I Blame The Sea (To The Lighthouse)

I've obviously been aware of Virginia Woolf for quite some time; she's one of those figures who turns up a lot in commentary and popular culture and all the time she does she symbolises something that isn't actually herself and so you end up with a distorted idea of her that, like all received wisdom, seems perfectly reasonable until you start to pick it apart. I first became aware of her as an interesting figure in her own right, as a person rather than as a symbol, when I visited Sissinghurst about a year and a half ago. Since then I've been slow at discovering her as a writer too, but I'm enjoying it immensely.

In case you don't know the story, Sissinghurst's most famous resident was the gardener, writer and aristocrat Vita Sackville-West and Vita was one of Virginia Woolf's close friends and confidantes. Virginia was also, quite clearly, in love with Vita. There's more to the story, I'm probably not best placed to tell it, but at Sissinghurst they have some of their correspondence on display reading it just really caught me. The first book of Woolf's that I read was Orlando, soon after Sissinghurst because it completes the story started by the correspondence that they hold there. It is, without a doubt, the most incredible, extended love letter I have ever read, transformed into a work of art.

One of the things that you know about Virginia Woolf is that she writes impenetrable, self-absorbed and ultimately pointless novels - modernism for modernism's sake. You probably also know that her writing is so rarified and difficult that it's only read to make the reader look better and not for anything like actual pleasure. Knowing these things is what put me off even looking at her books for years - even the non-fiction, which I was already interested in politically, I put off reading because I imagined that I knew what it would say, but that it would say it in a really complicated manner.

The thing is, that's all wrong, or at least, it's only very loosely based in fact. While not easy, and formally innovative for both artistic and political reasons, she isn't a particularly difficult writer in the grand scheme of things and if you've made it through some of the turgid, dickwaving prose that makes up a lot of modern British literary fiction that you shouldn't have any real trouble. (I probably haven't read enough of it to comment but I do find that the general standard of modern British literary fiction - that is, work who's main point is the writing itself, as opposed to the story - to be particularly dire and saturated in white male sexual neuroses; especially depressing as there is so much interesting writing going on right now in genre and, for want of a better word, 'world' fiction.)

What's true is that she often writes about personal situations, turning them into something universal, but then so do a lot of men and no-one is claiming that they are impenetrable. To The Lighthouse, which I've just read, is a very personal story, transformed by someone who genuinely understands what the point of using form as a part of narrative is about, rather than just playing with it like a toy to show off your skills. It's a slow book to read, but that's what its supposed to be - and once you find the rhythm of the text and realise that sometimes getting lost is a part of the way the novel works it isn't a difficult one at all.

So cast off what you know and try to read it just for the pleasure of reading. Don't worry how long it takes, don't worry what anyone thinks about you, or what you think about your own reading level. Take breaks in between chapters (I read most of the Sherlock Holmes short stories concurrently) or shut yourself away and devour it in one weekend. Do whatever, but if you are interested in reading books for their language then you should give her her a go.

(I Blame The Sea is the name of Emily Horne's occasional photography blog, which you should follow.)