Exceptional Excerpts: The Diary of Virginia Woolf

I had read some of Virginia Woolf's fiction while in school and then again whenever a film reminded me to read her: Orlando with Tilda Swinton, The Hours with Nicole Kidman, Mrs. Dalloway with Vanessa Redgrave, Kenneth Branagh's To the Lighthouse. I even suffered through Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's alcoholic vitriol in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" because I had thought it was about the writer. It most definitely is not.

Recently, my sister sent me a beautiful song by the Indigo Girls, written as an homage to The Diary of Virginia Woolf that had struck a chord with the songwriter, Emily Saliers, during her own college days. In the last few months I have felt prompted by this song to read some of the short stories I have missed, and the diary itself.

Aside from her aloof and wry commentary on upperclass English society, what strikes me most about her entries is how much of her years were spent in London and its suburbs while under attack from German bombers during the Blitz. Food becomes rationed and then scarce. Although my own country has been at war for the past twelve years, I rarely experience anything in my daily existence that is a direct effect of this war. 

What is also remarkable is her stolid and then detached tone about the fighting, the threat of the draft, the loss of young men, the return of men who aren't whole or well, neighborhood attacks of deadly influenza, and the destruction of nearby places. Because she is from the English upper class, it seems she expects herself (and her husband, Leonard) to create a false calm to serve as an exemplary subject of the great Pax Britannica that ruled over the previous century.

There also seems to be a general and oppressive understanding that the war will be discussed in most public gatherings and forums, and yet it is kept on a purely political plane, and never truly informative or personal. As a result of this stifling of such an observant mind, most of her writing seems to be explained by her quote about an artist friend of hers who had a strict upbringing: "I feel about him, as about some women, that unnatural repressions have forced him into unnatural assertions."

Here is the gorgeous song, with lush string instrumentation:

or go to link

and some of The Diary. Enjoy:

1915

Monday 4 January

Philip came after luncheon, having 4 days leave. He is sick to death of soldiering-- told us tales of military stupidity which pass belief. They found a man guilty of desertion the other day & sentenced him; & then discovered that the man did not exist.

Friday 15 January

Then we talked about the war. We aren't fighting now, he says, but only waiting for the spring. Meantime we lavish money, on a scale which makes the French, who are fearfully out at elbow, gape with admiration. We are bound to win-- & in great style too, having at the last moment applied all our brains & all our wealth to the problem.

Thursday 28 January

I saw a beautiful woman in the Bus; who could hardly contain her laughter because a great military gentleman was thrown on to her lap, like a sack of coals, which seemed to tickle her greatly, & the more she laughed, the nicer I thought her. About one person in a fortnight seems to me nice.

Tuesday 28 August

German prisoners now working for Hoper: work very well, if given tea at 4:30, which they insist upon, & will then work an extra hour.

Wednesday 5 September

Clouds brewed over the sea, & it began to rain at tea; then great thunder claps & lightning. Difficult to distinguish thunder from guns. German prisoners walked across the field. They are now helping on this farm. Corn over the road still standing in shocks unstacked. Servants stayed at Charleston all night; say that there was gun fire as well as thunder.

Tuesday 11 September

A perfect rather misty but cloudless day, still & very hot. Odd to find no flowers in the hedges, all brown & dead, because of the storm. Often a sound like rain, which turns out to be leaves falling. German prisoners stacking corn at the back of the house. They whistle a great deal, much more complete tunes than our work men. A great brown jug for their tea.

Sunday 30 September

A perfect day. Up on the top, & found a handkerchief full of mushrooms. Met Nessa & Roger walking up to meet us. They heard guns over London & saw lights last night. Another raid. We heard nothing; save Mrs. Hammond, who heard the guns very loud, as she went home. Clear moonlit nights.

Saturday 20 October

Happily, or she might say unhappily for Alix she didn't presumably wander in Piccadilly all night, or the great bomb which ploughed up the pavement opposite Swan & Edgar's might have dug her grave. We heard two soft distant but unmistakable shocks about 9:30; then a third which shook the window; then silence. It turns out that a Zeppelin came over, hovered unseen for an hour or two & left. We heard no more of it.

Monday 22 October

The moon grows full, & the evening trains are packed with people leaving London. We saw the hole in Piccadilly this afternoon. Traffic has been stopped, & the public slowly tramps past the place, which workmen are mending, though they look small in comparison with it. Swan & Edgar has every window covered with sacking or planks; you see shop women looking out from behind; not a glimpse of stuffs, but "business goes on as usual" so they say. Windows are broken according to no rule; some intact, some this side, some that. Our London Library stands whole, however, & we found our books, & came home in the tube, standing the whole way to Hammersmith, & have just come in. Bert is wounded, & Nellie has gone to Liz. She felt it her duty & also her right-- which shows how the servant is bettering her state in this generation.

Thursday 25 October

With time one would naturally welcome wet & wind; already the worst chill of them is over, because one thinks of them as safety against the raid. So today I hardly grumbled, though it was heavy rain, cold, dark, inhuman, primeval weather."

Sunday 28 October

Still no raids, presumably the haze at evening keeps them off, though it is still, & the moon perfectly clear. 

Friday 7 December

Then we took a tram to Kingston & had tea at Atkinsons, where one may have no more than a single bun. Everything is skimped now. Most of the butchers shops are shut; the only open shop was besieged. You can't buy chocolates, or toffee; flowers cost so much that I have to pick leaves, instead. We have cards for most foods. The only abundant shop windows are the drapers. Other shops parade tins, or cardboard boxes, doubtless empty. (This is an attempt at the concise, historic style.) Suddenly one has come to notice the war everywhere. I suppose there must be some undisturbed pockets of luxury somewhere still-- up in a Northumbrian or Cornish farm house perhaps; but the general table is pretty bare."

1916

Friday 11 January

Home I went, & there was a raid of course. The night made it inevitable. From 8 to 1:30 we roamed about, between coal hole kitchen bedroom & drawing room. I don't know how much is fear, how much boredom; but the result is uncomfortable, most of all, I believe, because one must talk bold & jocular small talk for 4 hours with the servants to ward off hysteria.

Monday 5 June 

And expecting a raid, we asked Barbara to sleep. This time it began at 9:10: the warning at east. It was far louder this time. An airplane went over the house about 11:30. Soon after the guns were so near that I didn't like to fetch a pair of shoes left in the bedroom. We had arranged mattresses in the kitchen & after the first noise slackened we lay all together, L. on the kitchen tale, like a picture of slum life. One thud came very near; but in an hour we had the bugles, & went up to bed. The thud, which L distinguished from the rest, came from the explosion of bombs at Kew. Nine people, I think killed. Servants become plaintive, & Lottie began talking of the effect upon her head; they hint that we ought to leave London.  

1917

Tuesday 9 October

We had a horrid shock. L[eonard] came in so unreasonably cheerful that I guessed a disaster. He has been called up. Though rather dashed for 20 minutes, my spirit mounted to the certainty that, save the nuisance, we have nothing to fear.