Granite and rainbow: the hidden life of Virginia Woolf

by Mitchell Alexander Leaska

A literary biography of Virginia Woolf, which aims to shed light on the writer's life and work. The book includes material on Woolf's relationships with her parents.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

528 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1998

Reviews

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mitchell Leaska's Granite and Rainbow had been on my to-read shelf for a couple of months before I picked it up in early December, in part as PhD research, and in part as an enjoyable read. Leaska's wise and intelligent introduction to the volume fits perfectly; it sets out what he is aiming to achieve with his biography, recognising that he is one of many who has chosen to tackle Woolf as Woman and Writer proper.

Leaska blends details about Woolf's life, beginning with in-depth accounts of her parents, and blends in a smattering of criticism about all of her books, as well as detailing what inspired her to write each distinct piece. He does not take her short stories into account much of the time, and even leaves some of her essays by the wayside, but discussing everything that Woolf ever wrote would be rather a mean feat, and any omissions do not have a great impact on the work as a whole. The elements of social and political history which Leaska has made use of are fitting, and give a wider context to Woolf's work and decisions.

One reviewer argues that Leaska makes many unsubstantiated claims throughout Granite and Rainbow; I, however, did not find this to be the case. Yes, he discusses ambiguities in her prose, but many biographers make claims with regard to what they believe the author was driving at in writing X, or amending Y. Of course, in every biography there is going to be an element of bias, but Leaska has written rather impartially about his subject. It is clear that he admires her and his work, but his approach to her as a woman is one of academic understanding.

I found Leaska's writing really quite lovely: 'The world that mattered to Virginia Woolf was the world of emotional and sensory experience eddying endlessly in atmosphere, of the mind, in twilit regions of memory where past and present merge and blur. It was a world where houses and rooms are furnished not with carpets and curtains but with reminiscence and feeling. This alone was real. It was not concerned with what life was like, but more with what the actual experience of living felt like'. The entirety of the book has a wonderful consistency to it too.

Granite and Rainbow did not add much to my understanding of Woolf as a person, but it certainly went into more far depth than the majority of other biographies with her extramarital relationships - with Vita Sackville-West, for instance. If I was coming to Woolf as someone who had merely read her work and wanted to know more about her as a person in the real world, I would have found Leaska's book endlessly fascinating. As it is, I have been studying Woolf for quite a while up to this point and, as one might expect, biographies do tend to repeat themselves from tome to tome.

That said, Leaska's biography is something else entirely, and deserves to be revered in the same way as Hermione Lee's work about Woolf; it is just as thorough, and has a wonderful clarity to it. In Granite and Rainbow, Leaska has produced a fantastic biography which is authoritative and masterfully written, and it certainly deserves more attention than it seems to have received to date.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't explain why, but I never delved into the life or writing of Virginia Woolf until now. My college years were dedicated to the standards - Shakespeare, Chaucer, the writers of the 19th century. I wish I had focused more on the women writers of the early twentieth century and in particular, Virginia Woolf.

This biography does a very good job explaining how the major events of Virginia Woolf's life impacted her body of work. As indicated in the index and bibliography, Mitchell Leaska mined countless volumes of letters and diaries written by Virginia Woolf and many volumes of letters and books written by her family members, as well as her social circle, to get an understanding of what was going on in her head and present it in this enlightening book. I especially enjoyed Leaska's treatment of Virginia's explanations of her writing process.

I appreciate all the effort that Leaska put into this biography. I will admit that I struggled through the first 75 pages that focused on her parents' lives and Virginia's early years. To put it mildly, Leslie Stephen and Julia Duckworth were not model spouses or parents and it was not fun to read about their behaviors. But the book picked up momentum after Virginia began writing in earnest.

The descriptions of Virginia's mental breakdowns were hard to read, but were handled with care and sensitivity by Leaska. Virginia's death was heartbreaking. Her letters to her family were crushing. Even though I knew it was coming, I was still upset at the tragedy of it all.

