Happy Birthday, Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf: born today, 25th January 1882, one hundred and thirty one years ago.

This morning I finished Moments of Being, Woolf's autobiographical writings. As ever I was struck by how radically society changed from her birth to her death, on the 28th March 1941, but never more so than in this book. I've read so many biographies, but to read her life in her own words made it all the more striking. This was not a chain of events I was reading, but her account of her passage through time, written in her own way. It was a psychological study, not simply a history.

The death of her mother, Julia (in 1895), had enormous impact on her, and not just for the obvious reasons. To lose a mother is deeply traumatic, and she writes about those days, when she saw her mother alive for the last time, when she kissed her mother goodbye, after she had died, for the final time, and the oppressive house leading up to and then following the funeral. One thing that grabbed my attention was her description of the smell of all the flowers they had received. I remember kissing my grandmother goodbye, after she had died, and the heat of the room, the dim light, and the lilies. Consequently, now, I cannot abide the smell of lilies. Their rich scent is overwhelming. I have managed to avoid smelling them since, but I remember an almost powdery smell that made my headache. Trying to recall their smell has given me a slightly headache and made me feel a little sickly. Heat, lilies, and the curtains drawn (in keeping with the death rituals of the Victorians) was overwhelming in itself, and coupled with the trauma could have knocked her over. It did mentally, and she suffered numerous breakdowns in her life before finally committing suicide in 1941. And revisited her mother's death in much her writing, most notoriously in To the Lighthouse, where the death of Mrs Ramsey is written in brackets, as though the event was of less importance than the impact of it. I need to re-read To the Lighthouse, it's been too long.

Her sister Stella took the role of "the angel of the house" and dealt with the indulgent grief of Leslie Stephen. He groaned, Virginia writes, and as his hearing began to fail, he wasn't aware (it would seem) of just how loudly he groaned. What effect that must have had... They lived in constant mourning. I could imagine even when she tried to distract herself, those groans must have dragged her back into the bleakness. And then, in 1897, Stella, a "pale, golden-haired, dreamily blue-eyed replica of her mother, meekly under her shadow" [Hermione Lee] died, three months after her marriage to Jack Hills. In Moments of Being, she writes comparatively little: "Even now it seems incredible". Vanessa, her sister, took on the role of he "angel of the house", a role that did not even vaguely suit her.

Following the death of Leslie Stephen in 1904, the family moved from 22 Hyde Park Gate to Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. This was an intellectual revolution. Previously, Virginia recalls attending various social events with her step-brother George Duckworth. During one party she embarrassed them both by talking far too much. It seems she was there, quite literally, to be seen and not heard. George, explaining to her, said, "They're not used to young women saying anything". It is suggested that George even apologised to the hostess before they left. She writes of her relief of returning home, and how looking forward she was to going to sleep, "Ah, how pleasant it would be to stretch out in bed, fall asleep and forget them all!" But, in a cruel highlight of the hypocrisy of the time, she continues,

Sleep had almost come to me. The room was dark. The house was silent. Then, creaking stealthily, the door opened; treading gingerly, someone entered. "Who?" I cried. "Don't be frightened", George whispered. "And don't turn on the light, oh beloved. Beloved -" and flung himself on my bed, and took me in his arms.

Yes, the old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephens girls; he was their lover also.

The move from Hyde Gate Park to Bloomsbury, as I said, was a revolution. She writes, "The Post-Impressionist movement had cast - not its shadow - but its bunch of variegated lights upon us". There, in Bloomsbury, she was not only "permitted" to talk, but expected to do so, and in fact "permitted" is the wrong word anyway. They talked, and she revelled in it. They talked of the most wonderfully pretentious topics, like the nature of good and the definition of beauty. She and Vanessa were not there to pour the tea, they were there in their own right as contributors. And the nature of their discussions were more risqué. Sex, and homosexuality were talked about openly - "the word bugger was never far from our lips" she said (I write that from memory, that may not be the exact quote). And, the most shocking of all -

Suddenly the door opened and the long and sinister figure of Mr Lytton Strachey stood on the threshold. He pointed his finger at a stain on Vanessa's white dress.
"Semen?" He said.
Can one really say it? I thought, and we burst out laughing. With that one word all barriers of reticence and reserve went down.

Virginia Woolf's life was rich, varied, and very complex. Her marriage to Leonard Woolf, which I haven't even touched on, her affair with Vita Sackville West, and the absolute wealth of literature she left behind, but it is this period that I find most fascinating. The passage from Victoria to Edward... I keep using the word "revolution", but I can't think of a more appropriate word. The transition from a house permeated with death to the vivacious Bloomsbury group, all this before the Great War began. It was a period of rapid social change, and she lived through it and captured in in her novels and stories, and her essays and journalism.

I'm glad and lucky to be familiar with Woolf. I used to love reading the biographies, even more than the novels, and I'm starting to feel the draw to them again. She has seen so much change, and she's essential reading for any classic lover and anyone interested in this period. She writes about individuals, their psychology, their "inner life", and yet she manages to capture the age, the society, in doing so. An absolute genius.

And so, once again - happy birthday, Virginia Woolf!