But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction - what has that got to do with a room of one’s own? I will try to explain. When you asked me to speak about women and fiction I sat down on the banks of a river and began to wonder what the words meant…
At second sight the words seemed not so simple. The title women and fiction might mean, and you may have meant it to mean, women and what they are like; or it might mean women and the fiction that they write; or it might mean women and the fiction that is written about them; or it might mean that somehow all three are inextricably mixed together and you want me to consider them in that light.
But when I began to consider the subject in this last way, which seemed the most interesting, I soon saw that it had one fatal drawback. I should never be able to come to a conclusion.
All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point - a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved...
When a subject is highly controversial - and any question about sex is that - one cannot hope to tell the truth…
Fiction here is likely to contain more truth than fact...
Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping...
If not, you will of course throw the whole of it into the waste-paper basket and forget all about it.
From A Room Of One’s Own
By Virginia Woolf
I miss the girl fort, and you :) I think it's getting about time for that bonfire!
ReplyDeleteWhen I read a book that is purportedly true: history, biography etc. I am constantly aware of the tentativeness of the facts. That those "facts" are someones perception, that the author may have made things up (almost assuredly), that they may be reporting the errors that someone else wrote before them. But when I read fiction, I am in constant expectation that I will find some essential truth, that I will really learn something about myself and human nature in general. I think that fiction allows the author to "cut loose" and through the creative act bring out more truth than the "non-fiction" writer, not being bound by the facts as it were.
ReplyDeleteSo ladies, get with it and lie to us, it's the only way we will really learn about who you really are.
L.U.V.ing your stove Jen.
ReplyDelete(Bet that toasts your macaroons to a tee!)
;)
xxx
Bob
Totally drooling over your girl fort. It looks so cozy and inspiring.
ReplyDeleteThis barn used to be my landlord's woodworking shop. When I told him I had turned the space into my girl fort, he looked a little queasy. Maybe if I can turn out some good fiction / lies / truth, he'll forgive me someday for cluttering up the space with all of my estrogen.
ReplyDelete