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Even if you are not familiar with the name "Bloomsbury" you will probably recognize the name of "Virginia Woolf." You might even know that she was a literary star in England in the first half of the 20th century. You might even know that she was the center of a group of talented, well-educated and often brilliant people who helped shape thought between the wars and beyond. John Maynard Keynes, the economist, whose economic model helped to bring the world out of the Great Depression, was one of Woolf's friends. You may know that Virginia died before WWII, a suicide who had for many years suffered from mental illness. What you might not know is that Virginia was only one of a pair of twin suns around whom this large, amorphous group revolved. The other, her elder sister Vanessa, an artist, was the other, the one who shone less fiercely, but who outlived her sister by many years.
The Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia were the products of the Victorian era, and daughters of a selfish, domineering father. But upon his death, the young women struck out on their own to follow their instincts rather than the smothering rules by which they'd been raised. Virginia, who had been systematically molested by half-brother, George, entered into what became a sexless marriage with Leonard Woolf who nevertheless lived to care for her, becoming what Vanessa refers to within the book as the "apotheosis" of their devoted mother. Vanessa married Clive Bell, but both she and her husband seemed to tire of their relationship, and engaged in affairs with other people. The great love of Vanessa's life, at least according to this book, and I see no reason to doubt it since it does agree with what I've read of her, was the artist Duncan Grant. He was homosexual and was introduced into their circle as the lover of Vanessa's younger brother, Adrian. But Duncan also became her lover of many years and fathered her daughter, Angelica, who would later marry Grant's former lover, David Garnett. To say that the relationships in Bloomsbury were complicated is to understate.
What Sellers has done in "Vanessa and Virginia" is to explore the relationship between the sisters through the eyes of the less well-known Vanessa. She weaves the threads of their lives so deftly that it's difficult not to believe that we are reading something written by Vanessa. She explores the poles of sisterhood, both the attachment and the rivalry that complicate every interaction. She also allows us to watch the changes which happen within and outside of Vanessa's life, though from something of a distance, reinforcing the strength of the bonds of sisterhood. There is no one else in Vanessa's life, not even Duncan Grant, who has such a grip on her life as Virginia does.
Why not a biography instead of fiction? Perhaps because biographies can't, or at least should not presume to tell us what the principals are thinking, what their motives were. They can only report facts and occasionally speculate on the deeper, unspoken and unexamined currents of a person's life. But within the confines of a novel, all is fair. Sellers never demands a greater suspension of disbelief than that she is able, through the facts of Vanessa's life and a study of her art, to put herself into Vanessa's heart and mind. Because of this, she does succeed in convincing us of the truth of what she's written. She gives us an unconventional love story that will leave us aching, but satisfied because we have seen more deeply into this woman's heart than any biographer could have taken us.
Vanessa and Virginia isn't an easy read. It requires patience and attention. You don't need to know anything about Bloomsbury, but your enjoyment of the novel will of course be greater if you do. It works on virtually any level of familiarity. If you have any interest at all in the era, in Bloomsbury, in the life of Virginia Woolf, I think you'll enjoy V&V. If you have none of these things, but are still capable of being moved by a story of sisters and their bonds, then I think V&V might well please you, too.
Vanessa and Virginia
The Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia were the products of the Victorian era, and daughters of a selfish, domineering father. But upon his death, the young women struck out on their own to follow their instincts rather than the smothering rules by which they'd been raised. Virginia, who had been systematically molested by half-brother, George, entered into what became a sexless marriage with Leonard Woolf who nevertheless lived to care for her, becoming what Vanessa refers to within the book as the "apotheosis" of their devoted mother. Vanessa married Clive Bell, but both she and her husband seemed to tire of their relationship, and engaged in affairs with other people. The great love of Vanessa's life, at least according to this book, and I see no reason to doubt it since it does agree with what I've read of her, was the artist Duncan Grant. He was homosexual and was introduced into their circle as the lover of Vanessa's younger brother, Adrian. But Duncan also became her lover of many years and fathered her daughter, Angelica, who would later marry Grant's former lover, David Garnett. To say that the relationships in Bloomsbury were complicated is to understate.
What Sellers has done in "Vanessa and Virginia" is to explore the relationship between the sisters through the eyes of the less well-known Vanessa. She weaves the threads of their lives so deftly that it's difficult not to believe that we are reading something written by Vanessa. She explores the poles of sisterhood, both the attachment and the rivalry that complicate every interaction. She also allows us to watch the changes which happen within and outside of Vanessa's life, though from something of a distance, reinforcing the strength of the bonds of sisterhood. There is no one else in Vanessa's life, not even Duncan Grant, who has such a grip on her life as Virginia does.
Why not a biography instead of fiction? Perhaps because biographies can't, or at least should not presume to tell us what the principals are thinking, what their motives were. They can only report facts and occasionally speculate on the deeper, unspoken and unexamined currents of a person's life. But within the confines of a novel, all is fair. Sellers never demands a greater suspension of disbelief than that she is able, through the facts of Vanessa's life and a study of her art, to put herself into Vanessa's heart and mind. Because of this, she does succeed in convincing us of the truth of what she's written. She gives us an unconventional love story that will leave us aching, but satisfied because we have seen more deeply into this woman's heart than any biographer could have taken us.
Vanessa and Virginia isn't an easy read. It requires patience and attention. You don't need to know anything about Bloomsbury, but your enjoyment of the novel will of course be greater if you do. It works on virtually any level of familiarity. If you have any interest at all in the era, in Bloomsbury, in the life of Virginia Woolf, I think you'll enjoy V&V. If you have none of these things, but are still capable of being moved by a story of sisters and their bonds, then I think V&V might well please you, too.
Vanessa and Virginia
