Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon: Virginia Woolf by Jeanette Winterson — CHANEL and Literature

00:35:07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcgZ1OHk1KY

Summary

TLDRThe "Rue Cambon Literary Rendez-vous" in London honors Virginia Woolf, featuring discussions led by Jeanette Winterson and Keira Knightley. The event focuses on Woolf's literary contributions and her activism for women's rights, emphasizing her relevance in contemporary society. Key themes include the challenges women face in creative fields and the concept of the 'Angel in the House,' which Woolf critiques as a societal expectation that hinders women's freedom. The event aims to inspire attendees to embrace their creative potential and challenge existing norms, showcasing Woolf's enduring legacy as a visionary writer and activist.

Takeaways

  • 📚 Celebrating Virginia Woolf's legacy in literature.
  • 👩‍🎤 Highlighting women's rights and creative freedom.
  • 💬 Engaging discussions led by notable speakers.
  • ✍️ Readings from Woolf's impactful works.
  • 🌍 Emphasizing the relevance of Woolf's ideas today.
  • 💪 Encouraging women to challenge societal norms.
  • 🎤 Personal reflections on Woolf's influence.
  • 📝 Exploring the concept of the 'Angel in the House.'
  • 🤝 Promoting support and opportunities for women.
  • ✨ Inspiring a new generation of writers.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    The launch of the 'Rue Cambon Literary Rendez-vous' in London is dedicated to Virginia Woolf, highlighting her significance in literature and her relevance today. The event aims to celebrate Woolf's visionary ideas and her fight for women's freedom to write and create, encouraging attendees to embrace their creative potential and desire for change.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Keira Knightley reads an excerpt from Virginia Woolf's 'Professions for Women', where Woolf reflects on her experiences as a woman in literature. She discusses the lack of professional experiences for women and introduces the concept of the 'Angel in the House', a phantom that represents societal expectations of women, which she ultimately had to 'kill' to express her own voice.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Woolf's 'Angel in the House' symbolizes the self-sacrificing, pure woman who prioritizes others' needs over her own. Woolf's struggle against this archetype is portrayed as a necessary battle for women writers, emphasizing the importance of having a mind of one's own and the challenges women face in expressing their thoughts freely.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    Jeanette Winterson is introduced as a storyteller and an advocate for art, emphasizing the importance of creativity in understanding humanity. Winterson reflects on Woolf's influence and the relevance of her work in the 21st century, highlighting the need for women to carve out spaces for themselves in literature and society.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    Winterson discusses Woolf's upbringing and the limitations placed on women in education during her time. Despite her privileged background, Woolf faced significant barriers to her intellectual freedom, which fueled her desire to advocate for women's rights and creative expression.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:35:07

    The discussion shifts to Woolf's literary style, with emphasis on her modernist approach and the complexity of her narratives. The panelists reflect on the challenges of reading Woolf's work, the beauty of her prose, and the importance of acknowledging both privilege and the ongoing struggles women face in society.

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Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • What is the purpose of the Rue Cambon Literary Rendez-vous?

    The event aims to celebrate Virginia Woolf's legacy and discuss her relevance in today's society.

  • Who are the key speakers at the event?

    Notable speakers include Jeanette Winterson, Keira Knightley, and Erica Wagner.

  • What themes are discussed in relation to Virginia Woolf?

    Themes include women's rights, creativity, and the challenges faced by women in literature.

  • What is the significance of Woolf's concept of the 'Angel in the House'?

    It represents the societal expectations placed on women to be self-sacrificing and submissive, which Woolf argues must be challenged.

  • How does Woolf's work remain relevant today?

    Her insights on women's freedom to write and create continue to inspire discussions about gender equality and artistic expression.

  • What is the format of the event?

    The event includes readings, discussions, and personal reflections on Woolf's work and its impact.

  • What is one of Woolf's famous works mentioned in the event?

    'Professions for Women' is highlighted, showcasing her views on women's roles in society.

  • How does the event encourage women today?

    It aims to inspire women to embrace their creative potential and challenge societal norms.

  • What is Jeanette Winterson's relationship to Virginia Woolf?

    Winterson is a contemporary writer who often reflects on Woolf's influence in her own work.

  • What is the overall message of the event?

    The event promotes the idea of supporting one another and creating opportunities for women to thrive creatively.

