I began reading the shortened version of Virginia’s diaries covering the years 1915 to 1941, and it has an introduction by Quentin Bell, her nephew. I was fascinated to read ‘The novice will very likely have heard ill of the writer I am trying to present. She was, we are frequently told, snobbish, elitist and malicious. The reader will be able to form his or her own opinion of this. Here I can only point out that some other diarists, as for instance Pepys and Boswell, also had their faults of character…’ [the same fault in the case of these guys!] … ‘but that, to put it mildly, their occasional lapses from perfection did not make them less readable.’ I laughed, but how very true that statement is. Yet I believe cruelty is more serious than the constant seduction of women, except of course very often the two things go hand in hand…. (not quite a pun?). So Quentin Bell is giving the other side of the debate to the one I was thinking about last time I wrote this blog. And I think I have to now confess that I could easily put the vile behaviours of all manner of people, writers, artists, musicians, out of my mind if I was actually drawn to their work. Hard not to forgive Amy Winehouse’s excesses of behaviour when you think about her beautiful music. But still, I like to feel warmly about the creative people that I spend time reading or gazing at.
