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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
"If we knew the truth about art instead of shuffling and shambling through the smeared and dejected pages of those who must live by prostituting culture, the enjoyment and practice of art would become so desirable that by comparison the pursuit of war would be a tedious game for elderly dilettantes" (176).
Abridged review / intrusive thought: Woolf is so sassy. She gave three guineas and zero f**ks.
Unabridged review: I remember hearing once that this is Virginia Woolf at her most radical (perhaps from author Lauren Elkin?). Three Guineas is a winding but rewarding argument—or, well, an answer to a curious letter. A man writes to Woolf asking how the human race can prevent war.
For a significant portion of the text, Woolf essentially retorts that she might have a better answer if women had not been deprived for generations of their freedom, education, and time but will try her best. Valid. Her interrogation of the emptiness of patriotism for an unjust nation and its use of the phrase "our country" to stir emotion leads to the infamous passage: "'In fact, as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.'"
Such parallels connecting Woolf's milieu in 1938 England, during the rise of fascism, to today's genocides and atrocities. We are still knocking on the same doors, demanding to be heard.
Everyone should read this: "A common interest unites us; it is one world, one life. How essential it is that we should realise that unity the dead bodies, the ruined houses prove. For such will be our ruin if you, in the immensity of your public abstractions forget the private figure, or if we in the intensity of our private emotions forget the public world. Both houses will be ruined, the public and the private, the material and the spiritual, for they are inseparably connected" (259).
As an aside, I love it when Woolf says a poet is a "psychologist in action" (148).
This read reminded me of an ex who asked me once who I would invite to a dinner party (dead or alive). When I mentioned that Woolf would be among these cherished guests, he responded sharply with something along the lines of "I wonder what she would think of your God," and mentioned her negative reaction to Eliot's conversion. Still, I persist that there is nuance in her view of faith and the Church. In this piece, she crusades for women's dignity and capability in Christian leadership and the compensation they deserve (lamenting the low pay of a deaconess). Woolf's final conclusion in Three Guineas is fiercely reminiscent of the command in John to be "in the world, not of it."
"A great authority upon human life, you will remember, held over two thousand years ago that great possessions were undesirable. To which you reply, and with some heat as if you suspected another excuse for keeping the purse-string tied, that Christ's words about the rich and the Kingdom of Heaven are no longer helpful to those who have to face different facts in a different world" (125).
This work is admirable and brilliant, yes, but still left me longing for more. What next? "We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods." And then the essay ends on the next page. She leaves the hard work up to us, as I suppose she must.
I read my lovely old edition of the text all evening up until the countdown to 2025, and that felt right.
Abridged review / intrusive thought: Woolf is so sassy. She gave three guineas and zero f**ks.
Unabridged review: I remember hearing once that this is Virginia Woolf at her most radical (perhaps from author Lauren Elkin?). Three Guineas is a winding but rewarding argument—or, well, an answer to a curious letter. A man writes to Woolf asking how the human race can prevent war.
For a significant portion of the text, Woolf essentially retorts that she might have a better answer if women had not been deprived for generations of their freedom, education, and time but will try her best. Valid. Her interrogation of the emptiness of patriotism for an unjust nation and its use of the phrase "our country" to stir emotion leads to the infamous passage: "'In fact, as a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.'"
Such parallels connecting Woolf's milieu in 1938 England, during the rise of fascism, to today's genocides and atrocities. We are still knocking on the same doors, demanding to be heard.
Everyone should read this: "A common interest unites us; it is one world, one life. How essential it is that we should realise that unity the dead bodies, the ruined houses prove. For such will be our ruin if you, in the immensity of your public abstractions forget the private figure, or if we in the intensity of our private emotions forget the public world. Both houses will be ruined, the public and the private, the material and the spiritual, for they are inseparably connected" (259).
As an aside, I love it when Woolf says a poet is a "psychologist in action" (148).
This read reminded me of an ex who asked me once who I would invite to a dinner party (dead or alive). When I mentioned that Woolf would be among these cherished guests, he responded sharply with something along the lines of "I wonder what she would think of your God," and mentioned her negative reaction to Eliot's conversion. Still, I persist that there is nuance in her view of faith and the Church. In this piece, she crusades for women's dignity and capability in Christian leadership and the compensation they deserve (lamenting the low pay of a deaconess). Woolf's final conclusion in Three Guineas is fiercely reminiscent of the command in John to be "in the world, not of it."
"A great authority upon human life, you will remember, held over two thousand years ago that great possessions were undesirable. To which you reply, and with some heat as if you suspected another excuse for keeping the purse-string tied, that Christ's words about the rich and the Kingdom of Heaven are no longer helpful to those who have to face different facts in a different world" (125).
This work is admirable and brilliant, yes, but still left me longing for more. What next? "We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods." And then the essay ends on the next page. She leaves the hard work up to us, as I suppose she must.
I read my lovely old edition of the text all evening up until the countdown to 2025, and that felt right.
Maybe it's because it's from 1938 but this was borderline impossible to read at times
i have so much admiration for her. she wrote this ~85 years ago and still brings up points about the essence of humanity that feel fresh today (or have only now become mainstream). to have such an intellect at such a time makes me feel weird. HOWEVER. this was lengthy and repetitive and the middle part was like wading through a swamp
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
I have read a lot of Virginia Woolf, and it was interesting to read a book of here in which she takes a persuasive tone. She attempts to illuminate the flimsy basis for a society so steeped in sexism which has its origin in its “darkness of ancestral memory.” (104.) She does this by offering three guineas to three causes, but which are ultimately the same, and her thesis is that in order for women to prevent war - which presupposes an ability to exert influence on something - she must be educated and must receive an income.
She encourages the government to reinvest the £ 300 million spent per year in armaments (1938 money) in more equal pay and an income guaranteed to mothers. For they could then exert influence by subscribing to causes, they could increase birth rates, and they would achieve a level of equality which had previously been denied to them. She also encourages women to form an “Outsiders’ Society” of women dedicated to abstaining from mental prostitution, as she terms it (using the mind for some end that is not the individuals), and from institutions and practices antithetical to liberty.
I have more to say, but it was overall a good book.
She encourages the government to reinvest the £ 300 million spent per year in armaments (1938 money) in more equal pay and an income guaranteed to mothers. For they could then exert influence by subscribing to causes, they could increase birth rates, and they would achieve a level of equality which had previously been denied to them. She also encourages women to form an “Outsiders’ Society” of women dedicated to abstaining from mental prostitution, as she terms it (using the mind for some end that is not the individuals), and from institutions and practices antithetical to liberty.
I have more to say, but it was overall a good book.
Words cannot give this book the justice it deserves. It can only speak for itself.
“But with the sound of the guns in your ears you have not asked us to dream.” oh my god
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced