Virginia Woolf once wrote in her famous feminist essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) that “A female writer cannot afford to live her life too clearly. If she does, she will write in a rage when she should write calmly. She will write in a rage when she should write wisely. She will write of herself when she should write of her characters. She is at war with her a lot”. Woolf is by far one of my favourite authors, the admiration I have for her surpassing even the one I had for Jane Austen. Probably is it because I relate more to her character, the one that was formed by biographers, describing her love for water and her relation with Ophelia and death, with I also have. More than this reduction lazy columnists often make, what strikes me the most in her writing is the way she manage to transcribe consciousness. Her work has a particular taste I wasn’t able to find anywhere else.
When I first read A Room of One’s Own, I highlighted that quote but I was more focused on other topics to take time to reflect on this one (or at least, no trace of it was found in my notes). However, reading it in Deborah Levy’s Things I Don’t Wanna Know, the first volume of her autobiography as a woman writer, got me to think about what my endeavour was. Since writing keeps the hamster on speed that is my mind, I figured I could maybe discuss it here.
After reading those words, I had to pose the book for a minute because they made me angry. I didn’t understand why, as a woman, I shouldn’t”t be writing about myself – men do it all the time. Why shouldn’t I speak of my feelings? And worse of all, it was my favourite author that said so. It felt like receiving a F- from Woolf directly. But why ? Does it matter if I’m not agreeing with a writer from the last century? Didn’t literature evolve in the meantime? And I realised how shallow my reading of the specific quote was, and that it was a false problem.
In my texts, my poetry, I am my own character. It is made in my image and my experiences, yes, but making me and this person being interchangeable is only one of the tricks writing allow. It’s a me shaped character, that allows me to focus on her rage rather than my own, thus an apparatus for my own rage. Yes, I have no shame in expressing rage, and I think that, in 2024, if you aren’t angry against the world, it’s that you decide to stay blissfully unaware to avoid the pain. Like Allan More said in Watchmen, one of those that turns out the news because they can’t bear the anger, the urge to revolt. I admit I’m twisting the words of Virginia Woolf here, but different times, different needs. If in my real texts, I were only to speak of myself as myself and not a character, I am not sure I could touch my (few) readers like I do now.
Yeah, sorry mom, I couldn’t make this one shorter. Much love to you if you read me. And to all of you
Barbara Ferreres
Ps : The books mentioned are a very good read:
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929
Deborah Levy, Things I Don’t Wanna Know, 2014
Allan Moore, the Watchmen series (comics)