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  • 00:00:00
    The Rue Cambon Literary Rendez-vous
  • 00:00:12
    I'm very honoured to be here in London to launch the first
  • 00:00:15
    "Rue Cambon Literary Rendez-vous" in English.
  • 00:00:18
    And there was no doubt for me
  • 00:00:20
    that we had to dedicate this "Rendez-vous" to Virginia Woolf.
  • 00:00:24
    I'm thrilled to be today surrounded
  • 00:00:27
    by Jeanette Winterson, Keira Knightley and Erica Wagner,
  • 00:00:31
    to speak about such a fascinating woman.
  • 00:00:33
    It's hard to find the words to introduce Virginia Woolf,
  • 00:00:37
    this giant of literature who left us a heritage of such crucial importance.
  • 00:00:44
    Our aim today is not to do an academic lecture,
  • 00:00:48
    and thanks to Jeanette, we'll have a really fun time.
  • 00:00:52
    We hope to show you how much of a visionary she was,
  • 00:00:56
    how much she's relevant today,
  • 00:00:58
    and how she can still help us face many challenges.
  • 00:01:03
    Virginia Woolf was a fighter.
  • 00:01:05
    She fought all her life to challenge conventions of her time
  • 00:01:09
    and defend women's freedom to write and create.
  • 00:01:13
    She was above all an activist who faced the social, economic, emotional problems
  • 00:01:19
    that hindered women with unfailing courage.
  • 00:01:22
    We simply hope you will come out of this encounter
  • 00:01:25
    with a more open vision of what a woman can be,
  • 00:01:29
    and with an invincible desire for change,
  • 00:01:32
    so that in our world today,
  • 00:01:34
    women can access their full creative potential
  • 00:01:37
    and intellectual freedom.
  • 00:01:39
    Before we start discussing and entering more in-depth
  • 00:01:43
    in Virginia Woolf's work and life,
  • 00:01:46
    we first wanted to hear her voice.
  • 00:01:48
    And Keira, we're extremely happy to have you with us today.
  • 00:01:52
    You will be reading an extract from "Professions for Women",
  • 00:01:55
    a speech Virginia Woolf gave at the National Society for Women's Service
  • 00:02:00
    in January 1931.
  • 00:02:07
    When your secretary invited me to come here,
  • 00:02:10
    she told me that your Society is concerned with the employment of women
  • 00:02:14
    and she suggested that I might tell you something
  • 00:02:16
    about my own professional experiences.
  • 00:02:19
    It is true I am a woman; it is true I am employed;
  • 00:02:23
    but what professional experiences have I had?
  • 00:02:27
    It is difficult to say.
  • 00:02:29
    My profession is literature, and in that profession,
  • 00:02:32
    there are fewer experiences for women than in any other,
  • 00:02:36
    with the exception of the stage
  • 00:02:38
    - fewer, I mean, that are peculiar to women,
  • 00:02:41
    for the road was cut many years ago
  • 00:02:43
    by Fanny Burney, by Aphra Behn, by Harriet Martineau,
  • 00:02:46
    by Jane Austen, by George Eliot.
  • 00:02:49
    Many famous women, and many more unknown and forgotten,
  • 00:02:52
    have been, before me,
  • 00:02:53
    making the path smooth and regulating my steps.
  • 00:02:57
    Thus, when I came to write,
  • 00:02:59
    there were very few material obstacles in my way.
  • 00:03:02
    Writing was a reputable and harmless occupation.
  • 00:03:05
    The family peace was not broken by the scratching of a pen.
  • 00:03:09
    No demand was made upon the family purse.
  • 00:03:11
    For ten and sixpence, one can buy paper enough
  • 00:03:14
    to write all the plays of Shakespeare, if one has a mind that way.
  • 00:03:18
    Pianos and models, Paris, Vienna and Berlin,
  • 00:03:21
    masters and mistresses, are not needed by a writer.
  • 00:03:25
    The cheapness of writing paper is, of course,
  • 00:03:29
    the reason why women have succeeded as writers
  • 00:03:31
    before they have succeeded in any other profession.
  • 00:03:35
    But to tell you my story, - it is a simple one -
  • 00:03:38
    you have only got to figure to yourselves
  • 00:03:40
    a girl in a bedroom with a pen in her hand.
  • 00:03:44
    She had only to move that pen from left to right,
  • 00:03:46
    from ten o'clock to one.
  • 00:03:48
    Then it occurred to her to do what is simple and cheap enough, after all:
  • 00:03:53
    to slip a few of those pages into an envelope,
  • 00:03:55
    fix a penny stamp in the corner,
  • 00:03:57
    and drop the envelope into the red box at the corner.
  • 00:04:00
    It was thus that I became a journalist,
  • 00:04:03
    and my effort was rewarded on the first day of the following month
  • 00:04:07
    - a very glorious day it was for me -
  • 00:04:09
    by a letter from an editor containing a cheque
  • 00:04:11
    for one pound, ten shillings and sixpence.
  • 00:04:15
    But to show you how little I deserve to be called a professional woman,
  • 00:04:20
    how little I know of the struggles and difficulties of such lives,
  • 00:04:23
    I have to admit that instead of spending that sum
  • 00:04:27
    upon bread and butter, rent, shoes and stockings, or butcher's bills,
  • 00:04:31
    I went out and bought a cat.
  • 00:04:35
    A beautiful cat, a Persian cat,
  • 00:04:37
    which very soon involved me in bitter disputes with my neighbours.
  • 00:04:41
    What could be easier than to write articles
  • 00:04:44
    and to buy Persian cats with the profits?
  • 00:04:47
    But wait a minute.
  • 00:04:48
    Articles have to be about something.
  • 00:04:51
    Mine, I seem to remember, was about a novel by a famous man.
  • 00:04:55
    And while I was writing this review,
  • 00:04:57
    I discovered that if I were going to review books,
  • 00:05:00
    I should need to do battle with a certain phantom.
