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PARTISAN REVIEW
For a genera tion tha t cultiva tes mo rbidity and ta kes madness and
suicide (especially literary suicide) in its stride, she has acquired a new
"relevance." Bloomsbury has aptl y been used
to
" humanize" her. For
nothing invites the soul so much these days, it seems, as a common
touch of decadence, a sexual aberra tion or two, and lavish doses of
indiscretion and malice. Book after book has reveal ed the earthier side
of tha t fabulously cultiva ted community, and Virgini a Woolf's apti–
tude as a di sciple has no t gone unno ticed .
Now tha t her palpable " reality" has been demonstra ted , her
fi ction is deemed more comprehensible.
In
their search for the
rea l
Virginia Woolf, criti cs are looking closely a t the texts themselves, more
often to glean psychi c hints from biographica l fac ts than to enhance
our apprecia tion of the novels. T he ques t has its pitfa ll s, fo r the
biographica ll y oriented critic too often mi stakes the human being for
the artist-when in fact the two rarely merge. When Phylli s Rose
makes the sta tement a t the beginning o f
Woman of L etters: A L ife of
Virgin ia W oo lf
tha t she wishes to reverse Woo lf's " image as an iso la ted
and somewha t precious techni cian ," she verges on thi s kind of critica l
confusion .
It
is, indirectl y, an admi ssion tha t the novelist's aes theti cs
does not interes t her. But is it possible to write a critica l biography of
one of the major innova tors o f the modern novel and sca rce ly bo ther
with her art? Having in fact chosen to make Virginia Woo lf's writings
the major source of biographical elucida tion , Rose must inev ita bl y
interpret the novels. T o complicate ma tters, she is a lso writing a
" thesis" biography. Without sta ting her dissa tisfaction with the offi–
cial biography of Quentin Bell , she clearl y sees in Virg inia Woo lf 's life
the possibility of more than a single interpreta ti on : the fac ts are
mani p ul able. Her purpose in rela ting the writing to the life is to
emphas ize Woolf's " res ilience," her as toni shing p roducti vity. Rose
wants to corra l the life around a femini st perspecti ve, " taking 'femi –
nist' to refer
to
a po litica l consciousness which began w ith reason–
ing .. . from her own hurt feelings." She has readjusted her critica l
viewpoint " to allow for personal trea tment o f vita l and immedia te
p roblems of identity." How lucky for the reader tha t she does no t
strictl y fo llow her resolve! Her sensitivity and tas te as a cr itic save her,
in many instances, from the simplifica tions tha t strew her pa th when
she seeks a perfect correlati on between Virg inia Woo lf's human needs
and her a rti stic aspira tions.
Rose attempts, for instance, to es tablish a causa l rela tion shi p
between Virg inia Woolf's childhood sexua l traumas and her fear of
male domina tion as refl ec ted in her asexua l or fri g id hero ines. She thus
