Someone borrowed a book for me from the New York Public Library titled " Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Child Sex Abuse on Her Life and Work", written by a Woolf scholar, Louise DeSalvo.
I suggest that you all read it because it challenges the works of previous Woolf biographers, who underestimate the effect of on Woolf's psyche and even try to discredit her reports, of sex abuse . I'm only about 22 pages into it and already find it informative and fascinating. i recall a lit class in which my professor said that Woolf, for some reason, "hated to do it" and did not explain why. it appears that he/she may have read one of the biographers who, according to DeSalvo, brush the sex abuse issue under the rug and blame Woolf for her frigidity and general madness. DeSalvo debunks these writers by showing that many of Woolf's psychological problems had a root in her troubled childhood and that she was not just mysteriously depressed, neurotic, insane and suicidal.
Hope you all get the opportunity to check out at least some of this book because it provides insight not only into Woolf's life but her writings, as well.
I suggest that you all read it because it challenges the works of previous Woolf biographers, who underestimate the effect of on Woolf's psyche and even try to discredit her reports, of sex abuse . I'm only about 22 pages into it and already find it informative and fascinating. i recall a lit class in which my professor said that Woolf, for some reason, "hated to do it" and did not explain why. it appears that he/she may have read one of the biographers who, according to DeSalvo, brush the sex abuse issue under the rug and blame Woolf for her frigidity and general madness. DeSalvo debunks these writers by showing that many of Woolf's psychological problems had a root in her troubled childhood and that she was not just mysteriously depressed, neurotic, insane and suicidal.
Hope you all get the opportunity to check out at least some of this book because it provides insight not only into Woolf's life but her writings, as well.
Craig R. Bayer, 4/11/14
No comments:
Post a Comment