  • 00:05:04
    And the phantom was a woman.
  • 00:05:08
    And when I came to know her better, I called her after the heroine
  • 00:05:10
    of a famous poem: "The Angel in the House".
  • 00:05:15
    It was she who used to come between me and my paper
  • 00:05:19
    when I was writing reviews.
  • 00:05:20
    It was she who bothered me and wasted my time
  • 00:05:22
    and so tormented me that at last I killed her.
  • 00:05:26
    You who come of a younger and happier generation
  • 00:05:30
    may not have heard of her.
  • 00:05:31
    You may not know what I mean by the "Angel in the House".
  • 00:05:36
    I will describe her as shortly as I can.
  • 00:05:38
    She was intensely sympathetic;
  • 00:05:42
    she was immensely charming; she was utterly unselfish.
  • 00:05:45
    She excelled in the difficult arts of family life.
  • 00:05:48
    She sacrificed herself daily.
  • 00:05:51
    If there was chicken, she took the leg, if there was a draught, she sat in it.
  • 00:05:54
    In short, she was so constituted
  • 00:05:56
    that she never had a mind or a wish of her own,
  • 00:06:00
    but preferred always to sympathize with the minds and wishes of others.
  • 00:06:04
    Above all - I need not say it - she was pure.
  • 00:06:08
    Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty,
  • 00:06:12
    her blushes, her great grace.
  • 00:06:14
    In those days, the last of Queen Victoria,
  • 00:06:16
    every house had its Angel.
  • 00:06:19
    And when I came to write, I encountered her with the very first words.
  • 00:06:23
    The shadow of her wings fell on my page.
  • 00:06:25
    I heard the rustle of her skirts in the room.
  • 00:06:28
    Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in my hand
  • 00:06:30
    to review that novel by a famous man,
  • 00:06:33
    she slipped behind me and whispered:
  • 00:06:36
    "My dear... you are a young woman.
  • 00:06:40
    "You are writing about a book that has been written by a man.
  • 00:06:44
    "Be sympathetic, be tender, flatter, deceive,
  • 00:06:48
    "use all the arts and wiles of our sex.
  • 00:06:51
    "Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own.
  • 00:06:54
    "Above all, be pure."
  • 00:06:57
    And she made as if to guide my pen.
  • 00:07:00
    I now record the one act for which I take some credit to myself.
  • 00:07:04
    Though the credit rightly belongs to some excellent ancestors of mine
  • 00:07:07
    who left me a certain sum of money
  • 00:07:09
    - shall we say 500 pounds a year? -
  • 00:07:12
    so that it was not necessary for me to depend solely on charm for my living.
  • 00:07:18
    I turned upon her and caught her by the throat.
  • 00:07:20
    I did my best to kill her.
  • 00:07:22
    My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law,
  • 00:07:25
    would be that I acted in self-defence.
  • 00:07:28
    Had I not killed her, she would have killed me.
  • 00:07:32
    She would have plucked the heart out of my writing.
  • 00:07:35
    For, as I found, directly I put pen to paper,
  • 00:07:38
    you cannot review even a novel without having a mind of your own,
  • 00:07:42
    without expressing what you think to be true
  • 00:07:45
    about human relations, morality, sex.
  • 00:07:49
    And all these questions, according to the Angel in the House,
  • 00:07:52
    cannot be dealt with freely and openly by women.
  • 00:07:57
    They must charm, they must conciliate, they must - to put it bluntly -
  • 00:08:02
    tell lies if they are to succeed.
  • 00:08:05
    Thus, whenever I felt the shadow of her wing
  • 00:08:09
    or the radiance of her halo upon my page,
  • 00:08:12
    I took up the inkpot and flung it at her.
  • 00:08:16
    She died hard.
  • 00:08:18
    Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her.
  • 00:08:22
    It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.
  • 00:08:26
    She was always creeping back when I thought I had despatched her.
  • 00:08:29
    Though I flatter myself that I killed her in the end,
  • 00:08:34
    the struggle was severe.
  • 00:08:36
    It took much time that had better have been spent
  • 00:08:39
    on learning Greek grammar or roaming the world in search of adventures.
  • 00:08:43
    But it was a real experience.
  • 00:08:46
    It was an experience that was bound to befall all women writers of that time.
  • 00:08:52
    Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.
  • 00:08:57
    Thank you so much, Keira.
  • 00:09:00
    That was a really, really wonderful reading!
  • 00:09:03
    And it is now my pleasure
  • 00:09:06
    to introduce Jeanette Winterson.
  • 00:09:10
    "There is nothing so wonderful in the world as telling stories,"
  • 00:09:15
    Virginia Woolf wrote.
  • 00:09:18
    And Jeanette Winterson is a storyteller.
  • 00:09:21
    That's a good place to start, I think.
  • 00:09:24
    Her first novel, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit",
  • 00:09:27
    was published in 1985,
  • 00:09:29
    and from that moment, the light of her artistry
  • 00:09:33
    blazed out into the world.
  • 00:09:36
    "The Passion", "Sexing the Cherry",
  • 00:09:39
    "The Powerbook", "Lighthousekeeping",
  • 00:09:42
    "The Stone Gods", "The Daylight Gate",
  • 00:09:44
    "Frankissstein"...
  • 00:09:46
    Each one of her books - there are too many to list,
  • 00:09:49
    and of course, they include her extraordinary memoir,
  • 00:09:53
    "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?" -
  • 00:09:56
    each of her books is an expression of her true being.
  • 00:10:00
    Imagination and language woven together
  • 00:10:04
    to create works of unique and vibrant beauty.
  • 00:10:09
    Jeanette is an evangelist for art!
  • 00:10:12
