be the one who gets to choose first and leave what's not good for them for the rest to fight about, one loses something when one gets treated with the same respect and dignity and fairness with all the others. If one has never needed to wait for one's turn, it must be horrible when one needs to, and made even more horrible, when the others are telling you what a whiny crybaby, entitled, spoiled brat, selfish and nasty you are, when you object to this fact. But - I'm sorry, but that is exactly what you are. You ARE a whiny, entitled, spoiled crybaby. Welcome to the real world where you are equal and have to play fair. I do have compassion to you, but that doesn't change anything. Yes, you are pitiful. So what about picking up your big boy pants and doing your part of the job like everyone else, huh? Read [b:Captains Courageous 34057 Captains Courageous Rudyard Kipling https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327959659l/34057.SY75.jpg 1105754] and try to be a man.

A never-ending analysis on women's economic, social, and artistic places in a patriarchal society. Woolf uses her trademark witty dialogue and unparalleled understanding of feminism to craft a work that is both extremely dense with information, and light on the reader's mind.

Posing questions that nobody dares to ask, Woolf confronts her own sex's abilities when it comes to creating art while facing an angered world. Cutting-edge arguments, wonderful pacing (even when giving a lecture or describing a Manx cat), and glorious word usage are what's come to be expected from Virginia Woolf's works, and this one does not disappoint.

I don't know why I didn't read this earlier on in my reading career, but it's done now. I ended up listening to it on audio simply because I loved the narrator's voice. I broke the parts up over 2 weeks so had time to really think about things before we moved on. VW, btw, makes me feel like I have not read enough literature. I'm ashamed to admit I haven't read half of the stuff she referenced. I'll work on correcting that eventually, I guess.
As impressed as I am with her introspection on the nature of women as writers, I do NOT feel compelled to go out and read more of her writing. Not right now, at least.

This is my first time reading Woolf's nonfiction. I mean this word literally: she is a wonderful writer. She makes me think of something Rilke once wrote about being affected “by every creaking of the floorboards.” Reading Virginia Woolf makes the world feel as wondrous and colorful and witty and dangerous as a Studio Ghibli film. Reading Virginia Woolf feels like watching Spirited Away.

This may or may not be a perfect book; I'm not well-versed enough in modern feminism to judge Woolf's attitudes. But I read some of the predictions she makes, the kind of women writers she envisions in the future, and I feel like I've been watching them come true in the lives of the women writing today that I'm privileged enough to know.

My god, just read it. It's short and it's magic.