Ahhh, Virginia Woolfe. I am so very fond of her, though I disagree with much of what she says. It is such a pleasure to read her work, with its stabbing sarcasm and clenching dry humor. She is witty and clever and amusing and I am not even certain that she ever knew it, which is really quite the shame. I find that as I am reading A Room of One's Own my lip is permanently placed in slight raise at my amusement with her humor. I wish, at times, to stand up and yell, "You go girl!," and sometimes I glance at my husband, unaware that he is, and think how it would serve him right if I could display just a small bit of her feminist strength. This thought, too, makes me smile. But then... there are three points Woolfe is quite steadfast about, and I am not quite so sure she is justified in them.
The first of which being that a woman must have a room of her own in which to write. Often while writing my own words, I consider how nice it would be to have my own space, far away from husband and kids, where no one is asking "where is my hammer?," or "where is my goldfish and why is it not in its tank?". Where there are no shouts of, "Mo-om! The cat puked on Alex's truck and then he wiped it on my Barbie's hair!" How nice it would be to seclude myself from these things and just immerse myself in my writing... but then, I am reminded that it is these things that influence the creation of my writing. It is these things that periodically bring me back to the reality, away from my wandering thoughts and the world I'm creating within my head; a world unshared by the people I love until it is placed on page and I allow it to be read. Yes, Virginia, a room of my own would be nice at times, but the loss of the things of reality could prove detrimental to the actual writings supposed to be taking place in those rooms.
Secondly, Woolfe is insistent that to be a successful writer, a woman must have money of her own. It would certainly be nice to have a continuous and plentiful flow of money to pay the bills so that I might not have to worry over it. (Is that not, in fact, why I got married? Ha! Just kidding... some slight humor to stab at the feminist notion there for a moment. We now return to more serious matters.) The truth though is that it is unrealistic, and to suggest such a thing as a necessary requirement to successful writing is discouraging and uncalled for. It is easy, Virginia, to write such a ridiculous notion from your place of privilege; had you not had the financial means that you did, I doubt your view would have been the same.
Finally, and perhaps most controversial for me, is Woolfe's notion of things written in anger. I disagree with her on this in a few ways. First, she implies that truth cannot be told when written in anger. I think she has gotten this wrong. One of the great and unforgiveable traits of writing in anger is that the filter is removed, consideration of other people and other views is disregarded, and the words that are written are true to the very core of the writer. This is, of course, crucial to be read with the understanding that there is no absolute truth; truth is true based on perspective. (Interject philosophical discussion here.) Secondly, it is in anger that our passions for a particular subject are ignited and blaze across a page like a declaration in blood. What the writer depicts on his/her page will be felt as it resonates within the reader, prompting action (particularly useful in political pieces).
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