    A woman who knows that art is not optional.
  • 00:10:17
    She has always known that in our darkest moments,
  • 00:10:22
    it is art that supports us,
  • 00:10:24
    that teaches us,
  • 00:10:26
    that helps us to live with and understand our fellow human beings.
  • 00:10:32
    And she has lived as boldly as she has written,
  • 00:10:36
    carving space for herself
  • 00:10:38
    and showing her readers how they might do the same.
  • 00:10:43
    She has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
  • 00:10:48
    She has a new book, "Twelve Bites",
  • 00:10:50
    a nuanced examination of humanity and artificial intelligence.
  • 00:10:57
    She is just as electric a speaker as she is a writer,
  • 00:11:02
    as you are shortly to discover, if you do not know already.
  • 00:11:06
    Her relationship to and with Virginia Woolf,
  • 00:11:09
    the focus of our "Literary Rendez-vous"
  • 00:11:11
    goes back a great many years.
  • 00:11:13
    Woolf is a writer she and I have talked about often,
  • 00:11:17
    a writer who has much to say to us now in the 21st century.
  • 00:11:21
    I can't wait to hear Jeanette's thoughts.
  • 00:11:24
    So without further ado, I cede the floor to her.
  • 00:11:28
    Thank you, Erica.
  • 00:11:30
    Oh, my friends, imagine it's 1888
  • 00:11:33
    and Virginia Woolf is born.
  • 00:11:35
    Queen Victoria is on the throne.
  • 00:11:37
    The clothes that women are wearing are really not designed to do anything
  • 00:11:41
    except sit down and take tea and flatter great men.
  • 00:11:47
    Now Virginia Woolf's father, Sir Leslie Stephen,
  • 00:11:50
    was a great man.
  • 00:11:52
    He was the compiler, the editor, the driving force
  • 00:11:56
    behind a terrible piece of work - if you were Virginia Woolf -
  • 00:12:01
    which was entirely filled with great men.
  • 00:12:04
    So the ones who weren't coming to tea were in the dictionary.
  • 00:12:08
    This was Virginia Woolf's early life.
  • 00:12:10
    And it's no wonder that she said later on, after her father died,
  • 00:12:14
    that had he lived - she wrote in her diary -
  • 00:12:17
    “My father's life would entirely have ended mine.”
  • 00:12:21
    And Virginia Woolf, brought up in Hyde Park Gate,
  • 00:12:26
    plenty of money, plenty of status,
  • 00:12:28
    but neither of her parents believed in education for women.
  • 00:12:32
    Neither of them.
  • 00:12:34
    So while her brothers were sent to schools and then on to Cambridge,
  • 00:12:37
    which was the natural route,
  • 00:12:39
    Virginia and her sister, Vanessa,
  • 00:12:41
    later Vanessa Bell, the painter whose work I'm sure you know,
  • 00:12:45
    whose house you've visited in Charleston...
  • 00:12:47
    Virginia and Vanessa were schooled at home by their mother.
  • 00:12:51
    Now their mother did offer them a wide education,
  • 00:12:53
    she taught them Latin, she taught them French,
  • 00:12:55
    she taught them history.
  • 00:12:56
    There are many photographs in the schoolroom behind the dining room,
  • 00:12:59
    assiduous at their lessons.
  • 00:13:02
    And, of course, they had the run of their father's library.
  • 00:13:05
    Because whatever else he was, he was a man who loved words,
  • 00:13:08
    who loved books and who believed in the power of language
  • 00:13:13
    to change, to influence, but also to control.
  • 00:13:16
    But he gave his two daughters the run of the library.
  • 00:13:19
    He'd put no conditions on it,
  • 00:13:22
    which Virginia Woolf always thought was quite astonishing,
  • 00:13:24
    given how many conditions were put on women's lives,
  • 00:13:27
    particularly at that time.
  • 00:13:29
    And for someone like myself,
  • 00:13:30
    whose early beginnings were entirely centred on the library,
  • 00:13:34
    in my case a public library,
  • 00:13:35
    because we only had six books at home in our house,
  • 00:13:38
    I know how important that is, to be able to roam free among books,
  • 00:13:42
    because there is the life of the mind,
  • 00:13:45
    there you may encounter
  • 00:13:47
    many talents, many spirits, opinions far different from your own.
  • 00:13:52
    Life experiences far different from your own.
  • 00:13:55
    And in this vast sea of language, these continents of possibility,
  • 00:14:01
    what might you not find, what might you not discover?
  • 00:14:04
    And so, Virginia Woolf, although deprived of what she later thought
  • 00:14:09
    was so crucial for women, a formal education,
  • 00:14:12
    had the run of the house in a very particular way,
  • 00:14:15
    the run of the house of the mind,
  • 00:14:18
    and she made the most of it.
  • 00:14:19
    Her mother died when she was thirteen,
  • 00:14:22
    this was the beginning of her mental instability.
  • 00:14:25
    It was very hard for her after that, her mother was...
  • 00:14:28
    Gender roles were very specific then,
  • 00:14:30
    so while her father was the stern, distant, patriarch, the man of letters,
  • 00:14:34
    her mother was not only the teacher,
  • 00:14:37
    she certainly wasn't their friend,
  • 00:14:38
    because that didn't happen in Victorian households,
  • 00:14:41
    but she was the compassionate, consoling person,
  • 00:14:43
    and the loss of her was felt very greatly
  • 00:14:46
    by the developing sensitive woman, then called Virginia Stephen,
  • 00:14:51
    who would, in 1912, marry Leonard Woolf.
  • 00:14:55
    And theirs was a long and happy and sustained marriage.
  • 00:14:58
    Not one that depended on the modern conventions of romance,
  • 00:15:03
    but was an absolute partnership,
  • 00:15:06
    which was no doubt important for her mental stability
  • 00:15:09
    and for her creative life.