Now that I have read this biography, I plan to start reading Virginia's books sometime soon. Not sure which one to read first.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extremely insightful book on the life of Mrs. Woolf. It offers a detailed anaylsis of her personality, supported by extensive references to her works. I must admit to being deeply moved by the conclusion of the book; the presentation of Mrs. Woolf's decline is, for lack of a better word, heartbreaking.
I do however have some issues with the book. While it is evident that the author is a formidable scholar with regard to the life and works of Mrs. Woolf, there are a few too many unsupported assumptions made. Also, the author takes at times what is almost a strident tone, writing harshly when such writing is uncalled for.
My major concern is with the perception I took from the book that the author seems in some manner to hold Mrs. Woolf responsible for being the way she was. There is much discussion of psychology, some from a Freudian perspective. Not being an expert in such things, I am not qualified to make an informed judgement, but I do not believe an individual can elect the elements of his or her own personality. One is the sum of one's times and one's personal circumstances. Personality is not really a question of choice. I felt that at times the author was almost accusatory toward his subject when discussing her thoughts, motives, and actions. In a deeply scholarly work such as this, there is no reason for this. Hence: 3 stars.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This well written biography is chronological, psychological, and analytical. If anything, the author is too much in love with the subject, but has clearly immersed himself in Woolf's life and art. I'm not sure I can buy all his psychological interpretations of her work (and life), however, he has immersed himself in her letters and diaries to try and understand better how she lived and worked.

It is a book that inspires one to read more of her work.

[Bored · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biography complicates the life of an individual in the mind of a reader. Biographers enter the genre determined to present a specific reading of their subject’s life, and the various biographies of Virginia Woolf’s life are no different. Each biographer makes use of the tomes of letters and the volumes of diaries to present their perception of Woolf’s life.

MItchell Leaska’s Granite and Rainbow is no exception. Leaska’s biography engages the reader with fact, giving the reader confidence that they are reading the work of a masterful biographer. HIs portrayal of Woolf is that of a woman perpetually trying to come to terms with the death of her parents, Julia and Leslie Stephen, a woman purposefully needy to gain the attention and love of those closest to her—her sister Vanessa Bell, her lover Vita Sackville-West, and her husband Leonard Woolf. Leaska also portrays Woolf as a woman for whom work was the only thing that made her whole or real. These two needs come together in Leaska’s biography as constantly feeding from each other. Woolf writes to satiate her need for attention—letters begging for attention and novels begging for praise. Further, Leaska presents Woolf as a woman with an odd Electra complex, one where she constantly seeks to kill her mother to gain her father’s love, but only after the death of both parents.

Leaska’s evidence is well documented (and as a Woolf scholar, I appreciate this). However, we must keep in mind the impressive amounts of primary materials Woolf created during her life and remember that Leaska does not present all the possible information. The evidence presented most certainly supports his reading of Woolf; however, other Woolf biographers also use the same primary materials, though different excerpts, to support their own reading of Woolf. So while I appreciate Leaska’s reading of Woolf through the selected materials, I raise objections to his argument that Woolf’s neediness, her projected need for attention, praise, and love, was purposeful.. There is no doubt Woolf suffered from mental health issues. There is no doubt that she was deeply affected by all the deaths that occurred at 22 Hyde Park Gate. These two facts alone make me question whether losing her parents, her brother, her half-sister all to death, and her sister to marriage led to a sincere need for attention and love or, as Leaska argues, motivated her to appear needy to receive her attention and love she desired.

I appreciate Leaska’s reading of Woolf’s life, but I cannot appreciate his reading alone. I appreciate Leaska’s reading of Woolf as part of a larger dialogue about Woolf’s life. I take his perspective on Woolf along with those of other biographers, as one reading of Woolf’s life. Yet, I also take his perspective into consideration with all the material available. The plethora of letters and diaries Leonard Woolf chose to pass on for posterity offer a much more nuanced reading of Woolf, and I firmly believe that the only way to begin to understand this much more nuanced reading of Woolf’s life comes from critically reading the many perspectives on her life in concert with her own writings about her life.

[Mckenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite biographies. It reads almost like a story, and gives a clear view of what made Woolf tick and what sometimes ailed her mental illness.