Reading Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary

I feel I am bursting with words right now. They are everywhere; I can sense them flooding the landscape; they are monsters, little devils all seeking to come out of the system the same time. The deluge is the result of reading Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary. This morning I started reading this extraordinary  assortment of entries from Virginia Woolf’s journals collected and published by her husband, Leonard Woolf, after her death. The preface itself is wonderful. I found Leonard Woolf’s professional, forcefully editorial tone slightly bedewed with stray drops of love that occasionally stains the white page of his mind. I feel the formality is somewhat lovingly broken when he talks about the patterned Italian paper covered copies his wife used as her journals and other details about her writing life.

I have never considered myself a Woolfian by any means; I have often found her work rather un-entertaining, albeit beautifully written. Her stream-of-consciousness method, her experimentations with style and technique have undoubtedly amazed me, but I have never been a moth attracted to her “luminous halo”. She has always struck me as an extraordinary writer, but not a lovable creature. I never adored her, until now.

Entranced, I read page after page of her daily thoughts — mundane details, her dread of criticism; her occasional hatred for the works of certain writers, notably one story of Katherine Mansfield, which she thought was a poor effort totally undeserved of praise or the patience of a reader; her comparing her success to that of other authors; her belaboring on the literary triumph issue; her vacillations; her depressive ramblings — and I feel that this Virginia Woolf is more human than the person next door. She is flesh and blood, warm and human.

I must say this book is gradually eating away the effects of the books that I finished reading in the recent past; my careful thoughts preserved after reading these quondam tomes have all but gone. I am like a bowl of water bubbling with love for this somewhat obsessive compulsive, lovely-profiled lady. I wish I could time travel and meet this woman for tea sometime and watch her moves, notice her noticing objects, sounds, motions.

I wish I could read the whole book today; it is nearly four hundred pages and I am dwelling on the seventy-fifth—having taken more time than needed for lunch and other daily chores. Anyway, the book is working as an anodyne, my otherwise wavering mind is calm and interested. I haven’t stirred much since five in the evening and hope to finish at least a hundred pages today.

Blue

Blue


Blue, blue,  corybrantic blue

Majestic, boundless faded watchet hue,

Unleash the spring, unchain the devil,

Raise me up, feed me to the evil.


Blue, blue, deep sea-blue

Sighing, breathing labile vertu,

Speak to me in whispers, speak to me in shouts,

Bring to me the fire, bring to me your bouts,


Blue, blue, cruel, sunny-blue,

Reckless, temerous, in sapphire pareu,

Spell me life, speak of doom,

Break the nox, set life abloom,


Blue, blue, omniscient, nihiliscent blue,

My paramour, my love, my death-bearing beau,

Bring to me the end, let me your blue defy,

Show me the world and in your blue let me die.

The Diseased

Nothing aggravates me in a fine March morning, when the sky is blue, the Bohea steaming, and my general mood in the pink, like seeing a buffoon venditating its momentary physical discomfort on a popular virtual forum. Directly I catch sight of such lame “status messages” as down with flu or suffering from a stomach pain, and my morning bonhomie transmogrifies to a bitter sneer, and I catch the distinct aroma of a singeing disposition. On not less than six or seven occasions in the past couple of week have I been, unwillingly, the reader of the trivial physical discomforts of my virtual acquaintances. And on every occasion I have wondered how we are supposed to reciprocate to such consequential physical discomforts of our beloved web-pals? Are we supposed to cry, or better still, howl? Are we supposed to give them a hug, a kiss? And how such actions could prove to be efficacious in alleviating the pains of the subject is lost on me. I agree that the unwritten laws of the society entail us to show concern for the health and wellbeing of our brethren, but does that involve showing unneeded love on undeserved recipients. Why is it that a certain section of our educated, seemingly wise and extrovert population take it for granted that they are the cynosure of our eyes, our own Adam and Eve, our paradisiac fruit that need contact watching and attention? Why is it that within the confines of the bijou virtual compartments we maintain we cannot spend one happy day without being pestered by needless information? When a world is being wrecked by a war on despotism carried out in a community that lives with us in the same world that we inhabit, when people are still recovering from the throes of a devastating earthquake in a land that is linked to us by means of humanity, do the scattered cases of a homely viral fever, or a menstrual cramp, or, for that matter, a sudden change of mood, matter? What amazes me, even peeves me, is the way a section of our younger and even matured unit are blithely discarding the serious aspects of a worldly life for a homely self-centric one. If one keeps her eyes open one can catch the discrepancy in the points of view I am talking about: on one hand one will witness great democratic feelings unleashed in the social area that can crumble the ivory tower of a tyrant while on the other a carefree unconcern for anything except self. The attitude struck me square in the face when I disembarked at the Delhi airport and caught sight of the glammed up metropolitan city that I now call my home. The city of Gurgaon is one of the lushest cosmopolitan conurbations in India. It cups in its palm the most expensive restaurants, bar, fashion stores and its hip population. In many ways it is as snazzy as New York or Los Angeles, and the average cost of living, as you can guess, touches the zenith in the economic scale; yet, in this seemingly, well-maintained, well platted out, organized metropolitan hub, you will easily catch such diseases as child labor, abject poverty, chill penury. As soon as you cross the polished, glassy façade of the skyscaperized city you will, if you have the eye, that is, catch the glimpses of pain and distress: children with perpetually hungry eyes specter thin in form looking for food; women, emaciated, bare-boned extending their hands in the hope of small charity; men, hollow, shadowy forms working under the beating sun to build brick by brick glass palaces to be inhabited by the fortunate ones. Who will listen to their disease; how shall you reciprocate to their pains? The whole city riding expensive cars and spending needless money on “imported” goods turns a blind eye to these agonies. They behave as if the less fortunate ones do not exist, they turn their gaze, and they close their hearts, deliberately. Let me share a small incident with you: a day or two after I relocated to India, my husband and I went for a snack. We had in our mind delicious Indian snacks available in a food stall near the guest house we had been staying at the time. As we enjoyed the hot treat a small girl dressed in an almost threadbare outfit and displaying an unbearable hungry countenance approached us. I asked her what she wanted to eat and she said she wanted a “samosa,” a deep fried Indian treat I am sure many of you are aware of. My husband took the girl to the shop and bought her a couple of samosas. She left the shop in quick steps carrying the bag of food. I stood in my place watching her moves: she reached a side street where her mother sat, placed the bag on her mother’s lap. She washed her hands at a washbasin adjacent to a temple that stood in the area, wiped them in the loose end of her mother’s saree, sat by her and began eating. I cannot tell you why, but the happiness I felt that day watching the child enjoy the little treat is greater than some recent great joys. I thanked God for bringing me to the spot that A.M., for allowing me to help the girl in our little way. At the same time, I couldn’t turn away from the fact that a portion of my fellow human beings, rich, well-fed, topped to the north in silk attire, is sick. Apathy is a disease that has marked them as her own, and they are unaware of it, or they simply do not care. Compared with the inconsequential, barely there diseases that wreck my virtual pals this disease of apathy is a grim discomfort that eats away the heart and kills the human spirit. This is a disease we need to be concerned about; this is an ailment that needs prompt attention, potent medicine and regular treatment.

                           Raise a voice and help stop child labor in India.

On Valentine's Day

Contrary to the expectations of the young lovers, the sun on Valentine's Day did not resemble a giant heart dancing high up in the sky, and neither did the nightingale sing Justin Bieber's Baby. Valentine's Day has so far proved to be just like another day, at least for me. My interest in Valentine's Day  took a nasty turn when a few months back I was studying a book on the history of English literature that in its account of Geoffrey Chaucer's work had a gist of his famous dream-poem Parliament of Fowls. In it Chaucer is transported in his dream to a Garden of Love that contained a dark Temple of Venus. In the garden the goddess Nature presided over the Parliament of Birds: it is on Valentine's Day when fowls and birds chose their mates. Now, a romantic as I am under normal conditions, even I failed to derive even as much as an iota of romanticism from this lovey-dovey account of birds calling for their mates without the thought ringing inside my head to check to if I have a rainbow tail to go with my romantic nature, or wonder how well I can sing a cuckoo song of love. Such ghastly notions spoiled my love side, and for several days I felt misembodied.   I blamed the blasted Chaucer, Father of Poetry though he undoubtedly is, for killing my poetic side. Two eagles vying for the hand of a formel, let's face it, is not romantic.

Every year around this time as the smell of spring cloaks the air, people start talking about Valentine's Day. They take sides shouting for or against the customization of love around this very day. Some feel that this day is a hoax created by rich companies with the express intention of ripping us, while others feel that it is good to have a day dedicated to love. And in the middle of it all rests another largely forgotten group, the clan of latitudinarians who is a passive audience to the spectacular display of emotions presented by the V-day lovers and the non V-day lovers. The procession of arguments for or against the love issue doesn’t bother them very much; some things are not worth caring about. I think that I belong to this third group of people who love to see the butchering of lovers initiated by supermarkets, but would keep their hands clean by not being a sacrificial goat themselves and spend their cash on tchotchkes like a dollar box of China made chocolates or a forty dollar bouquet of flowers. But even if you want to stay away from the Valentine's Day brouhaha, you just cannot ignore it: this morning I was reminded by Godiva that today is Valentine's Day, and I ought to celebrate it with a box of their premium chocolates; by Pantene that wished me a happy V-day and added, like a good salesperson, that the new Pantene 2-in-1 products make falling in love twice as simple, how you ask, well, I don’t know, I did not finish reading the email; and Pillsbury that asked me if I would be interested in sharing the Valentine doughboy with by friends on Facebook, the idea behind such an action is totally unintelligible to me.

 Once you are married and you get it into your nut that Valentine's Day is a day when you shall kick your spouse if he doesn’t show up with gifts, you have reached the second stage of the profoundly tender passion--true love, and cannot but be relieved that you shall not have to dance with a banjo to impress a prospective lover anymore. To celebrate this respite I am willing to part with fifty Jacksons! But Valentine's Day is all about the pursuit of love, you say, and may be I give the aye to you for the idea; still how you can express true love in a stifling restaurant smelling of food and bustling with a thousand equally deep lovers like you all vying to express courtly love under candle light, beats me. May be we are stretching the thing to an extreme bit; may be Valentine's Day is more personal than we want it to be; may be true love really doesn’t need cards and chocolates to commemorate its presence. But today we shall leave the argument at this point and wish the lovers all the very best in their love pursuit.

I would, however, end my blog post with an unromantic personal revelation. Last evening as I was cleaning up my apartment, I discovered the burlap full of love notes and cards that I had sent my husband via the Great Indian Post before we got married. The box had been marinating in our closet since a time out of mind. I had first discovered the box two days after I came to stay with him, and that was four years ago, that time I had tenderly gone through the mushy revelations and prided myself for composing such priceless tokens of love. The total weight of my love notes was an astounding ten pounds; and since the airline would not allow me an extra-suitcase for my love letters, I had to discard them before we pack our suitcases for our journey back to India. I felt sad for a while thinking that I was jettisoning romantic love for the purpose of practicality, but these days the world demands you be practical and mature. Moreover, back in the apartment, when I discovered my husband deliberating which restaurant to take me to this evening, I realized that in the confusion, I may have struck the right note somewhere, albeit without knowing. I bade my love cards a final adieu and proffered to enjoy Valentine's Day in a more practical way.

On Books

Modern technophiles have been predicting the doom of books as we know them: the death of folios and quartos, hardback and shinning paperbacks. They envisage that in a few decades books are going to be a thing of the past and e-readers like Kindle, etc., would become the primary source of bookish delight. The steady rise in the market of wireless reading devices are pointing to the fact that people of our century prefer to travel light; the weight of heavy tomes is too much to carry about, instead they prefer to have them all compiled in a sleek, shiny pamphlet like device which they could conveniently use. I agree that I am myself thinking of buying such a device, still I cannot get over the old bookish feeling; can a wireless device, I wonder, replace the tactile feeling of paper on hand, the smell of antiquity laden in pages stored for a long time in a shelf, the yellowish corners, the bold letters? Is the intense wish for convenience robbing us of all that we held true for centuries? Is the biblioclasm brought on by the tech-revolution, the sudden infernal cataclysm, finally killing the tradition of reading books the way they are naturally meant to be read. Are we, maddened by a sudden concentration of technological power, forgetting the great history that spreads behind us of inscription and what it had meant for us? 

