Rebecca Solnit’s essay, “Woolf’s Darkness” that appeared in the New Yorker online was what made me buy her essay collection Men Explain Things to Me. It wasn’t enough to read it in digital and possibly not have access to it forever. I had to read it in print so I could mark it up and I had to know that I would always have it.
What I like so much about this essay is not just that it is about Woolf, but that it is also about art, criticism and life and instead of being an abstract theory, Solnit manages to ground it and make it relevant to reading Woolf, reading in general and to being a human.
Solnit begins by quoting a January 18, 1915 diary entry of Woolf’s:
The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think.
And she goes on to assert how
It’s an extraordinary declaration, asserting that the unknown need not be turned into the known through false divination, or the projection of grim political or ideological narratives; it’s a celebration of darkness, willing—as that “I think” indicates—to be uncertain even about its own assertion.
Most people are afraid of the dark.
Solnit suggests that it is the job of writers to go into the dark with eyes open, “to engage repeatedly with those patches of darkness, those nights of history, those places of unknowing.” She acknowledges that not all writers are successful nor are all writers even interested in such an undertaking but if one wants to get at the truth, one needs to be willing to engage repeatedly with the dark unknown.
The main thrust of the essay is the ability to dwell in uncertainty whether you are a writer, critic, reader, or person who cares about the world. And it is easy to think, well, I am just fine with uncertainty, no problem at all, why, I don’t even know what I’ll be having for dinner tonight! Ah, but do you make plans? I do. I am a planner to the nth degree. Solnit quotes wilderness survival author Laurence Gonzalez:
‘The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits.’ His point is that when the two seem incompatible we often hang onto the plan, ignore the warnings reality offers us, and so plunge into trouble. Afraid of the darkness of the unknown, the spaces in which we see only dimly, we often choose the darkness of closed eyes, of obliviousness.
It is not the planning itself that is the problem, it is how we cope with the inevitable uncertainty that will arise when the plan and reality do not meet. Do we stick to the plan no matter what? Or do we revise the plan or maybe even toss it out completely?
This is where Woolf comes in:
All Woolf’s work as I know it constitutes a sort of Ovidian metamorphosis where the freedom sought is the freedom to continue becoming, exploring, wandering, going beyond. She is an escape artist.
The language of authority and assertion is so much simpler and easier, Solnit suggests, than that of nuance, speculation and ambiguity. Woolf is “unparalleled” at the latter language. Instead of trying to pin things down, she is always working at opening them up, expanding, connecting, inviting possibilities.
And I think that is what made me like this essay so much. Solnit’s Woolf is very much my Woolf too. What I love about Woolf is how she is so much like water: smooth, slippery, shape-changing, both transparent and opaque at the same time, she is never the same yet she is always herself. It is the darkness, the uncertainty that Woolf embraces that makes me describe her as being like water and the roots of her writing that I love most. Woolf never fails to astonish and delight me, to frustrate and anger me, to make me cry from sadness and beauty.
The essay as it appears online is edited a bit from how it appears in the print book so if you have the chance to read it in print, do. Also, whether you read it online or in print, be prepared for a sudden urge to read Woolf’s essay “Street Haunting” and her novel To the Lighthouse. I have been meaning to reread To the Lighthouse for awhile now. I think the time has finally come to actually do it.
I could never get into Woolf. I think it’s because I tried to listen to To The Lighthouse on audio book. I’ve found that I almost never like a book as much on audio as I do the same book in print. Why is that I wonder? Maybe it’s an inability to concentrate completely due to the fact that I’m also driving while listening? Anyway, I’ve always felt I was just missing something that everyone else was getting when it came to Virginia Woolf. I do, however, like Solnit’s writing and have you to thank for introducing me to her. I had to return the Faraway Nearby to the library before I was finished, but I’ll check it out again. (And I might even try once again with Woolf. Any suggestions on where to begin?)
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Grad, oh no, listening to To the Lighthouse must have been a disaster since reading it in print is pretty difficult! If you want to give Woolf another try, don’t worry about her novels, dive in to her essays like The Death of the Moth and Street Haunting. Also her short stories are pretty good especially The Mark on the Wall which will give you a mini lesson in reading her stream of consciousness longer works. And for a novel, Jacob’s Room is good. It’s early Woolf just before she launched into her distinctive style so has a more traditional narrative style but still manages to breathe Woolf. Good luck! If you read her and ever want a companion reader or just to talk about her, you know my email address 🙂
As for Solnit, glad you were enjoying her. I just had to return a library book half read too and get back on the list. I hope I remember it well enough when my turn comes back around so I can pick up where I left off!
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Here’s a follow up by Joshua Rothman at the New Yorker’s Page Turner on Woolf’s Privacy:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/joshuarothman/2014/07/virginia-woolf-idea-of-privacy.html
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Richard, oh, thanks for that! It was good. I think it interesting that he and Solnit both mention Street Haunting and take different interpretations – Solnit as a liberation of the self and an exploration of other consciousness and Rothman as an example of solitude in a crowd where you can lose and then find yourself again. Both are right and that they can both be right is one reason why I love stuff like this so very much!
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Thanks for a well-written and insightful post, Stefanie. I like how you describe ‘your’ Woolf being like water. And it’s into the water that she chose at the end. I have the book Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life by Julia Briggs on my shelf for a long while now, still haven’t touched it. Have you read it? Sounds like a good read if you like Woolf.
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Arti, thanks! You know, I hadn’t even thought about her drowning! I have not read Briggs’ books. I know about it, I might even own it. It does sound really good. Perhaps after I have a reread of To the Lighthouse I’ll read Briggs. Thanks for reminding me about it!
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Stefanie, I pre-ordered this Solnit collection from the US, but still haven’t got around to reading them, but your thoughts make me impatient to engage with these essays. I am reading and rereading, slightly obsessively, Leslie Jamison’s essay collection, The Empathy Exams, which might just be the best book I’ve read this year.
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Anthony, I hope you enjoy Solnit’s book when you get to it. As for Jamison’s, isn’t it fantastic? So much to think about with it. I just finished the Morgellons essay and wow, I can’t stop thinking about it.
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