From V to L

I just got done reading Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts. I loved it. I admired the story’s play within a play concept, non fiction and fiction. The drama of the real-life audience in Pointz Hall and the drama of the stage artists of the play were both equally absorbing and intriguing.

A while ago I was surfing the net for a little bit of the author’s background. Before I read this novel, all I knew of Woolf was that she committed suicide. But after some browsing, I learned a handful of things that had my ears perking up in curiosity. Like I never would have suspected that she was sexually abused by her half brothers…Then there’s the Hogarth Press and Bloomsbury Group among others. But if truth were told, it’s actually the suicide note for the husband that did it for me:

'Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.
I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.
V.'

Naturally, I was intrigued. I wanted to learn more of the writer’s existence. Seriously, (so far) she’s the only person I know who could make a suicide note sound so romantic…and angsty at the same time, though if you’d think about it angsty was already a given since she’s then heading for suicide, right? So yeah, there’s supposed to be angst there somewhere. At any rate, I read more and found some titles of biographical works about her done by numerous authors of different decades after her death. They were all seemingly appealing so I had that recognizable urge to go buy all of them at once and start a reading marathon. But damn that reality check for bursting my ImSoFuckingFilthyRichIcanhaveEverythingIwant-bubble. I just bought four books last week so I’m pretty much broke for the moment. Nevertheless, I vowed to buy and read at least one of those biographies sometime in the hopefully not-so-far future, or at least see the university library to try if they have the book I need somewhere on its grimy old shelves, hiding.