Robert T. -- That is an ungainly passage, isn't it? FWIW, Birkerts often seems to me to happier pondering the place of literary criticism than, y'know, actually saying anything of interest about fiction or poetry ... Leaves me wondering if criticism (and pondering) is what he deep-down prefers ...

Derek -- That's really smart, tks. Funny how that word "credentialed" just popped out, isn't it? And I especially like the idea that the Times created Kakutani's standing. Reviewing and criticism are so weird. There are tons of people who have interesting observations and responses -- why do a few dozen of them get, er, credentialed as pros? When you see the process up close it can look mighty arbitrary. I mean, what if luck, push, and connections play far more important roles than talent and/or brains?

Clio -- Personally I favor the idea that we should all have trust funds. And it's always key to point out such basics as the importance of appliances and other tech advances. But I wonder if you aren't missing a bit of the point of the article. It isn't that Woolf had money and help -- nothing wrong with that -- let alone that she wrote. It's that she espoused feminist and socialist views while 1) having an independent income, and 2) not even being a good employer of other women. So far as politics and policies went, she seems to have been one of the "limousine liberals" or "trust-fund Marxists" of her era.

Dearieme -- That's too bad. Still it seems as though at least a few elements in British public life are starting to be willing to take on the subject. Encouraging? Not-encouraging? What baffles me a little is the general unwillingness to acknowledge that population and migration (and thus immigration-policy) questions are already important, and are bound (as the world becomes more crowded) to become more important. I mean, why not just shut our eyes to reality entirely ...

Luke-- I really should catch up with Harriet Beecher Stowe, thanks for the reminder.

ST -- The slugfests people in tiny circles pursue can be pretty funny, can't they? Still I'm glad Paglia is in there talking trash and causing havoc. Have you read much of her? I think you'd actually find much of what she says -- at least the more non-academic stuff -- simpatico. She's (generally speaking) a big fan of masculinity, popular culture, poetry and art, and has been hilariously furious with post-'70s feminism ...

Tschafer, AmericanFez -- I actually like a lot of Woolf's writing, but I suspect I'd have had big reservations about her as a person. Was she anti-Semitic? I'd missed that. Her husband was Jewish ... Oh, life is so complicated, darn it ...

BP -- She was certainly the literary talent, but she was also taken very seriously as a thinker about feminism and politics -- "Three Guineas," "A Room of One's Own" ... These were really famous and influential books. She was also (maybe unfairly) turned into an icon and symbol by the '70s academic-feminist crowd. So maybe it's worth taking stock of how her ideas and how she actually lived jibed or didn't-jibe.

Anne -- Thanks for clarifying, I've fixed.

Susan -- (... sound of purring and languourous cigarette-smoking...)

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 1, 2007 6:44 PM

Well, M2B, I did point out that the writer of this article has it somewhat wrong, and that VW's relationship with her help was skewered because she tried too hard to befriend them. Of course, that's her version of the story, but it does come through in her diaries: the many times she spent so much time talking to Nellie and Lottie that she couldn't get any work done. And as it happens I've also read a short memoir, written by the Woolfs' cook long after both were dead (she was actually working at their house when VW died), who said they were both excellent employers. I can't remember her name, and the book itself is buried somewhere in a box.

As for the "trust fund" issue, the Woolfs' income wasn't really independent. They lived on a little "family money" for a time - but it wasn't enough to give them anything like a middle-class way of life. As if you or I had to live on $15,000 a year. It can be done - but not easily. Their financial records were well-kept, and I think are in LW's papers. Their main income came from LW's journalism (he had a regular job - I forget for which left-wing paper), and when VW began to be successful, from her novels.

As I said in my own piece on VW on my blog, this territory has already been well-covered - by the Left of her day, who mostly regarded her as a bourgeois parasite. When she killed herself, some idiot wrote, "she has anticipated the judgment of History, and taken the logical step." In any case, I don't think she was ever really a socialist, except in the most tenuous way; her family had a long connection with the Liberal party. Her husband was the one who led her to socialism, and it was his "thing" much more than hers. The only really political book she ever wrote was Three Guineas, which her husband didn't like. It's later American (and now English) feminists who have tried to link her to socialism, because her somewhat muddled politics suit theirs.

I was a Bloomsbury buff in my twenties, so I know their history rather well.

Posted by: alias clio on August 1, 2007 7:07 PM

Hey, people, get a room! I mean, a garage.

The Onion piece: c'mon, I can't believe I'm the only one who found it funny! [except Michael, of course]. I know at least one...no, two couples whose life seems to be the copy of that, which is even funnier. I sometimes wonder why did they buy a 4 bedroom house for the family of four - now I know: to keep the equipment well-oiled and ready.

