The spirit of Virginia Woolf

Observation: Virginia Woolf seems an unusually rich source of inspiration for later writers. In fact, it’s more than just inspiration: if you read the Bernard Malamud story, “In Kew Gardens” or, of course, Michael Cunningham’s “The Hours”, it is as if these writers are channelling Virginia Woolf. Her own energies power their stories.

Proposition: Writers who commit suicide remain on Earth, lingering somewhere in the artistic stratosphere, available for channelling by living writers.

Recommendation: Make a list of writers who killed themselves (e.g. Hemingway – wow, the theory’s holding tight so far), and attempt to draw strength from all of them.

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Daniel