  • 00:15:11
    The piece you just heard Keira read, 1931,
  • 00:15:15
    just remember that is 90 years ago.
  • 00:15:18
    And how did it sound today?
  • 00:15:20
    Did we not all recognise those things we were hearing?
  • 00:15:23
    Did it sound like something that was written 90 years ago?
  • 00:15:26
    No, not at all.
  • 00:15:28
    Not only because those problems are still prescient, are still with us,
  • 00:15:31
    are still things that all of us, men and women alike,
  • 00:15:34
    need to grapple with,
  • 00:15:36
    but because her mind was so ahead of itself, it was so fresh.
  • 00:15:40
    And she saw the world as a whole, as a round.
  • 00:15:43
    She didn't sectionalise things.
  • 00:15:45
    So when she was talking about the position of women,
  • 00:15:48
    we understood that she was really talking about...
  • 00:15:50
    the distortion in humanity.
  • 00:15:53
    Really, as she says, in other parts of the piece:
  • 00:15:56
    Why should one sex be so prosperous and so secure?
  • 00:16:00
    And why should the other sex be so poor and so dependent?
  • 00:16:05
    That is a very good question to ask.
  • 00:16:08
    And she was asking it from her own experience, thinking:
  • 00:16:11
    My brother went to Cambridge...
  • 00:16:13
    She did not feel, herself, the lack of any education in the obvious sense.
  • 00:16:18
    What she felt the lack of
  • 00:16:20
    was that conviviality, that congregation, that conversation
  • 00:16:24
    that you get when you meet as like-minds in a similar place,
  • 00:16:28
    which is what men have always enjoyed,
  • 00:16:30
    whether it's been in a private club or the universities,
  • 00:16:33
    or indeed now, in the boardrooms,
  • 00:16:35
    in all the spaces that men still occupy,
  • 00:16:38
    where they can talk to each other as equals, without fear,
  • 00:16:41
    without having to put on a show or a performance.
  • 00:16:44
    And for many women, putting on a show or a performance
  • 00:16:48
    is what they also put on when they finish dressing and doing their make-up.
  • 00:16:52
    Then it's time to go outside and put on the show and the performance.
  • 00:16:56
    Because they cannot feel they can simply be themselves.
  • 00:16:59
    Because in whatever situation, that won't be acceptable.
  • 00:17:02
    And Virginia Woolf understood this.
  • 00:17:04
    And she watched her brother and her brother's friends from Cambridge,
  • 00:17:07
    the Bloomsbury Set that grew up around her,
  • 00:17:09
    of which she was an integral part,
  • 00:17:11
    enjoying that ease.
  • 00:17:14
    And she was very interested in ease.
  • 00:17:16
    You know, it's that sense of leisure that we heard in the piece,
  • 00:17:19
    that you would need to have
  • 00:17:21
    just a little bit of time, a little bit of space.
  • 00:17:23
    It's not just the very famous book she wrote in 1929, "A Room of One's Own".
  • 00:17:28
    Of course you need a room, of course you need some money,
  • 00:17:31
    in order to do anything!
  • 00:17:33
    You need to be able to shut the door, you need to be able to not worry
  • 00:17:36
    about the bills being paid, of course you do.
  • 00:17:39
    But you also need
  • 00:17:40
    that sense of community and conversation.
  • 00:17:43
    That's where ideas begin to spark off one to another,
  • 00:17:46
    that's where the mind begins to thrive.
  • 00:17:48
    People who have great ideas don't just sit around
  • 00:17:51
    saying, "We're having great ideas!"
  • 00:17:53
    They say, "The fish is good tonight.
  • 00:17:56
    "What's the wine? How's the weather? Where have you been?"
  • 00:17:59
    Things begin to ease in,
  • 00:18:01
    and out of that come all sorts of possibilities and sparks.
  • 00:18:04
    Women, she said, were cut off from that.
  • 00:18:06
    They were simply set aside.
  • 00:18:08
    You know, the convention, when she was a young woman,
  • 00:18:11
    after dinner, the men went into one room and talked about important things,
  • 00:18:15
    and the women would be set aside, not with port and brandy and cigars,
  • 00:18:19
    but with cups of tea!
  • 00:18:22
    What can you really think about with a cup of tea after dinner?
  • 00:18:26
    Perhaps some of you do have great ideas with a cup of tea after dinner.
  • 00:18:29
    I personally do not.
  • 00:18:31
    And so Virginia Woolf was really championing
  • 00:18:33
    that those open spaces she'd found in her father's library...
  • 00:18:38
    She knew that the life of the mind, the imaginative life she talked about,
  • 00:18:41
    is a wide-open space.
  • 00:18:44
    And that's what she wanted for women.
  • 00:18:46
    She did not want women to be enclosed or constricted.
  • 00:18:50
    So she had problems with the trappings of being a woman,
  • 00:18:54
    which many women did.
  • 00:18:55
    She did not have any problems with the sense of the life of the mind.
  • 00:18:59
    Or where it needed to go in order to do its best,
  • 00:19:03
    in order not to be constrained.
  • 00:19:06
    You know, "Professions for Women", 1931, so 90 years ago,
  • 00:19:10
    before that she'd gone up to Cambridge and delivered the lecture
  • 00:19:14
    that became "A Room of One's Own", 1929.
  • 00:19:17
    She delivered it in two parts,
  • 00:19:18
    at Newnham and at Girton, the new women's colleges.
  • 00:19:22
    Finally, women were allowed to go to Cambridge, study for a degree,
  • 00:19:26
    though they were not awarded degrees at Cambridge till 1948.
  • 00:19:30
    Just get your heads around that, boys and girls, 1948.
  • 00:19:33
    Cambridge did not think that it was fit to give degrees to women.
  • 00:19:37
    Even though they could study at these two colleges.
  • 00:19:40