While on the topic of thriftiness in housekeeping: here's another idea (coming from one of my friends in Israel) of what to do with outdated machinery: recycle it as akitty toy! [the aquamarine monster is the new favorite]

Posted by: Tat on August 1, 2007 7:39 PM

Richard -- The amount of work mere survival used to require is staggering, isn't it? What a luxury to be able to take so much for granted.

Clio -- I'm completely unsure what your point is, then. That Woolf was a good boss, not a bad one? But if, in your words, "quarrels, hurt feelings, and misunderstandings were common. She had to spend much of her domestic life placating the women who worked for her," then it's fair to say that she was a bad boss, no? As well as more than a little sentimental and vain. But maybe you're after something else ... Part of what puzzles me about your point is that the piece is a book review -- presumably the reviewer is passing along material from the book, and presumably the book-writer has turned up some fresh material. If so, then why not find the info interesting rather than "wrong"? I've done time in Bloomsbury too, and despite how voluminous the literature is I certainly wasn't left with the impression that everything was known and/or settled.

Tat -- That was defintely an Onion classic, no?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 1, 2007 7:59 PM

Even when we treat Woolf as a feminist theorist, her personal conduct is not relevant to evaluating her ideas. If she didn't live according to her own ideas that makes her a hypocrite, but it doesn't make the ideas wrong.

Of course she did have some disagreeable ideas about social class, but you don't need to look at her life to see that--she states them explicitly in Three Guineas (which, incidentally, is written in a more literary than theoretical style, and most of which is a great read).

Posted by: BP on August 1, 2007 8:34 PM

The article in the Telegraph awakens my historian instincts. After years of hearing complaints about government planning, we are seeing the results of the lack of such a planning.

Basically there are more bodies than the current services allow for. And when that happens service deteriorates, and complaints mounts, plus a lot of less lovely behavior such as scapegoating and prejudice.

And I go back to the Industrial Revolution, and the demand thta the Goverment do Something. The Industrial Revolution got a lot of peasants into the city to work in the new industries, and what resulted was a lot of bodies for which there were not enough lodgings, nor services, nor transportation. That is a lowering of the quality of life for everybody, and a general crankiness that did not bode well for those who said that the free market would solve it eventually.

Then came the clincher. The discovery that epidemics were not a fact of life to be endured stoically, but an avoidable evil that could be prevented with proper hygiene. Which meant, more or less making sure that everyone voided only in approved receptacles connected to a sewage treatment plan. When we use a toilet, and hold on until we find one, no matter how uncomfortable we do not reflect on the social engineering feat that was to make us so. It was a huge one, but we do not realize it.

So, between the coercion needed to convince people to install and use toilets, and the willingness to provide "proper" housing (i.e. with proper toilet), the seeds of government planning were planted.

This is my theory. Anyone wants to discuss it?

Posted by: Adriana on August 1, 2007 11:26 PM

Michael --

Thinking about your shifting reactions to "The Passenger": When it first came out I recall thinking the movie was mysterious, artsy and slow -- a challenge, a puzzle. Now, it plays like a fairly straightforward thriller with great cinematography and some vague plotting. (I do love the film.)

Like to think I've learned a thing or two since the 1970s, but this might point to a much wider acceptance of what was called "arthouse fare" back then.

Americans love their moronic films. They also have become much more visually sophisticated and accustomed to challenging filmmaking. Of last year's best picture contenders (for what it's worth) only "The Pursuit of Happyness" was relatively simple Hollywood fare.

If "The Passenger" were first released today, I suspect that a contemporary film reviewer would not dwell on its pacing or cinematography or otherworldly qualities. We have come a long way thanks to filmmakers like Antonioni.

Thanks for reading and linking.

Posted by: Glenn Abel on August 2, 2007 3:51 AM

Adriana:

There was a considerable municipal regulatory apparatus in place in Britain during the Industrial Revolution. It was, sadly or inevitably (depending on your political views) extremely unhelpful. For example, houses were taxed depending on the number of windows in them, which incentivized people to build airless warrens. There were also extreme restrictions on building materials during the Napoleonic wars (and even after, I think), which encouraged (or virtually mandated) cheap, substandard housing. As for sanitation, that was also made, if anything, worse by various municipal regs (and the move to stricter forms of hygeine largely preceded any scientific knowledge of disease mechanisms; it was, apparently, largely aesthetically motivated.) There's a whole book on this topic which I've got someplace in a box (I just moved.)

In fact, the whole topic jumbles conventional left-right ideology. The left blames the "factory system" for the miseries of living in the newly burgeoning industrial cities of industrial revolution Britain, which is unfair because the factory owners weren't in charge of or able to dictate town planning in those cities (they lacked political muscle during the most heinous early decades.) The right can accurately point out how bad government planning by those municipalities was actually far more to blame for the miseries of the (relatively well paid) work force, but essentially concedes in making that argument the essential role of the public sector in developing infrastructure (including rules) for private enterprise. If you like, you can also toss into the mix the complexities of culture change and scientific progress, although those are in many ways outside both "social engineering" or "the market" per se.

