Woolf, Keynes, Wodehouse, Shute … and other random things.
Some thoughts and recommendations
“… yesterday we spent with Maynard and Lydia and all kissed and danced under the mistletoe.”
Virginia Woolf, letter to Vanessa Bell, Boxing Day 1936
I wish I’d included the above in my post about Virginia Woolf and [John] Maynard Keynes at Christmas. I do so love this image of the great writer and economist, in their middle-age, gambolling around on Christmas Day under the mistletoe, in the company of their spouses, Leonard and Lydia. Lydia Lokokova had been a famous ballerina, but the rest of the company were probably not noted for their gracefulness. Certainly Maynard wasn’t, although he was always happy to make a fool of himself at Bloomsbury parties, dancing with Lydia in their version of the can-can (the Keynes-Keynes).
There’s lots more to say about Woolf and Keynes and at some point I will write another post. I’ve been struck lately by the tenderness of Woolf’s references to Keynes towards the end of her life. (And he didn’t long outlive her, dying in 1946). She often mentions kissing him. His health problems may have part of the reason for her mellowing, in what was a long and complex friendship at least on Woolf’s side, during which she experienced conflicting emotions and loyalties.
P.G. Wodehouse and Big Money
My last post on Wodehouse and Big Money attracted plenty of feedback – thanks to all who read, reposted, commented or subscribed. One of my friends who has already read a LOT of Wodehouse, subsequently read Big Money and commented on how much she had enjoyed the Communist chasing the Earl of Hoddesdon round the suburbs. And the subsequent bit with hats. She is right. Those bits were excellent and should have been mentioned by me!
I hadn’t realised when I wrote my post that Wodehouse actually worked in the City of London, for the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank from 1900-1908. He took a junior post there because his family could not afford to send him to university, and hated it, but made good use of the experience in his fiction. (Apparently he also wrote a memoir of his time in banking, which I must get hold of.) Curiously T.S. Eliot also spent eight years in banking (from 1917-25). They are very different writers of course – but both are rich in literary allusion and verbal sophistication. Is there something about being in banking – on its more pedestrian side too – that encourages this? A counter-reaction? A search for escapism?
Nevil Shute and the Great Depression
Having finished Wodehouse’s comic caper about copper mines, I almost immediately found myself reading another novel with shady dealings about mining concessions. In this case, a dinner party guest trying to foist a gold mine onto an unsuspecting young aristocrat. This time it’s Nigel Shute’s Ruined City, a very different beast from Big Money, but like that novel written in the 1930s, featuring the City of London, and influenced by the Great Depression. In Shute’s novel, in fact, the Depression is right up front. In fact it’s a novel all about economics and I find it remarkable that such a popular and mainstream author chose this subject and found an appreciative audience for it.
It’s mainly about a disillusioned merchant banker and a very unglamorous, unexotic and depressed North Eastern town. “Sharples” is mired in unemployment and decay and Henry Warren thinks he should do something about it.
Substack Posts I’ve enjoyed
There is so much amazing writing on Substack that it’s hard to pick out favourites: or even remember what I’ve read. But here are a few on Virginia Woolf:
This from
has the most amazing photographs. It’s about the mountaineering exploits of VW’s father, Leslie Stephens. He wrote beautifully about the extraordinary landscapes, and it’s amazing to think what exploring them as a Victorian would have involved.
This from
is about VW’s relationships with her niece and nephews.
This is from
who is running a book group on Woolf’s To the Lighthouse but also lists a lot of other substack book groups too. (I’m tempted by The Name of the Rose.)
And speaking of roses, I did love this on gardening from
although it has nothing to do with Woolf!
Please do recommend me some in turn!
Happy January.
Got it. IA Richards mountaineer and critic. . "I. A. Richards, the eminent literary critic and scholar, knew T.S. Eliot when he was a junior member of the staff of Lloyd's Bank in Queen Henrietta Street, London, at the end of World War I. By chance he met one of Eliot's superiors on holiday in Switzerland and the two men discovered that the poet was a mutual acquaintance. The senior banker was a pleasant man who seemed unable to frame a question that he obviously wanted to put to Richards. Eventally it came out: did Richards think that Eliot was a good poet? Richards replied that in his opinion, which would not be shared by everyone, Eliot was a good poet. The other man was pleased to hear it. Some of his colleagues considered that banking and poetry did not go well together, but in his view if a man had a hobby and did it well it helped him in his work. He ended by telling Richards that he could tell Eliot that if he continued as well as he was doing at the bank, "I don't see why- in time of course, in time- he mightn't even become a branch manager." Richards found great delight in relating this conversation to Eliot.
How nice to be reading through a really interesting post about all sorts of things and then find a plug for my own Substack down in it! Thanks, E with F... Nevil Shute, I suspect that 'Ruined City' may have been one of his less popular ones. Compared with classics like Trustee from the Toolroom, Pied Piper, Town Like Alice, No Highway, Landfall.