    And these were rather desperate colleges.
  • 00:19:42
    Some of you will have been to Cambridge and know Newnham and Girton.
  • 00:19:45
    They smelled of lino and cabbage.
  • 00:19:48
    And the men's colleges were all good wine, good food, claret, opulence,
  • 00:19:54
    relaxation, pleasure, room for the life of the mind.
  • 00:19:57
    The women were told they must study hard, work hard.
  • 00:20:00
    They didn't have time to buy nice clothes.
  • 00:20:02
    They certainly didn't have time to buy wine.
  • 00:20:05
    They must only concentrate on what they had.
  • 00:20:07
    So when Virginia Woolf accepted that invitation
  • 00:20:10
    to talk about a room of one's own,
  • 00:20:12
    - the lectures became "A Room of One's Own" -
  • 00:20:13
    she said, "Listen, writing is practical.
  • 00:20:16
    "The things that we do, creativity is a practical thing.
  • 00:20:20
    "There's nothing airy-fairy about creativity.
  • 00:20:23
    "You need space to do it, you need money to do it,
  • 00:20:26
    "you need time to do it."
  • 00:20:28
    She was such a practical person.
  • 00:20:30
    And this is not the image, often, that we have of her: absolutely practical.
  • 00:20:35
    "Let's get this published!
  • 00:20:36
    "Let's control the means of production, just like Marx said we should.
  • 00:20:40
    "Let's not sit here, waiting for other people
  • 00:20:43
    "to tell us what we can say and how we can say it,
  • 00:20:45
    "and whether they'll publish it or not. Let's do it!"
  • 00:20:47
    A highly practical woman, looking always
  • 00:20:50
    for situations for women where they could become women in their full right,
  • 00:20:54
    in their full capacity, and "Angel in the House" only one of them!
  • 00:20:58
    And very often, it's from other women
  • 00:21:00
    that we internalise the toxicity of oppression.
  • 00:21:04
    Whether it's from our mothers... It can be anything.
  • 00:21:07
    How you should behave and look, what you should do, who you should be...
  • 00:21:11
    And what she's killing in this murder story
  • 00:21:14
    - and it is a murder story -
  • 00:21:15
    is another woman.
  • 00:21:17
    Not a male figure. A woman.
  • 00:21:20
    So what we should think about when thinking about Virginia Woolf,
  • 00:21:23
    her consequences, her legacy,
  • 00:21:26
    is she's many things, she's a lighthouse,
  • 00:21:28
    warning us of where the rocks are.
  • 00:21:30
    She's also showing us where the light is.
  • 00:21:33
    And reminding us that often, the things we have internalised from out there,
  • 00:21:38
    whether it's the patriarchy or not,
  • 00:21:40
    many women are in the service of the patriarchy.
  • 00:21:43
    It is often from other women that we get our severest criticism.
  • 00:21:46
    And we're here today, and what I would like to end on,
  • 00:21:50
    with my thoughts about Virginia Woolf,
  • 00:21:52
    is that we are here to support one another,
  • 00:21:56
    to make possibilities for one another,
  • 00:21:58
    to open the space as she opened the space.
  • 00:22:00
    Whatever chance, whatever opportunity you get,
  • 00:22:03
    for young women to go out there and open the space,
  • 00:22:07
    clear the road, use your privilege, use your power.
  • 00:22:10
    There's nothing wrong with privilege and power,
  • 00:22:12
    as long as you use it in the service of good.
  • 00:22:14
    That's what Virginia Woolf was saying.
  • 00:22:16
    She had 500 pounds a year, she had a room of her own,
  • 00:22:19
    she knew that she was better off than most women.
  • 00:22:22
    But she didn't sit with it, she used it.
  • 00:22:24
    She was practical, she was active.
  • 00:22:27
    She was an activist. She was Virginia Woolf. Thank you!
  • 00:22:30
    Thank you so much, Jeanette, for that wonderful talk!
  • 00:22:35
    And now we're going to have some discussion
  • 00:22:38
    around the subject of Virginia Woolf.
  • 00:22:41
    And I'd like to begin by asking, first Charlotte and then Keira,
  • 00:22:47
    about your personal response to this piece.
  • 00:22:51
    I wonder how it first struck you, Charlotte, when you read it.
  • 00:22:57
    When I read it, actually,
  • 00:22:58
    it was really feeling like it was what I needed to hear.
  • 00:23:03
    It was exactly the truth about what we're still struggling with,
  • 00:23:11
    and even though we're very privileged,
  • 00:23:13
    we have many opportunities to express ourselves,
  • 00:23:19
    but I feel that the hardest part
  • 00:23:22
    is the internalisation
  • 00:23:26
    of certain conventions, norms, perceptions
  • 00:23:31
    that are so deeply rooted inside us
  • 00:23:35
    that it takes probably a lifetime
  • 00:23:39
    to overcome them.
  • 00:23:41
    I think what really spoke to me
  • 00:23:47
    in her speech is,
  • 00:23:50
    as you were saying, that the angel in the house is a woman.
  • 00:23:54
    And it's about killing the mother, in a way.
  • 00:23:57
    Not your own mother,
  • 00:23:59
    but the archetype of the devoted mother,
  • 00:24:03
    the sacredness of the devotion,
  • 00:24:07
    and the purity of that devotion.
  • 00:24:11
    And it's something that terrifies all of us.
  • 00:24:14
    That we need to believe that that devotion is untouchable,
  • 00:24:20
    impossible...
  • 00:24:23
    to fail.
  • 00:24:25
    But what Virginia Woolf tells us,
  • 00:24:28
    but maybe she tells it in other pieces,
  • 00:24:30
    like in "To the Lighthouse" or other of her novels,
  • 00:24:33
    is that that figure, that sacredness of the mother,
  • 00:24:38
    she's always failing.
  • 00:24:40
    Because her role is to stop chaos and death,
  • 00:24:45
    but she's always going to fail.
