Virginia Woolf (Penguin Lives)

Rating:
Summary: More of a reminisce
Review: After reading some of Mrs. Woolf's fiction, I decided to read a bit about her background to see how much it influenced her writing. Given the size and length of this book, I felt that this would work best. After reading this book, I believe this is the best choice for learning about Virginia Woolf.

The author knew Mrs. Woolf personally. He met her through his mother, who was one of Mrs. Woolf's lovers. He was a child at the time, so some of his observations do not go into depth but are merely an observation (such as an observation about a party held by the Bloomsbury group). Nicholson has done quite a bit of research and read through many of her letters (including those to and from his mother), so there is some intriguing information.

This does not read like a narrative. Although the material is arranged chronologically, at times the book talks about the controversy around Mrs. Woolf rather than about Mrs. Woolf. For instance, rather than discussion the relations of the family, he discusses the controversy that Mrs. Woolf may have been raped by her half brother. The author discusses the different theories and supports his through the wording of letters. Although interesting, I would rather focus on Virginia.

Putting aside the author's editorializing, I would recommend this book only as a start for studying Virginia Woolf.

Rating:
Summary: Portrait of a troubled woman!
Review: I had never read anything by Virginia Woolf, but saw this short book in the store and thought it would be a good introduction. Since I am not acquainted with her, the brevity of the book encouraged me to take a chance. After reading about her life & the various stages during which she wrote her books, I am more encouraged to pick up one of her works.

Nigel Nicolson obviously has an admiration for Virginia Woolf, as she was one of his mother's lovers, and a family friend, but I believe the tone of the book to be fair. He frankly discusses her shortcomings and her highlights. I would recommend this for anyone interested in learning more about thsi influential artist. It would be an excellent read for a high school literature class that is looking for the person behind the name of Virginia Woolf.

Rating:
Summary: Quite lovely
Review: I read this mainly to gain a little more insight into Virginia Woolf-the-person because of an essay I was writing on "To the Lighthouse." It didn't really provide me with the biographical detail or psychological penetration I was craving - but then, I doubt that was Nicolson's intent. Instead he offers a curiously airy yet affectionate series of character sketches, a handful of priceless anecdotes and some incidental musings, all of which amounts to an entertaining reflection on Woolf's life and personality but actually makes her more mysterious and unknowable in certain ways. It's memoir vs biography, I guess; Nicolson tends to regard Woolf from the point of view of a bemused bystander, fond of her but not overly engaged with her - but at the same time, he feels no need to make much sense of her suicide, for instance. He just dips in and out of what interests him, not striving for deeper meaning or cogency when it does not suit him, and this makes it a dissatisfying book for someone not already well acquainted with Woolf's biography.

That said, this is an enjoyable read. Nicolson is supremely English, in quite a charming way - his prose is coolly elegant with an occasional flash of wit or moment of restrained warmth, and he never declares anything outright, just insinuates or suggests (not unlike Woolf herself). His attitude to his subject is both touchingly and infuriatingly respectful. I think he was so terrified of being scurrilous, of exploiting his position as Vita Sackville-West's son, that this book comes off as over-polite, over-careful; he whets our interest but refuses to supply the goods. It's a pity, because he really does have an unique perspective.
Still, I reccommend it. It's a quick read, and a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Life of Virginia Woolf
Review: I would call this a portrait and not a biography. This is not meant to denigrate a wonderful book but differentiate it from full-blown biographies that extend to volumes. Rather, this is an intimate portrait by someone who knew Virginia Wolf, has read her books and edited her letters for publication.

Nigel Nicolson gives us an intimate portrait of Virginia Woolf in a highly readable book of 191 pages. Because of his mother Vita Sackville-West's close relationship with Virginia we gain a perspective that a biographer who takes his subject as an assignment cannot always supply. However, Mr. Nicolson maintains his objectivity giving us a Virginia Woolf with all her complexity and contradictions. We are treated to frequent quotes from her diaries and letters that bring her all the closer. I enjoyed the personal touch offered by Mr. Nicolson; he is not intrusive and when he speaks from his personal knowledge of his subjects he adds a dimension of intimacy. You come away with a feeling that you know something of Virginia Woolf rather than facts about her.

There are several photographs illustrating the book. If you want to know about Virginia Woolf, or want to become reacquainted with her life and books, this is a book to read.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant and complex woman
Review: In this "Penguin Life" Nigel Nicolson provides a balanced, affectionate and eloquent introduction to the life of Virginia Woolf. Nicolson provides us with the major events, the major players, the family background, and Bloomsbury. He also introduces the reader to some of the controversies (e.g., the extent and effect of her sexual abuse by her half-brothers.) The picture that emerges is one of a brilliant and complex woman -- difficult, loving, deeply insightful, wrong-headed, sympathetic, prickly, loyal, jealous, witty, snobbish, and liberal.

Nicholson is an editor of Woolf's letters and the son of Vita Sackville-West, with whom Virginia Woolf had an affair. Nicolson's having known and liked Virginia Woolf adds a personal touch without compromising objectivity.

Rating:
Summary: A superb short biography laced with personal reminiscences
Review: Nigel Nicolson is uniquely qualified to write a brief biography of Virginia Woolf. First, he is one of the most important caretakers of her written work, having edited her letters for publication. Second, as a small boy, he actually knew Virginia Woolf. Third, his mother was Vita Sackville-West, one of the major figures in Virginia's life, the object of her affections, one of her closest friends, and the basis for the main character in ORLANDO. This could well be, in fact, one of the last books written about Virginia Woolf by someone who actually knew her.

