Virginia Woolf by Nigel Nicolson - a book review

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I knew very little about Virginia Woolf before I read this book. I’d not read any of her great works, nor even seen the films that have been made from some of them; it was only her reputation as a great, creative mind and writer that I was truly aware of.

I like to read books like this, mainly as an education to myself, to learn a little more about the people who have had an influence on our society, but also to try and gain an insight into their lives and the motivations behind them.

This short book about her has been particularly enjoyable. Nigel Nicolson, who is the son of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, knew Virginia, somewhat like an aunt, through the relationship Virginia had with his mother and has produced an eminently readable book, certainly helping me achieve what I set out to do when I picked this up.

I often find that biographers get too caught up in their work, they either take their subject too seriously, or they try to draw too many meanings from the life of their subject, whilst swallowing a dictionary in the process; thankfully this book isn’t like that. With access to her letters and diaries Nicolson portrays what a biography should, it tells us about the life of an amazingly talented woman, lets us in on her thoughts and gives us an impression of how, through living her life, Virginia and the Bloomsbury group had an impact and influence on society at the time. It is gentle and warm and seems to let the subject speak for herself.

Like many creative geniuses Virginia Woolf was troubled by a mental battle, but between bouts of illness she wielded her pen like no other, wanting to look anew at the way stories and tales were told. Like the other creatives around her, the group wanted society at the time to view things in a new and fresh way, be that in the arts, to approaches to politics and society in general. 

She lived through interesting times and all in all she lived a happy and overall healthy life, while constantly working at her art and running a publishing company with her husband, Leonard. In the end, wanting to avoid spoiling Leonard’s life any further and to not be a hindrance in the future, she took her own life when she felt she was on the verge of a major breakdown that she wouldn’t recover from, perhaps her most courageous act of all.

If you are in any way curious about the life of Virginia Woolf (25/1/1882 – 28/3/1941) this book is a rather excellent introduction to it…