I’d always supposed that Virginia Woolf suffered from depression and eventually killed herself, so some of the really vile things she said about people struck me as hideous snobbery, and therefore I had no empathy with her at all, and was disinclined to get too close to her work. However, it turns out that her mental illness was not a quiet thing. James King, whose biography of Virginia I am reading writes that in 1914:- ‘Virginia’s breakdown took most of its accustomed forms. She wanted to do away with herself and she was violently angry with the person closest to her. She was like an anguished child who is so desperately furious at a parent that she wants to kill them but, at the same time, is so guilt-ridden for harbouring such sentiments that she wants to destroy herself.’ Heck. Turns out Leonard was desperately trying to keep her out of an asylum, but he’d reached the point, according to Vanessa, [Virginia’s sister], where ‘he didn’t much care what happened…’ Slightly later Vanessa says ‘…she seems to have changed into a most unpleasant character. She won’t see Leonard at all and has taken against all men. She says the most malicious and cutting things she can think of to everyone & they are so clever that they always hurt.’
Strong-hearted stories, dark & funny
