Art and Affection: A Life of Virginia Woolf

Art and Affection delves into the divided emotions that informed Woolf's personal relationships, her aesthetic values, her feminism, her fiction-her life. Reid, a professor of English at Louisiana State University, makes excellent use of previous work and her own research, lending psychological depth and narrative coherence to Woolf's complicated investment in writing as living itself. The biographical origins of Woolf's quarreling consciousness have been examined before: her conflicted relationships with her revered, but distant mother and with her intellectually driven but tyrannical father; her adoration of and antagonism with her older sister, Vanessa; the sexual crises of her youth; and, of course, her manic-depression. Reid weighs in convincingly on enduring concerns, including the extent of childhood sexual abuse; Woolf's adult sexuality; her rivalries with Vanessa; and her liaisons with several of the most eminent men and women of the British avant-garde. But Reid's greatest contribution is in the way she provides real psychological grounding for Woolf's artistic choices, such as her departure ``from conventional representation values'' or her ``ambivalence about the choice between activism and aestheticism.'' Using intricate detail and a knowing hand, Reid helps readers to understand a nearly unimaginable life and mind. (Nov.)