Perhaps as a result of his unusual connection with her, this biography has an aura of the real Virginia Woolf that many do not. As Nicolson puts it early on, while for many she was "Woolf," for him he was always "Virginia." He knew her before she was the icon she was later to become. Auden said of Yeats that upon his death "he became his admirers," and Woolf has certainly undergone a similar transformation, and frequently books deal one her deal not with who she was, but who they need her to be. Nicolson's portrait is a remarkably rich and concrete one, a splendid portrait of an amazingly gifted and complex individual. He captures her gift for friendship and kindness along with her need to sometimes hurt others with her words. He deals with her openness to love between men or women along with her near dread of actual sexual involvement with either (indeed, most biographies point up the fact that while she had several romantic attachments, her sex life was nonetheless almost nonexistent). He contrasts her feminism with her restricted view of how far women's rights should extend (she was never able to break out of her class bound views on the lower classes) with her apathy to politics in general. He makes vivid her huge capacity for enjoying life while invoking the struggles she underwent to stay sane enough to do so. He also provides a sympathetic portrait of her marriage to Leonard Woolf, who was simultaneously her biggest supporter, her caretaker and nurse, and greatest devotee. If Leonard sometimes emerges as a bit codependent, one can forgive him because he seemed capable of giving a great deal while still producing a prodigious amount of work himself. They seemed, improbably, to have a remarkably good marriage, given her mental problems.

Nicolson also provides good insight into Virginia's struggles with mental health, even making her suicide seem less an act of despair than an insistence on ending life when it still was more or less sane (she killed herself largely because she thought she was about to go insane again, was about to succumb to the hallucinations that had plagued her on more than one occasion in the past, with one difference: she was convinced that if she became insane again, she would not reemerge from it again as she had in the past). Her's was a suicide not of despair but of a fear of losing her humanity.

I have to state that I find the comments by one the previous reviewers (Rebekah) absolutely incomprehensible. The complaint is made that Nicolson criticized Woolf's feminism and was guilty of a "macho attitude." These are absolutely stunning complaints, since one of the very mild criticisms that Nicolson makes through the work is that instead of being a liberal, Virginia was actually fairly tied to her class, that she did hold to views of women's suffrage, but only for women of the upper middle class. One will search in vain in his pages for views of the kind that she allots to him. It is true that he wants to correct views that do not take an accurate view of her feminism, views that do not see how deeply she was rooted in a particular class. The only rational reading of the book and Nicolson's position is that he seems disappointed that she did not take her feminist beliefs far enough and that she was not as a whole especially interested in politics. Besides, it is exceedingly odd to accuse the offspring of a lesbian mother and a gay father as being "old-fashioned." Again, Nicolson absolutely nowhere either by word or by intimation criticizes Woolf's feminism. Indeed, if one actually reads the book, it is clear that Nicolson has a far more contemporary view of women and politics than did Virginia Woolf. One does gain a sense that Nicolson had lived a long and rich life (he died this past fall at the age of 87), but I think most readers will look in vain for the old-fashioned ideas (and certainly the machismo) wrongly ascribed to him.

This is not the best biography on Virginia Woolf. For one thing it is far, far too brief to do even a cursory job. For instance, her friendship with Roger Fry is almost gestured at, her relationship with her sister Vanessa is given little space, and in all descriptions are kept to a minimum to keep to the publisher's guidelines for the series. Nonetheless, I'm quite impressed with what he achieves in such a short amount of space. Although not one of the more complete biographies, it is nonetheless one of the best at giving an almost tangible picture of Virginia.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed
Review: One thing to know before buying or reading this book is that it is written by a man who was born in the early 1900's and still holds many of the old-fashioned beliefs of that time. It is irritating to listen to Nicolson berate Virginia's feminist beliefs, argue that her statements about women's disadvantages were not true and basically undermine what many readers admire her for - her progressive and liberal point of view. It is not what I bought this biography for. I wanted to know more about Virginia, not Nicolson's macho attitude. For the most part the biography is very good, it would just be a lot better if he kept his opinions to himself.

Rating:
Summary: Memoir, not biography
Review: This book is a personal, quirky memoir by the son of Virginia Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. The author does not attempt an objective, complete study of Woolf's life, which is a disappointment if that's what you're looking for. Rather, he draws on his own personal recollections of Woolf during his childhood and those of Woolf's contemporaries. Although interesting, I felt a lot was missing--if you are not very familiar with the Bloomsbury circle you will find the many references to people who moved in and out of that orbit over the years confusing. And the author offers no explanation or insight into the mental illness Woolf strugglesd with her entire life. As a result, her suicide seems to come out of the blue. This book is an interesting look at an interesting woman, but shouldn't be the first thing you read about Woolf.

Rating:
Summary: A Must read for anyone wanting to know about Ms Woolf
Review: This is really a great book, written with such love from a man who truly knew Ms Woolf.

If you want to know about Ms Woolf I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Woolf and Bloomsbury 101: Pleasurable Reading
Review: VIRGINIA WOOLF by Nigel Nicolson departs from the template used by the Penguin Lives series so far as I've read down the list. It cannot claim that its subject exists in obscurity behind clouds of legend or of lack of existing documentation. Woolf was a public person in her life time, she left not only a respectable body of work but an extensive collection of letters, essays and journals. She has been the subject of substantial, well received biographies and is also featured prominently in profiles of Bloomsbury, the Hogarth Press and biographies of her contemporaries. This volume is also distinguished from others in the Penguin Lives Series in that it was written by the son of Woolf's female lover, Vita Sackville-West; in other words, someone close to the inner circle. Woolf belongs to the visitable past. The book remains, however, a fine member of the Series because of its skill in purveying the whole through a spritely revisiting of the significant passages in Woolf's life. Nicholson writes with warmth and holds forth his opinions in controversial areas, but he is impressively objective given his relationship with his subject and those closest to her. Nicolson manages to capture all the ambiguities of the woman, makes them comprehensible, honest and, sparingly, poignant.