The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Four: 1931-1935

The Diary of Virginia Woolf #4

by Virginia Woolf

The penultimate volume of Woolf's diaries details the mature period of The Years and moments of personal sadness brought by the deaths of Lytton Strachey, Dora Carrington, and Roger Fry.

Edited by Anne Olivier Bell, assisted by Andrew McNeillie; Index.

Genres: Nonfiction, Diary, Biography, Memoir, Classics, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

420 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 1982

About the author

(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929) with its famous dictum, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Reviews

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tout n'est pas de première importance dans ce journal que l'auteure a tenu pendant de très nombreuses années. Il y est abondamment question du quotidien, de ses relations familiales et amicales. Il y est aussi question de ses états d'âmes étroitement liés à son écriture qui, selon l'importance de l'oeuvre en cours de rédaction, pouvait altérer son humeur jusqu'à la dépression et la folie.
Ce qui m'intéressait dans cette lecture, c'était de suivre son processus de création, ses doutes, ses efforts pour parvenir à produire cette nouvelle forme d'écriture, à mi-chemin entre la poésie et le roman, qu'elle a tentativement nommée "élégie" pour l'écriture de The Waves. De lire aussi la chronologie pendant la période de gestation, d'écriture, de réécriture et de révision. Des difficultés rencontrées, des élans d'enthousiasme et jusqu'aux commentaires concernant la réception de la publication auprès du lectorat britannique. Je pensais ainsi me préparer à la lecture de son chef d'oeuvre The Waves mais force est de constater que tous ces renseignements n'ont rien apporté à mon appréciation de l'oeuvre qui, en elle-même, est une expérience en dehors du temps.

[Kristi Hovington · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is truly nothing new that I can write about VW that I haven’t written elsewhere; I find her endlessly fascinating, always inspiring, even when she is, as in this volume of her diaries, simply listing brief (and insightful) impressions of her day, her friends, her writing process. Major life changes are documented in this volume: deaths of beloved friends; Hitler’s rise to power; her literary fame/pressures after the successes of several novels published in the 20s.

There are many entries detailing the minutiae of daily life, but interspersed, liberally, are arresting thoughts such as one of my favorites: “…stay this moment. No one ever says that enough.” and many more.

The most delightful and surprising entry is an account of a dream she had about Vita in which she was so upset upon waking, she was determined to be cold and firm with her if she called that day. Vita did call and Virginia was cold, owing to the dream version of Vita that had “gone off with someone else, very markedly.” Vita came over anyway, unaware of VW’s ire or the cause. She contains multitudes! Ah, I love her so.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

One would be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable diarist than Woolf. So snobbish and delightful and incandescent.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

For logistical reasons, revisiting this diary has meant starting with vol. 4, which isn't the best way to do it. This volume covers the early 1930s, with the deaths of some notable Bloomsbury characters, Virginia suffering from bad headaches and depression but yet being very productive too, and a general overview of how the Woolfs' very comfortable life split between Bloomsbury and their lovely house in Sussex worked. I do often feel when stumbling on Bloomsbury writings that their whole quality of life was lovely, and made possible by their domestic servants, who were not always appreciated, perhaps (until they were no longer there). Although Virginia comes across as frail, she and her husband ran the Hogarth Press very efficiently and she was pretty disciplined about her writing and editing. She also seems to have been more aware of what was happening in Germany than some other contemporaries.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

V is an inimitable diarist—she ranks with Pepys and Boswell as being on e of the greatest (known) English language diarists ever [IMHO]. There’s no diary I like reading more than hers. Indeed, my only solution when I finish vol. 5 may be to go back and start over.

I perceive the tone of this volume to be gloomier overall—Roger FRy (?), Lytton Strachey, and Carrington all died, and she felt the first two particularly. Also, she seemed to spend most of the time struggling over [her novel] The Years.

2020 note: I didn’t realize that I had read volume 4 (or 3 for that matter, which I must have done because I would not have read them out of order).

[Manavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me some time to get through this one. While it covers only five years of her life, this volume has quite a lot of themes.

Her losing more and more acquaintances to death. Accepting how everyone is "capable of dying". Overthinking about her work and reputation. Travel. More deaths. Nazis. More travel. More overthinking.

That being said, Virginia Woolf writes better on a lazy Sunday afternoon than most others. I also liked how her travels gave a sense of a fulfilled life. It took me months to get through these four volumes. And knowing how the next one will end, I'm almost terrified but also looking forward to reading it.

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Virginia Woolf's diaries is taking two loves and combining them into one. Take the Dear America and Royal Diaries series, the fictional diaries of real people, and take this myth of a human, portrayed always as a doomed tragic artist but actually funnier and more colorful than we're used to seeing her, one of my absolute favorite authors. I get to read her real journals, as she describes her complicated social web, her grief, her hopes for her novels, her work. And her illness, her headaches and depressions, and arguably her mania too. I'm four down now, one volume to go, and then I'll dive into her biography.

[Dr. Sabrina Molden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Virginia begins this diary with the sentence: “This is the turn of the tide.” Truly it was because it is,to me, an account of her descent into a depression from which she never recovered. She committed suicide 6 years after the diary ended. Despite its length, she mostly listed events, rarely talking about her feelings but when she did her despair was almost unbearable to read. Such a tragic story. I wish there had been help for her.

[Ari (Head in a Book) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of major changes took place in this book, the rise of certain people in power overseas, deaths of beloved friends. Virginia Woolf writes so well. I now only have one volume left of Woolf's adult diaries, (the volume concludes a few days before her death).

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much in the way of advice for writers just starting out.

[Brok3n · Rating 4 out of 5]

The longest suicide note ever written

This will be a review of the entire unabridged Diary -- five volumes. My review title is stolen from some more insightful reader of Virginia Woolf's Diary -- I don't remember where I saw it, unfortunately, so can't give proper credit.

There are several interesting stories told in here. For instance, it is the story of her Bloomsbury group of friends and artists. Aside from Woolf herself, most of these were rather dull people, with one major exception: economist John Maynard Keynes, truly a brilliant man, possessor of what The Indigo Girls call "a mind without end". (They are referring to Woolf herself with the phrase, but I am repurposing it.)

And then there is the story of the Hogarth Press. Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard (also an author) purchased a printing press and became a small publishing business, to my mind one of the most inspiring business success stories of all time.

But the central story of the Diary is the story of Woolf's psychological downward spiral. I would guess she suffered from what we now call Major Depression -- at the time it was probably called Melancholia. She began each new book with enthusiasm, happy to be starting something new. But then, as she passed the middle, the book would become a crushing burden, that she struggled to finish. And after the publication, regular as clockwork, the crash. You would think that publication and success would be a triumph, but that is not how depression works. Even winning feels like losing.

It is terrifying to read, because as you get along in the Diary it becomes clear that each crash is worse than the one before. And you know that, inevitably, she will one day finish a book, then walk into the river.

Blog review.

[Pila]

It's such a pleasure to follow Virginia, the woman, in her struggle to write novels and litteraire reviews; to follow with her her sickness and her depression. An incredible sourse of knowledge about the woman Virginia and about the profession of writing. And as always Virginia can surprise you with some touching pages.

[Christina Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of insights on her writing and life, yet unfortunately the gems are buried under a mess of boring topics natural to a diary. In short, not her fault.

[Belinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't be bothered in the end. I'd rather read her books.

[B.A. Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the insight I gain into the mind of Virginia Woolf by reading her diaries.

[Pumpernickel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love to read her...