A Room of One's Own (The Virginia Woolf Library)

Much as it’s hard to critique a William Shakespeare or a Mark Twain, it’s hard to critique Virginia Woolf. She pioneered women’s literature in the early twentieth century and helped lay its foundation for an incredibly successful, bustling marketplace in today’s world. Despite nagging misogyny, women writers receive deserved respect because of Woolf’s proposals to let women’s genius work. So in one sense, this book offers a distilled, timeless essay worthy of historical study for decades, if not centuries, to come.In another sense, this work needs urgent study for today’s politics. Will women’s social progress continue? Will women’s minds continue to bear fruit for us all? Or will we indulge in circular arguments about their social roles – or even their inherent capabilities? Machismo culture is still rampant in some circles, and in today’s newspapers, those circles seem to be expanding, not retracting.In this six-chapter essay, Woolf imagines what would have happened if Shakespeare had an equally brilliant sister. Would her brilliance had found its audience? Probably not due to social impediments. Wolf observed that such obstacles were decreasing the decades before 1929. Can women find meaningful tasks, which Woolf defines as a steady income and a “room of one’s own…” with a lock on it? She answered a resounding yes, and subsequent decades support her assertion.In the century-or-so since Woolf’s essay, most Western societies have invested, albeit imperfectly, in women’s independence. We all have benefitted substantially from their social contributions that extend beyond caretaking and housekeeping. Yet women and men still waste too much energy fighting each other about their own social places, whether a domestic life is superior or inferior to a working life. Recently, many have rediscovered Woolf’s allusion to Coleridge’s “androgynous mind” in the form of gender fluidity. Perhaps reproductive roles isn’t as all-encompassing as some make them out to be; perhaps the reality of our lives is a lot more interesting than mere sex.Therefore, this book is at once both a historical capsule and a living classic. As a man, it helped me further understand women’s history and the choices women in my life still face. As we approach its 100th anniversary, I humbly suggest it should still be read and pondered. Woolf broke a lot of barriers and earned a prominent place in history. Less obviously but more acutely, she can keep earning that place if we take the time to read this short work.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.~Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's OwnVirginia Woolf's very intense A Room Of One's Own, is actually a long essay she wrote "with ardour and conviction" on the the topic of women and fiction, that she prepared when asked to speak about this subject at women's colleges. A Room of One's Own was published in 1929, when young women were still discouraged from attending college (due to genuine fear that a good education would make women unfit for marriage and motherhood), and although it's not angry in tone the essay reflects a society in which severe limitations were put on women and their achievements. Virginia Woolf speaks about the creative process that lead to her talks, of her notebook in which she recorded a multitude of ideas, thoughts, and mental meanderings, and writes about the train of thought that led to her conclusion, that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". In A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf grapples with what is exactly meant by women and fiction (not a simple matter), and demonstrates and expresses the complexity of her thought in her trademark stream-of-consciousness writing. Defying conventions of the time, she talks about the actual food served at the luncheon party, of the soles and partridges and potatoes, and of the importance of food to the artist in a more general sense. She discusses numerous things in this full, layered essay of her thoughts, among them a sense of loss due to the war which began in August of 1914, that changed the underlying current of life--previously filled with music and poetry, with romance--and of the special difficulties women artists face (still relevant today!). Her message is simple (though the means is not), that women must have money (a fixed income) and a room of their own (privacy) in order to have the freedom to create, luxuries that men may take for granted. She imagines Shakespeare's "sister", equal in talent and genius, but because of her sex, never writes a word, never expresses her genius, never lives to old age because she takes her own life in quiet desperation. Her essay is meant to encourage young women, to inspire them to create, as she's sympathetic to their plight. In A Room of One's Own,Virginia Woolf wants the limitations removed, and for women to have the same intellectual freedom that men have had for centuries, so that they, too, may express their genius.(This is a passage slightly modified from my blog about books, Suko's Notebook, suko95.blogspot.com, which I invite you to visit.)

I really did not know going in that this was an essay, so it took a while to warm to the book. Her writing is excellent, but it is sad that the topic of women in the arts is still as relevant today as it was at that time. Really, in order to do any of the arts, anyone needs money as a backing and the time to improve their skills. Overall, interesting and thought-provoking essay.

Once you get your head synched with the archaic writing style where punctuation marks abound, the fits and starts they create in your thought processes soon immerse you into another time and place. It’s a misogynistic time to be sure, and Ms Woolf’s observations on the cause and effect of women finding their voice and men’s reactions to it are pause for reflection. You realize her words also hold up a modern mirror to how any established power structure reacts to any kind of uprising from the ‘underlings’. Taking another pause for further reflection, her words also afford you some universal glimpses into the very ephemeral fabric of reality itself.If that’s too heady for you, no worries.You also get to spend a few of Ms Woolf’s days with her going to lunch, the library, University, and shops. In short, I can see why this book has not fallen into obscurity. It has something for everyone.