William Caxton in 1476 printed the first book, and since then the lamp of literacy began to spread its light throughout. Before the advent of the printing press manuscripts were written by hand and preserving books had been a laborious task. But as soon as people learned the art of printing, they took advantage of technology to preserve wisdom. Judging from this angle, the rise of wireless devices sound sane, even justified; it becomes a case of passing the baton. Technology today, however, is highly vacillating, a new gadget becomes defunct in only a few months, in such a circumstance can we trust the irresolute hands of technology to guard the nobility of the thing that mattered to us most -- our books. What will happen in a few years, I ask. Possibly newer technology will arise. We will discover new ways to read, new gadgets will overtake old devices, and the weight of manuscripts will be reduced to a zero. If such a thing happens we shall have to accept the shift with open arms, nevertheless, we will regret the absence of certain things that reading in the traditional sense entailed.

Books mold us. They create our character and externalize our brains. Take a look at the books you have acquired over the years; don’t you think that those tomes have a story to tell? The shift from fairy tales to comics, from science fiction to Shakespeare, from love lyrics to essays; in other words from childhood preferences to titles chosen in maturity testify to a growing mind. The presence of old books is reassuring; their smell almost motherly. Without your direct acknowledgement, your old books have become one with you, and they have stayed with you through thick and thin guarding you with the warmth of the knowledge they have poured on you.  In a room surrounded by books -- torn, smelly, and old -- you tend to feel more at home than in an empty house with only a shelf displaying a wireless device. The pride in flaunting the collection you have laboriously gathered over the years is nothing short of sensational. I wonder how modern gadgetry can replace this satisfaction.

Physical presence of books in our lives goes deeper than we think. When I first came to USA from India several years ago, I felt lonely and friendless; and in my lonesome read a book called Namesake written by Jhumpa Lahiri. It is a novel about an immigrant Bengali woman and how she coped with the transition from a traditional family life in India to a nuclear existence in USA. Her story read like my story; I felt that the author has emphatically written my history and my future. And I remember holding the book close to my heart drawing strength from it to survive in an alien landscape. I still have the book, and the even though I haven’t studied it in a while, I feel a strange, almost familial attachment to it. How an electronic book can replace this feeling, I wonder.

As I was browsing through my collection of books yesterday, sorting them, choosing the ones to keep and discarding the titles I thought I wouldn’t need anymore, I couldn’t help but feel a little perturbed. The logical part of me dictated that I must discard certain titles since I couldn’t carry it all back to India, assuring me that these days bookeries in India carry all kinds of books; still I felt sad thinking what hands would sift through the pages of my discarded books, what hands would imprint their marks on them. I hoped they went to worthy hands that would love and treasure them. Still all is a surmise now. Shakespeare was true when he said in sonnet 73 the following:

 This thou perceivs’t, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well, which thou must leave ‘ere long.

To me the thought of leaving behind the books that have comforted me in lonely hours, matured me when I ran to them frustrated by the unceasing hum of the laptop, embraced me and taught me, is similar to leaving behind a part of me.  Still it is satisfying in a way to think that the fragments of the moments of triumphant absorbing of written wisdom will remain with me, half forgotten, half remembered, forever.

The wireless devices available in the market may include the substance of the books, but the emotional weight of my once owned library, their physical evidence would nowhere be found. The fickle newbie technology will yield brilliant magic tricks, one outwitting the other, and, in the middle of it all,  will try to try to eat away our love for books, but without books we are a set of wayward travelers with nothing to glue us to our foundation; without books  we "might melt into the airwaves, and be just another set of blips."

  Reference: Due Considerations by John Updike