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on August 2, 2007 5:56 AM

"Personally I favor the idea that we should all have trust funds."

There you go, giving candidates their campaign slogans, for free.

Personally I find Woolf unreadable. And horsefaced. My two cents.

Posted by: ricpic on August 2, 2007 11:14 AM

Frederick:

Either way, it is a gold mine for any historian who has not yet decided what his/her thesis will be.

Posted by: Adriana on August 2, 2007 12:21 PM

God oh god, how I hate Antonioni, me along with Orson Welles and Ingmar Bergman. I've seen all his Italian films and may take a look at The Passenger on your recommendation, but with very low expectations.

Posted by: Thursday on August 2, 2007 3:58 PM

FredericK

Sorry for my short answer,but I see so many historeis that hinge on ideology that I wonder if anyone remeambers that apart from thinking and believing human beings have physical bodies and those bodies occupy space, move around, consume fuel, and leave waste products. And that they have a way of irritating each other.

I think that the error of the conservatives was to accept that it was the job of Government to provide those things, instead of coming up with their own way to do it (much less trouble that way - never discount the power of lazyness in decision making. As Bob the dinosaur says to Dilbert "I say yes and there is more work for me, I say no and there is more work for you.... Decisiosn.. decisions..), Of course eventually Goverment got a handle in it, and inefficient and all, ended up being trustd to solve more and more problems.

It was not the best solution, but it was the most readily available, and when people get cranky, or have any sense of urgency, they grab what is faster, not what is best.

(Suppose you need some plumbing done. If you have a non-emergency, you will conduct a search for a good plumber, and one whose rates you find reasonalbe. But if you find yourself with water up to your ankles, then you'll take the first one who says will come right away...)

Posted by: Adriana on August 2, 2007 4:22 PM

I AGREE with Robert Townshend; Sven's prose has gone through a cuisinart; he also doesn't know what enormity means. Uggh; a real fine advocate for the great literary tradition going back through the NY Times to Homer...

Posted by: Doug Anderson on August 2, 2007 8:50 PM

Adriana -- Couldn't agree more! The Modern Marvels TV-docu series actually covers some of these topics. Short, fast, with just enough (to my tastes) history. One of my favorite episodes was on "Bathroom Tech." What a great prism through which to think about life ...

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 2, 2007 10:32 PM

Adriana:
"Goverment got a handle in it, and inefficient and all, ended up being trustEd(by whom?-T) to solve more and more problems."
"After years of hearing complaints about government planning, we are seeing the results of the lack of such a planning."

Alan Sullivan:
" ...demands for more government spending — the stock response of liberals when government fails."

I'm amazed how somebody can call herself a historian and spout socialist/statist nonsense, as if there never was Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc...almost 90 years of World history omited.

Posted by: Tatyana on August 3, 2007 2:44 PM

Tatyana:

Of course I call myself a historian, as I am by John Lukacs description, a person who likes to study history, and who has a historical perspective - that is an awareness that things were not always as they have been, and that there was a process involved in changing the conditions as they were once and the way they are.

I see by your comment that you suffer from the tendency I deplored above, making history the history of ideas as if these took only place in disembodied minds.

The historical conjuncture was an example of what Lukacs calls a change in consciousness. His favorite example is the prosperity of Switzerland which came when, thanks to the Romantics, mountains were no longer seen as ugly, to be avoided, but beautiful, and a healthy place to be, thus starting the tourist industry, because "the mountains that men saw in the nineteenth century were no longer the mountains the men in the eighteenth century saw".

My contentio was that in the nineteenth century epidemics, which up to now were seen as a feature of life, a normal part of it, to be endured with prayer, were seen now as something to be avoided, and creating a sense of urgency about it. Which meant was that whoever came up with solutions first would earn the trust of those demanding those solutions, and that trust would carry on for other things.

To the point that conservatives accepted that those things were to be done by Governemnt, good bad, or indifferent, they conceded the race before it started, and lost a trust that could have been theirs for the taking.

Posted by: Adriana on August 3, 2007 4:51 PM

Tatyana:

You may be offended by the words "lack of planning" but it is the only adequate description for what is taking place.

Suppose that you, as a householder know that you are getting some people to stay overnight. You do count how many, do you? Do you check how many chairs you have? How many beds? Do you look at your refrigerator? Do you make reservations at the hotel for the overflow? Do you shop for groceries? Do you, if the influx is too great, get a couple of port-a-potties?

If you do none of those things, and then you have a house full of people who have little food, no place to sit, no place to sleep, and are in an endless line to the bathroom, then you can be accused of lack of planning.

Anyone who a) knows of a large influx of people coming this way and b) does not expand the services it is responsible for had shown lack of planning, and that was what the people had the right to complain about.

Posted by: Adriana on August 3, 2007 6:02 PM






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