A Book Review - The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume One: 1915-1919 by Virginia Woolf, Anne Olivier Bell (Editor, Preface), Quentin Bell (Introduction)

If You Like what we do support us here,  https://anchor.fm/pbliving/support Published May 15th 1979 by Mariner Books (first published 1977) I received my copy of Virginia Woolf: A Writer’s Diary from a friend as a present for my 23rd birthday. It took me six years to finish reading it;  I did a great deal of growing up in that time, transforming my reading experience as I grew. My friend inscribed the book to me, calling me a strong and bold woman and writer. But I didn’t feel strong or bold. I felt weak and scared. Nothing I did seemed right. My writing was a mess. I regularly concocted theories that my professors had been drunk when they decided to admit me to my MFA program. I turned to Virginia Woolf for help and guidance. When I began to read her diary, I looked to her as an oracle of writing. She intimidated me even as she taught me, but to my surprise, she was terribly critical of herself. Over and over again, she lost hope in her own writing. It seemed that she was always waiting to find that she had lost her gift, her will to go on with writing. When she found the ability, the nerve, the energy for it again, she always seemed surprised.