Street Haunting May Shed Light on Clarissa Dalloway

When a certain type of novel is published, readers often wonder, to what extent is it autobiographical? And if the author is or becomes a literary celebrity, entire industries can develop around such questions.

Virginia Woolf, because of her difficult childhood, her episodic mental/emotional instability, her apparently sexually sterile marriage and her unconventional friends, has been the subject of endless inquiries along those lines – facilitated by extensive diaries and letters as well as her fiction, essays and critical works. There’s no shortage of fodder upon which to chew.

What, then, about Clarissa Dalloway? Where did she come from and how does she relate to the author herself? 

Fiction as Autobiography

Earlier this year, the New York Times Sunday Book Review ran a piece by Jami Attenberg entitled "It's My Fiction, Not My Life." I clipped it out when it ran and then lost it in a pile of papers.

Authors, Attenberg noted, are very frequently asked by readers how much of a story they have written is autobiographical. Some smile are willing to answer in one fashion or another, no matter how frequently they are asked. But many others are not so accommodating.

An Answer to a Reader of "Manhattan Morning"

In my last post about comments from readers of "Manhattan Morning," someone asked several questions that I didn't then answer. 

Here's the answer to one of them: "where did the story come from and how much of it is autobiographical?"

When Love Fails to Heal, See a Psychiatrist

We often hear or read about the healing power of love. But it doesn't always work -- it can't overcome all obstacles -- and when that happens, perhaps one should consult a psychiatrist.

That appears to one message of "Sleep," a short story by Colm Toibin in the March 23, 2015, edition of "The New Yorker."

I know what you will do when morning comes. I wake before you do and I lie still. Sometimes I doze, but usually I am alert, with my eyes open. I don’t move. I don’t want to disturb you. I can hear your soft, calm breathing and I like that. And then at a certain point you turn toward me without opening your eyes; your hand reaches over, and you touch my shoulder or my back. And then all of you comes close to me. It is as though you were still sleeping—there is no sound from you, just a need, almost urgent but unconscious, to be close to someone. This is how the day begins when you are with me.

That's the opening paragraph of "Sleep." It's a very fine and powerful piece of writing that drew me in. Unfortunately, however, it isn't stylistically equaled by anything that follows, but that is beside the point here.