Vanessa and Her Sister

March 23, 2015
Before becoming the celebrated writer Virginia Woolf, young Virginia Stephens lived with her sister, Vanessa, and her brothers in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London, where they surrounded themselves with other artists and intellectuals. Told in diary entries and letters, this novel captures that period, characterized by emotional upheavals and family crises as well as intellectual and artistic conversations. Emilia Fox is perfect in the role of Vanessa, whose point of view dominates the story. Fox captures Vanessa’s feelings of responsibility and exasperation toward her sister, her mixed feelings about her suitor Clive Bell, and her earnest desire to be a serious artist. Julian Rhind-Tutt is likewise excellent as family friend Lytton Strachey: flamboyantly gay, full of lively gossip, prone to self-deprecating humor, and passionately longing for a man he cannot have. Daniel Pirre and Anthony Calf both offer serviceable, straightforward narrations in their respective roles as Leonard Woolf and Roger Fry. The one misstep is Clare Corbett, who is cast as Virginia, the baby of the family and described as brilliant and witty, but also childish, immature, wild, reckless, selfish, prone to fits of hysteria, and actual madness. In narrating Virginia’s chapters, Corbett’s voice is deeper than the voice of other female characters, with a crackly quality and an overly posh accent, all of which make her sound like a middle-aged woman, not the childish 20-something girl she is supposed to be. The effect is jarring. However, only a handful of chapters are told from Virginia’s point of view, so it does not detract too much from the rest of the narration, which is excellent. A Ballantine hardcover.

Starred review from October 20, 2014
Parmar’s excellent sophomore effort (after Exit the Actress) contends mostly with the complicated relationship between the four Stephen siblings (including Vanessa, later known as Vanessa Bell, the painter, and Virginia, later known as Virginia Woolf). After a happy upbringing, the sisters are separated in their 20s by the death of their brother, Thoby, and Vanessa’s marriage to Clive Bell, Thoby’s college pal. Parmar does a stellar job conveying Virginia’s complicated, almost incestuous feelings for Vanessa, which are exacerbated by Virginia’s manic depression and need to be the center of attention. Distracted by the birth of her first child, Vanessa all but ignores Clive, who falls prey to Virginia’s efforts to insinuate herself into the marriage. Vanessa is torn by her love for her sister and an understanding of how her illness colors everything, as well as her own desire to have a life of her own. The author also deftly brings to life the various artists and writers who formed the nascent Bloomsbury group, heralding the arrival of Leonard Woolf—who eventually comes home to England and saves Virginia from spinsterhood. Structured primarily as Vanessa’s diary, with fictional letters from characters like Woolf and the journalist Lytton Strachey included, Parmar’s narrative is riveting and successfully takes on the task of turning larger-than-life figures into real people. Readers who aren’t familiar with the Bloomsbury group might be overwhelmed at first by the sheer number of characters in the book, but Parmar weaves their stories together so effortlessly that nothing seems out of place.