★★★★☆ The longest suicide note ever written

The Diary of Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

This will be a review of the entire unabridged Diary -- five volumes. My review title is stolen from some more insightful reader of Virginia Woolf's Diary -- I don't remember where I saw it, unfortunately, so can't give proper credit.

There are several interesting stories told in here. For instance, it is the story of her Bloomsbury group of friends and artists. Aside from Woolf herself, most of these were rather dull people, with one major exception: economist John Maynard Keynes, truly a brilliant man, possessor of what The Indigo Girls call "a mind without end". (They are referring to Woolf herself with the phrase, but I am repurposing it.)

And then there is the story of the Hogarth Press. Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard (also an author) purchased a printing press and became a small publishing business, to my mind one of the most inspiring business success stories of all time.

But the central story of the Diary is the story of Woolf's psychological downward spiral. I would guess she suffered from what we now call Major Depression -- at the time it was probably called Melancholia. She began each new book with enthusiasm, happy to be starting something new. But then, as she passed the middle, the book would become a crushing burden, that she struggled to finish. And after the publication, regular as clockwork, the crash. You would think that publication and success would be a triumph, but that is not how depression works. Even winning feels like losing.

It is terrifying to read, because as you get along in the Diary it becomes clear that each crash is worse than the one before. And you know that, inevitably, she will one day finish a book, then walk into the river.

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