  • 00:24:47
    Because there's always going to be chaos
  • 00:24:50
    and there's always going to be death at some point.
  • 00:24:53
    And I feel that why Virginia Woolf became such a great writer, in a way,
  • 00:25:00
    is because she lost her mother at a very crucial age
  • 00:25:04
    and that it gave her a certain freedom to be herself.
  • 00:25:10
    And that's what really touched me when I read it.
  • 00:25:15
    And I feel that we're still struggling with that
  • 00:25:18
    and it's not necessarily the relationship you have with your own mother,
  • 00:25:23
    it's more with the symbol of what a good mother should be
  • 00:25:28
    and that haunts us all.
  • 00:25:31
    You read that so wonderfully, Keira, and with such passion.
  • 00:25:35
    What struck you about it?
  • 00:25:36
    I found this piece very interesting
  • 00:25:38
    because actually Charlotte had sent me quite a few pieces,
  • 00:25:41
    and we discussed quite a number of different pieces to read,
  • 00:25:44
    and both of us really honed into this one.
  • 00:25:49
    And it was interesting how we did,
  • 00:25:50
    because we're both the mothers of very young children.
  • 00:25:53
    And although Virginia Woolf was not a mother herself,
  • 00:25:56
    the way that I read it when I first read it,
  • 00:25:59
    was absolutely the Angel in the House as far how you're meant to be as a mother.
  • 00:26:03
    And the constant failure, and the constant voice on her shoulder
  • 00:26:07
    of how you're not doing it right.
  • 00:26:09
    So what I find interesting about all of Virginia Woolf's work that I've read
  • 00:26:13
    is that you can take it to mean so many different things.
  • 00:26:16
    Obviously, she was not talking about motherhood
  • 00:26:18
    when she wrote this particular essay.
  • 00:26:21
    And yet, for me and Charlotte,
  • 00:26:23
    with the particular things we're coming up against now,
  • 00:26:25
    particularly being working mothers,
  • 00:26:27
    it came to mean something that was very, very personal to us.
  • 00:26:31
    And I think that's true of all of her writing.
  • 00:26:34
    Which is why I love it so much. But particularly this one.
  • 00:26:39
    I want to talk a bit about Virginia Woolf's style as a novelist.
  • 00:26:45
    Because this wonderful essay is so clear and so plain.
  • 00:26:51
    But she was a really radical writer in her structure,
  • 00:26:56
    the way that she constructed her books.
  • 00:26:59
    And I'd like to touch on how important she was
  • 00:27:05
    in building the idea of modernism, in really bringing literature forward.
  • 00:27:12
    I'll start with you, Jeanette,
  • 00:27:15
    to discuss her, not just politically,
  • 00:27:18
    but in her literary experimentalism.
  • 00:27:23
    I think that there, we have to root for her
  • 00:27:26
    in what we know as the Bloomsbury Group, and their sense of the visual arts,
  • 00:27:31
    which is a great part, I think, of her method.
  • 00:27:34
    She didn't want to do "life as it is lived".
  • 00:27:36
    She didn't want to do "experience" in that sense.
  • 00:27:40
    She wanted to go underneath all of those things,
  • 00:27:44
    into the fragments, into the places
  • 00:27:47
    which don't yield so easily to confident, simple sentences,
  • 00:27:52
    to paragraphs that build into stories, to stories that build into lives.
  • 00:27:56
    She was always looking for the breakages and the fissures,
  • 00:27:59
    because I think, in her own mind, she knew the breakages and the fissures.
  • 00:28:03
    But also, one of her great friends was Roger Fry, the art critic.
  • 00:28:08
    And he'd brought over to London, at the Grafton Galleries,
  • 00:28:11
    where, for the first time, the British,
  • 00:28:14
    who really, really had been rubbish at visual art,
  • 00:28:17
    were confronted with these astonishing paintings
  • 00:28:20
    by Matisse and Cézanne and Picasso.
  • 00:28:22
    And you think of those Picasso portraits, where the eyes might be on the same side,
  • 00:28:27
    it's really trying to get at a reality which is beneath the shapes,
  • 00:28:31
    the 3D dimensions, the surface world that we live in.
  • 00:28:35
    She was fascinated by this
  • 00:28:36
    and had many conversations about it with Roger Fry
  • 00:28:38
    and, of course, her sister, the painter, Vanessa Bell,
  • 00:28:41
    who later took up with Duncan Grant,
  • 00:28:44
    about how you do represent reality,
  • 00:28:48
    and whether, indeed, it is best served
  • 00:28:50
    by a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.
  • 00:28:52
    Because actually, nobody lives their life like that.
  • 00:28:55
    It's complete and utter bollocks.
  • 00:28:56
    And so she thought: No, I won't do that.
  • 00:28:59
    I will try to show things in their shifting shapes,
  • 00:29:03
    without obvious endings,
  • 00:29:04
    never the Hollywood ending, never the closure.
  • 00:29:06
    The impressionistic quality of Virginia Woolf
  • 00:29:09
    doesn't communicate so well.
  • 00:29:10
    Much more difficult.
  • 00:29:12
    Yet, we all recognize that as part of the truth of our lives.
  • 00:29:15
    We sense ourselves in those fissures, in those fragments,
  • 00:29:19
    in those lacunae, in the interstices, in the gaps,
  • 00:29:22
    in the moments when we fall down the hole and drag ourselves up again. All of that.
  • 00:29:27
    And each of you here, in this room, live perpetually in three time zones.
  • 00:29:32
    You think about the past, you're managing the present,
  • 00:29:34
    you're wondering about the future.
  • 00:29:35
    This is your simultaneous reality. You're not linear.
  • 00:29:39
    Time, for you, is not linear. Time, for you, is significant.
  • 00:29:42
    Your memories do not lie next to each other in chronological order.
  • 00:29:46
    No, not at all!
  • 00:29:48
    And this is what Virginia Woolf wanted to delve into.
  • 00:29:50
    She wanted to show how the mind itself
  • 00:29:53
    - the most complex object in the known universe -
  • 00:29:55
    does not manage linear time very well at all.
  • 00:29:59
    And there is, indeed, isn't there, in "To the Lighthouse",
  • 00:30:02
    that marvellous section called "Time Passes",
  • 00:30:04
    where she simply comes out of the story of the Ramsays
  • 00:30:08
    and talks about the effect of time on this house,
  • 00:30:10
    whether it's the ivy growing up the wall,
  • 00:30:12
    whether it's the damp coming in from the rainy autumn nights,
  • 00:30:16
    all of the things which actually do constitute the material reality,
  • 00:30:20
    but which are often overlooked. And yet, those things...
  • 00:30:22
    You suddenly glance at it, a patch of damp, a bit of ivy,
  • 00:30:25
    it will conjure a memory, a smell. Proust was good at that.
  • 00:30:28
    Something that takes you out of this moment into another moment,
  • 00:30:31
    and that is the life of the mind,
  • 00:30:34
    not the beginning, the middle and the end,
  • 00:30:36
    and that's what she wanted to show.
  • 00:30:38
    Charlotte, we could describe Virginia Woolf's fiction as challenging,
  • 00:30:44
    or not necessarily easily accessible.
  • 00:30:48
    You were talking about returning to it after a while
  • 00:30:52
    and having to work your way back into it.
  • 00:30:56
    And I'd like you to say a little bit about that for our audience,
  • 00:31:02
    because I think people will find it very encouraging.
  • 00:31:06
    Well, everyone knows Virginia Woolf,
  • 00:31:08
    but very few people have actually read her novels.
  • 00:31:12
    And it's understandable, because she's a difficult writer.
  • 00:31:17
    It takes time to enter her novels
  • 00:31:21
    and to pursue the reading.
  • 00:31:25
    And she tries to create
  • 00:31:28
    a dizziness, as well, with several voices,
  • 00:31:32
    and sometimes you get lost and don't know who's speaking,
  • 00:31:36
    and you feel claustrophobic,
  • 00:31:38
    and you're like, I just don't understand what's happening anymore.
  • 00:31:42
    Actually, it took me time to really go back to her writings,
  • 00:31:48
    and I had a different approach,
  • 00:31:51
    meaning that I felt like it was pure poetry
  • 00:31:54
    and that you could actually read her as poetry
  • 00:31:57
    and not necessarily in a linear way.
  • 00:32:00
    But you can also just read some pages.
  • 00:32:04
    In "Mrs. Dalloway", you have some pages, some descriptions of London,
  • 00:32:09
    some parts of it that are just so strong in the sensation you get,
  • 00:32:15
    and even if you don't understand everything,
  • 00:32:17
    it's just pure beauty.
  • 00:32:19
    And that's why people should not be afraid of Virginia Woolf.
  • 00:32:24
    And I wonder, Keira, and again, just hearing you read it...
  • 00:32:28
    She both was able to acknowledge her own privilege
  • 00:32:32
    but also talk, as Jeanette was just saying,
  • 00:32:35
    about the situation that women are in.
  • 00:32:38
    And I wonder how you have thought about that issue,
  • 00:32:45
    given that we are women who have a platform.
  • 00:32:48
    How we can use that platform?
  • 00:32:51
    In a very similar way that Jeanette just said,
  • 00:32:53
    I think you absolutely have to acknowledge it.
  • 00:32:56
    It's unavoidable, you know.
  • 00:32:59
    But you can equally say:
  • 00:33:00
    Do I still believe that a woman should be paid the same amount as a man? Yes.
  • 00:33:04
    Do I still believe that a woman should have the right to choose? Yes.
  • 00:33:09
    Are there many places in the world where she doesn't have the right to choose,
  • 00:33:12
    for her own body? There are.
  • 00:33:14
    So I think I can speak from a place of immense privilege
  • 00:33:18
    but still say that the problem for women is one for all of us.
  • 00:33:24
    There are obviously specific needs in different places,
  • 00:33:27
    but as far as equal pay, as far as the right to choose go,
  • 00:33:31
    I think we can all be sort of on a similar footing in that.
  • 00:33:35
    I think of Virginia Woolf as a very elegant writer.
  • 00:33:41
    And someone with a unique elegance.
  • 00:33:44
    I wonder how that elegance speaks to you, Charlotte.
  • 00:33:49
    Well, I would say that, in a way, elegance...
  • 00:33:55
    I would relate it to a French word: "délicatesse".
  • 00:34:02
    It's being sensitive to the different variations and tonalities,
  • 00:34:09
    and being able to go from one to the other in a very smooth way.
  • 00:34:13
    And I think that was one of her highest qualities.
  • 00:34:17
    There was always that gentleness that made her very elegant, I find.
  • 00:34:23
    But that's my personal interpretation of her elegance.
  • 00:34:26
    Thank you so much, Charlotte.
  • 00:34:28
    I will thank all of you, but I will turn back to you
  • 00:34:31
    to close out our wonderful "Rendez-vous",
  • 00:34:34
    which has been such a delight to participate in.
  • 00:34:37
    Well, thank you all for being here.
  • 00:34:41
    It was such an amazing moment, and I wish we could have even continued.
  • 00:34:46
    Listening to you, Jeanette, is just like...
  • 00:34:49
    time stops, and it's great.
  • 00:34:52
    Thank you so much.
Tags
  • Virginia Woolf
  • Literary Rendez-vous
  • Women's Rights
  • Angel in the House
  • Jeanette Winterson
  • Keira Knightley
  • Creativity
  • Activism
  • Literature
  • Gender Equality