Beginning Again: An Autobiography Of The Years 1911 To 1918

Rating:
Summary: Life and verisimilitude.
Review: A matter-of-fact memoir distinguished at first glance by lightness of touch, but which is achieved by allowing the contradictions of the author's personality and experience to pass largely without authorial intervention. Thus, a description of Mrs. Woolf inexplicably exciting public derision rather in the manner of Beckett's Watt is contraposed without comment further on with a similar description of Ottoline Morrell. Without comparison, Mrs. Woolf is seen as distressed by such treatment, and Lady Morrell not at all. The transparency of this rendering is what gives life and verisimilitude to his account more than a static description alone might do.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful autobiography
Review: This is the middle volume of a five volume autobiography of Leonard Woolf. He is probably better known as the husband of Virginia, but Leonard himself was very active in several spheres: British civil service in Ceylon at the beginning of the twentieth century, publishing (he established the Hogarth press which published many well known authors), writing (novels and political books) and a great deal of committee work for the British labour party and local councils.

Leonard Woolf was a socialist who learned very early to despair of Soviet Russia. He was a pacifist who was prepared to wage war against Hitler's Germany. He was devoted to his wife and her difficult-to-read books (declaring her the most intelligent woman in England) and he also took great pride in his accounting skills. He prided himself on his civility and ability to get along with people, yet cannot resist settling scores in his autobiography with some of his old enemies. He presents himself as a rather prudish and proper gentleman; yet he was part of the Bloomsbury group which is well known for their sexual freedom.

In this volume, covering the years 1911-1918 he gives a remarkably clear account of his wife's psychiatric illness and creativity. He describes the dangers of journalism, his work with the Labour party, and the beginnings of the Hogarth Press. Highly recommended.