Virginia Woolf: Apparently not a fan

I think I have permission to write about this because Dan, my editor, forwarded it to me and told me I should blog about it. 

 

This is an anonymous letter Dan received at the Free Press, with the subject line "A complaint from beyond the grave."

 

 

Dear Mr. MacLeod, 

A writer of yours has so grotesquely abused the english language that I was roused from my grave to take a stand against this most contemptible offense. On the whole, Ms. Pleau's writing severely lacks in content, purpose and technical coherence. Without proper identification of place and time her articles are unbearable to read, and utterly insulting to anybody that struggles with making meaning out of the everyday. I understand the difficulty, as I took on the daunting task of writing a book entirely composed of a single day in a woman's life. 

Let us take a look at her article dated September 13, titled "My New Intended Major: Not Sucking at Life". This reads as a diary entry more than it does a column affiliated with a university and meant to be read by others.  How the writing of last week's column makes a worthy subject for this week's column baffles my victorian mind. The point of having a column shouldn't be to smugly remind others of said column.  

Grammatically the article is a nightmare. The first sentence alone is redundant and poorly constructed. Her misuse of commas is not only enraging but obstructive to the reader. She writes vague and nondescript lists of seemingly arbitrary daily tasks, with no singular cohesive thought to tie them together. And to top it all off, the banality of the lists even lacks a hipster slash of irony. 

Even more infuriating, Ms. Pleau appears to have forgotten that the ability to pursue higher education was not always granted to women.  Her comment about "hoping for a sugar daddy" to fund her leisurely lifestyle, so she may continue "having a really good time" is degrading.  

I refuse to believe that in this university of nearly 10,000 students you can not find someone capable of writing with competence, imagination and integrity. 

By continuing to publish her dribble you are doing a disservice to both the university, and her by perpetuating the delusion that she has even the remotest ability to write. 

Thoughtfully, 

Virgina Woolf

 

Alright. First I should aknowledge that Virginia Woolf isn't completely wrong, and I'm deeply regretful for offending a literary icon. I don't know what I'm doing, really, and I write like I talk. Really. I'm not an English major, I'm not a writing major, or a literature or classics major. I've never read a Shakespeare play, but I once heard an episode of RadioLab that talked about him a lot. I'm a student and I'm learning (that's the whole point, right?) Writing a column on deadline every week is a lot different than writing this blog; it's so much more difficult. The Free Press does a great job, but they don't micro-manage, so don't blame them, if, my, commas, are, out of place,,. 

 

But wait! USM offers a class called Writing Opinion: Editorials and Columns. So far, I've received As or Bs on all of the papers I've submitted for grades in the classes I've taken at USM. Virginia, don't give up on me just yet!

 

"She writes vague and nondescript lists of seemingly arbitrary daily tasks, with no singular cohesive thought to tie them together. And to top it all off, the banality of the lists even lacks a hipster slash of irony. "

This might need to be the new Misadventures in Portland tagline...  but I can't help but wonder: Virginia Woolf has been dead since 1941, so how would she know what a hipster is?

"How the writing of last week's column makes a worthy subject for this week's column baffles my victorian mind. The point of having a column shouldn't be to smugly remind others of said column."

Why not? I have a column and you don't. I have almost 2,000 view a month on my blog and regularly receive compliments from complete strangers on how awesome it is (I am.) I'm contributing a celebrity guest playlist at an event at Space and I'm the celebrity! It's all self-motivated. There's no money, no reward, no grade for this, I get to do it because I love it and you guys seem to dig it, too.

How about this? "Even more infuriating, Ms. Pleau appears to have forgotten that the ability to pursue higher education was not always granted to women.  Her comment about "hoping for a sugar daddy" to fund her leisurely lifestyle, so she may continue "having a really good time" is degrading." 

Every time I make a comment about something like this, it seems to get a lot of heat. So this is what I really mean: There are really women who are like this. There are actual women who marry rich old guys for financial security. I don't want to judge them, because they were probably more popular in high school than I was and probably have more expensive clothing. It's said with the sarcastic roll of an eye, and it's not meant to be degrading to the integrity of women. It's this thing that's been around since the 1500s called sarcasm. The quote from the column was actually this: "Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a sugar daddy and endure terrible wrinkly old guy bunny rabbit sex so I can see the world at my leisure," and I was touching on the hopelessness of the job market in the paragraph before that. It seems odd that my intentions were misconceived by such a forward-thinking, influential, lyrical writer as Virgina. But, then again, she was actually married, so who is she to judge.  

My lifestyle seems leisurely, because that's how I choose to portray it. There are plenty of deep seeded issues dating all the way back to my childhood, as well as current problems that range from finances, drinking-related decision making issues, roommates, and my right eyeball not working properly, that I could also write about that would make my life sound anything but leisurely. I've always worked at least 30 hours a week while taking classes full time.

I don't want to disrespect the legacy of Virginia Woolf. But if she was going to rise from the grave to say anything, it would probably be about how much she regrets taking her own life, burning in hell (just kidding, I hear there's beer there), and missing out on innovative depression treatments and subsequently being able to experience all of the beauty in the world. Her husband remarried a woman name Trekkie. Maybe she'd have something to say about the choice of Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Virginia in the Hours. If Virginia was still alive, she would also be able to comment on all of this stuff: "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer. Controversially, Louise A. DeSalvo reads most of Woolf's life and career through the lens of the incestuous sexual abuse Woolf suffered as a young woman in her 1989 book Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on her Life and Work." Which isn't to say that those theories are incorrect or do not have merit, but over time, Virginia herself might've further explored these aspects of her life in her own writing.

 

Next time someone writes a letter to the editor about how much my column sucks, I hope it's Tucker Max. His tagline is, "My name is Tucker Max, and I'm an asshole." 

 

Also, Virginia Woolf, maybe kind of hot?